Obama: Focus on Al Qaeda (Just Like Bush)

President Obama told CBS’ “Face the Nation” that the Bush administration had lost its focus in Afghanistan and that his team will “refocus attention on al Qaeda.” He additionally promised that “we now have resourced properly this strategy. It’s not going to be an open-ended commitment of infinite resources. We’ve just got to make sure that we are focused on achieving what we need to achieve with the resources we have.”

Except — and I hate to sound like a broken record here — the administration has no exit strategy for Afghanistan. It claims to have milestones but has not actually articulated any.

As to the idea that the mission previously lacked a focus on the al Qaeda threat, we are already beating al Qaeda, with senior U.S. officials saying the terrorist group’s leadership has been “decimated” and saying a “complete al Qaeda defeat” is in the offing.

I’ve been asking since Friday’s release of the new plan:  What’s so new about it? Now, Thomas Barnett is wondering the same thing.

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James Joyner
About James Joyner
James Joyner is Professor and Department Head of Security Studies at Marine Corps University's Command and Staff College. He's a former Army officer and Desert Storm veteran. Views expressed here are his own. Follow James on Twitter @DrJJoyner.

Comments

  1. Wayne says:

    Obama hasn’t a clue about what he is doing. His biggest accomplishments will be repackaging Bush policies which the left will think is OK now because it is Obama doing them not Bush.