"The war the election forgot"

Faye Fiore and Mark Z. Barabak (Los Angeles Times):

The United States is now in the ninth year of the longest conflict in its history, fought by 150,000 troops on the ground in Afghanistan and Iraq at a cost of more than $1 trillion. That is considerably more than the ultimate price of the much-debated Troubled Asset Relief Program, which bailed out automakers, banks and a handful of insurers.

Yet neither party has much incentive to discuss the fighting half a world away.

Democrats are pleased with the winding down of U.S. involvement in Iraq, but divided over Obama's decision to escalate efforts in Afghanistan; they don't want to pile onto a president already in political trouble.

Republicans, unhappy with Obama's opposition to the Iraq war when he ran for president, tend to agree with his approach in Afghanistan; but they aren't about to praise the Democratic commander in chief in the middle of the midterm campaign. MORE...