Afghanistan Follows Iraq As Taliban Makes Big Moves

[Geee]

Investors Business Daily:

Afghanistan: Taliban forces are moving hard against the democratic government of Afghanistan, where Obama said we were fighting the smart war, requiring that we lose the dumb war in Iraq. We've now lost both.

 

Three years ago, President Obama pretty much announced that the U.S. had won in Afghanistan.

 

He said, "we set clear objectives: to refocus on al-Qaida, to reverse the Taliban's momentum, and train Afghan security forces to defend their own country. I also made it clear that our commitment would not be open-ended, and that we would begin to draw down our forces this July."

 

Looking forward, Obama promised, "by 2014, this process of transition will be complete, and the Afghan people will be responsible for their own security."

 

The president claimed the U.S. was "starting this drawdown from a position of strength. Al-Qaida is under more pressure than at any time since 9/11 ... we killed Osama bin Laden, the only leader that al-Qaida had ever known," and "we have put al-Qaida on a path to defeat, and we will not relent until the job is done."

 

The army serving Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi — who now prefers to be known as Caliph Ibrahim, absolute monarch of a new self-proclaimed Shariah state — and his al-Qaida offshoot ISIL probably don't care too much that the only leader al-Qaida has ever known is dead.