Afghanistan Turning Politics Topsy-Turvy

The world of politics is upside down. President Barack Obama's decision to send an additional 30,000 troops and 4,000 advisers to Afghanistan has shaken up alliances and caused a series of role reversals. It's made allies out of adversaries and turned supporters into critics.

It has some Republicans asking questions they never posed after the Bush administration's invasion of Iraq, such as: "How much will this war cost?" And it has some Democrats now challenging the leader of their own party.

It's not surprising that Obama angered the extremes, given that his approach to Afghanistan consisted of a dash of this and a smidgen of that. The result was something for everyone. The hawks got a surge of new troops, while the anti-war crowd got something of a deadline, with the beginnings of withdrawal in 18 months. When you try to please everyone, you run the risk of pleasing no one.

We've expressed tentative support for the president's approach. We appreciate both the need to continue to ferret out terrorists through a counterinsurgency in Afghanistan and the need to do so within a reasonable time frame. However, it's worth noting that top administration officials, including Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, have recently begun to back away from the timeline Obama seemed initially to have laid out. It is always easier to get into these kinds of conflicts than it is to get out.

But what is really disappointing and worrisome is the predictably hyperpartisan manner in which some lawmakers on both the right and the left have responded to the plan.

We didn't get expect Congress to simply smile and salute. The legislative branch has an oversight role to perform and both liberals and conservatives have every right to criticize what the president is proposing. And yet it would be nice if they did so with some fidelity to what they were arguing just one administration ago. We had naively hoped that the weighty decision of whether to send additional troops into a war zone might prompt our leaders to put aside politics.

Obama is giving conservatives much of what they wanted and still they criticize him. Are they incapable of praising him even when he does what they want him to do? Likewise, liberals can't be surprised that Obama wants to finish the job in Afghanistan since he promised to do just that while running for president. Or is it that they never believed he was sincere in the first place?

The political climate in this country is in bad enough shape as it is, and that's just when everyone sticks to the script. When people start playing musical chairs with their principles to further narrow political interests, all bets are off.

We urge all sides of this topsy-turvy debate to remain true to their beliefs and do what they think is best for their country and not their political party. Say, you don't suppose that trend could catch on and spread to the debates surrounding other issues? We can only hope.

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