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In reply to the discussion: And Hillary Steps Into The Ring Swinging. [View all]TwilightGardener
(46,416 posts)His whole point was that if Obama had only listened to her and Holbrooke, we somehow would be winning or whatever in Afghanistan--because Holbrooke thought we should be negotiating directly with the Taliban at the same time that we surged in troops and then maintainted them indefinitely so we looked "committed" for the long haul. In fact, we have talked with the Taliban (multilaterally) and it went nowhere. We can't even get Karzai to cooperate with us, and he's our guy! So that's moot. And now we have to deal with the fact that we escalated, which prolongs drawdown (and there is no question that staying indefinitely is crazy). Obama is responsible for the decisions he made, but it would have helped to have had higher-quality advice in 2009-2010, let's put it that way.