Cheney says exit strategy plays into enemy hands

Politico:

On the eve of the unveiling of the nation’s new Afghanistan policy, former Vice President Dick Cheney slammed President Barack Obama for projecting “weakness” to adversaries and warned that more workaday Afghans will side with the Taliban if they think the United States is heading for the exits.

In a 90-minute interview at his suburban Washington house, Cheney said the president’s “agonizing” about Afghanistan strategy “has consequences for your forces in the field.”

“I begin to get nervous when I see the commander in chief making decisions apparently for what I would describe as small ‘p’ political reasons, where he’s trying to balance off different competing groups in society,” Cheney said.

“Every time he delays, defers, debates, changes his position, it begins to raise questions: Is the commander in chief really behind what they’ve been asked to do?”

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But Cheney said the average Afghan citizen “sees talk about exit strategies and how soon we can get out, instead of talk about how we win.

“Those folks ... begin to look for ways to accommodate their enemies,” Cheney said. “They’re worried the United States isn’t going to be there much longer and the bad guys are.”

During the interview, Cheney laced his concerns with a broader critique of Obama’s foreign and national security policy, saying Obama’s nuanced and at times cerebral approach projects “weakness” and that the president is looking “far more radical than I expected.”

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I agree with Cheney. If Afghanistan is a necessary war as Obama has said, then the only exit strategy is victory. In the case of the Taliban it will require their destruction.