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Stephen Schlesinger has a remarkably rosy reading of President Obama's speech at West Point. No matter how he reads it, though, the reality is that the U.S. will begin to abandon Afghanistan yet again in July 2011. And it will not bode well for the war on terrorism.

The Iraq Surge Is the Model for Afghanistan

While Schlesinger may not be convinced that the Iraqi surge provided a useful example by which President Obama shaped his Afghanistan surge, both the White House and the Pentagon appear to disagree.

As he sought the Democratic nomination for president, then-Senator Obama criticized Bush's surge strategy. At a July 19, 2007, campaign stop in New Hampshire, for example, Obama declared, "Here's what we know. The surge has not worked." Speaking on NBC's Meet the...