Harvard Law Record: "Deadly endgame in Afghanistan" (money quote)

Chris Szabla (Harvard Law Record):

Obama’s goals are certainly clearer than those that seemed to be guiding the U.S. in Afghanistan before. But they are still somewhat vague, and it remains to be seen how committed he will be to them. At the close of his speech at West Point, he noted that the cost of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq was hampering the U.S.’ economic recovery, a prosperity, he said, that financed its power.

The balance he draws between this consideration, the deaths of American soldiers, and the diminishing returns of pursuing Al Qaeda into the deepest mountains of the Hindu Kush, or upholding even the sparsest nation-building program in Afghanistan, is likely to determine whether the withdrawal that begins in 2011 marks a quick U.S. exit from one of the longest wars in its history, or merely the beginning of its long denouement.