Obama’s zero-sum politics on Afghanistan

The Washington Post‘s Karen de Young hits the basic zero-sum political calculation that the Obama adminstration faces on Afghanistan squarely on the head:

One observer, characterizing the president’s dilemma at its most extreme, said: “He can send more troops and it will be a disaster and he will destroy the Democratic Party. Or he can send no more troops and it will be a disaster and the Republicans will say he lost the war.”

According to Steven Thomma, Jonathan S. Landay and David Lightman at McClatchy,

With the military and Republicans publicly pressuring him to send more troops to Afghanistan soon and his own administration now deeply divided about how to proceed there, the eight-year war against al Qaida and the Taliban has become an increasingly urgent policy and political dilemma for President Barack Obama.

He can escalate an unpopular and open-ended war and risk a backlash from his liberal base or refuse his commanders and risk being blamed for a military loss that could tar him and his party as weak on national security.

Obama seems to be up against the wall here.  Is the administration calling for additional strategy reviews because they don’t know the best policy, because they are looking for support for a decision they have already made, or because they don’t know the best political choice?  While these are not mutually exclusive reasons, I place 10% on the first, 30% on the second, and 60% on the third.  Then again, I am a cynic.

Ken Silverstein has more.