To Kagan, a more influential supporter is Sarah Palin. And yet Palin also represents a bridge between that base and establishment neoconservatives. Like Kagan, Palin signed the September letter. However, last week on FOX News Sunday, Palin appeared to open the door to advocating for a pullout telling Chris Wallace that if we are not in it to win it then “we don’t want to send our sons and daughters over there for some kind of futile effort.”
This odd alliance will be tested by next summer. Obama pledges to begin withdrawing troops in July 2011. And recent headlines have not offered Obama a case to postpone that pullout. July was the deadliest month on record for U.S. troops in Afghanistan. June was the deadliest month before that. Over the summer, Afghanistan became the longest war in American history.
Obama saw this bad news coming. A surge in troops almost invariably causes a surge in the death toll. Yet this president still tripled the U.S. presence in Afghanistan. He still invested in nation building. And in doing so, though he must distain the thought, Obama invested himself in the neoconservative vision.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member