Good Read: US in the Mideast, as seen by someone ELSE!

Seven years ago, Dick Cheney proclaimed: “The Taliban is out of business, permanently.” Last week, the former vice-president came close to accusing Barack Obama of lacking the guts to “do what it takes” to win the war against the very same Taliban.

Some time in the next two weeks, Mr Obama is likely to bring months of agonised deliberation to a close when he decides how many more troops to send to Afghanistan. The number, which could be as high as the 40,000 recommended by Stanley McChrystal, the general in charge, will be analysed minutely for what it can achieve on the ground in Afghanistan.

But as Mr Cheney’s contrasting observations illustrate, the more influential war is being fought politically on the ground in America. Somehow, the compulsions of US politics have brought the candidate who electrified America by promising to pull out of Iraq to a position where many of his most ardent backers fear he may be about to get America into another Vietnam.

The decision, much like the one by Lyndon Johnson to step up involvement in Indochina, could prove to be the most important Mr Obama takes in office. It presents America’s most liberal president in a generation with a classic dilemma between guns and butter that is only likely to deepen, whatever choice he makes.

“What began as an almost reflex debating stance on the campaign trail – that George W. Bush had started the wrong war in Iraq and that Hillary Clinton had voted for it – has brought us to this moment,” says Daniel Markey at the Council on Foreign Relations. “Only now is the president really analysing the implications of escalation in Afghanistan. And they are potentially paralysing.”

Some believe the analogies with Vietnam are overdone: The US lost almost 60,000 lives in south-east Asia against the 797 it has so far lost in Afghanistan. But the parallels are also inescapable. Much like LBJ, Mr Obama is being dragged reluctantly into a war that threatens to interfere with an ambitious domestic programme of liberal reform. Much like LBJ, Mr Obama is surrounded by the “best and the brightest”, many of whom are urging the president to take the advice of the military, which appears to be nearly unanimous.

The rest of the great article from Britain's Financial Times