What Are America’s Interests?

James Carafano / August 31, 2010

It is not clear what the President meant when he said, “Ending the war was in our interest.”

First, wars just don’t end. They are a win, a loss, or a draw. By implying that he simply “ended” the war by just following a plan – as if he were imposing a managerial solution over a public policy problem – Obama gave the American people a very a simplistic and wrongheaded notion of war.

No plan survives contact with the enemy. Obama ought to understand this better than anyone. After all, he bitterly opposed the surge which helped break the cycle of violence and made the withdrawal of U.S. troops – without Iraq collapsing into civil war – possible. (more…)