Barack Obama has joined the party of war.
Since it became clear that he would be the Democratic presidential nominee, Obama has left behind his peacenik rhetoric and seems eager to inform anyone who will listen that as president he would escalate U.S. military intervention -- in Afghanistan.
Last week, immediately after completing his first-ever trip to Afghanistan, Obama made a pronouncement from that most sacred of liberal precincts, the op-ed page of The New York Times.
"As president, I would pursue a new strategy, and begin by providing at least two additional combat brigades to support our effort in Afghanistan," he wrote. "We need more troops, more helicopters, better intelligence-gathering and more nonmilitary assistance to accomplish the mission there."
In other words, Obama would order a surge -- in Afghanistan.
This week, Obama repeated his call for a surge when he appeared on NBC's "Meet the Press."
"It was clear to me that Afghanistan is the central front on terror, that the Taliban and al-Qaida have reconstituted themselves," he said. "We're going to need two additional brigades in Afghanistan, and we've got to work with Pakistan to get serious about these terrorists safe havens."
Not long after Obama spoke, a suspected U.S. missile, suspected to be under orders from President Bush, smashed into the suspected Pakistani house of al-Qaida's suspected chemical-and-biological weapons man, who is now suspected to be posthumously appreciating the realization that his safe haven was not as safe as either he or Obama believed.
What was most revealing about Obama's statement on "Meet the Press," however, was Obama's implicit concession that the United States is in a multi-front war. He did say, after all, that "Afghanistan is the central front on terror." He did not say it was the only front.
So, now that we know Obama will order a surge in Afghanistan, Americans need to ponder what tactics he is likely to employ on other fronts and how likely it is that the sum of these tactics will add up to a strategic U.S. victory.
What is a U.S. victory? Simply this: Stopping Islamic terrorists from ever again perpetrating mass murder on U.S. soil.
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