President Trump has put forward a new policy for dealing with Afghanistan and the terrorists still deeply entrenched there.
And this new direction could cost Trump, dearly.
The problem is that Trump’s policy seems to go against everything he promised during the election and the numerous statements he made about Afghanistan during Obama’s presidency.
For years, all the way up until just a couple months ago, Trump argued that America should pull out of Afghanistan and stop pouring money into a black hole with little or no hope for true victory.
His promise during the election was that a Trump presidency would put “America First,” focusing all efforts and resources on rebuilding our infrastructure and economy.
In trying to explain why he’s now keeping our men and women deployed in Afghanistan, Trump stated:
My original instinct was to pull out, and historically I like following my instincts. But all my life, I have heard that decisions are much different when you sit behind the desk in the oval office. In other words, when you are president of the United States. So I studied Afghanistan in great detail and from every conceivable angle. After many meetings over many months, we held our final meeting last Friday at Camp David with my cabinet and generals to complete our strategy. I arrived at three fundamental conclusion about America’s core interests in Afghanistan.
Conservative commentators noted that the speech sounded eerily similar to one given by Barack Obama in 2015:
Following consultations with my entire national security team, as well as our international partners and members of Congress, President Ghani and Chief Executive Abdullah, I’m therefore announcing the following steps, which I am convinced offer the best possibility for lasting progress in Afghanistan. First, I’ve decided to maintain our current posture of 9,800 troops in Afghanistan through most of next year, 2016.
More than that, Trump’s words didn’t seem to be his own. They sounded like H.R. McMaster, the National Security Adviser that many have been warning is a neoconservative plant that could be working to ruin the Trump presidency from the inside.
To understand just how serious the situation could be for Trump, consider that this was one of those rare occasions when the GOP establishment and the mainstream media didn’t condemn the president for his policies, but rather embraced them.
Lindsay Graham, Paul Ryan, etc were all lining up to celebrate this new and “improved” Trump.
And that’s not a good thing.
The American voters stunned the GOP establishment and the mainstream media by choosing Trump precisely because they were SICK AND TIRED of business as usual.
If Trump starts to allow McMaster and the like to bend his will toward more liberal policies, he may not win reelection.
(via: Conservative Post)
