A Conservative Voice For Afghanistan Withdrawal

So reports Politico: in his column later this week, conservative columnist George Will will call for "substantially reduced" forces in Afghanistan, conducting extremely scaled-back operations from offshore, using drones, airstrikes, and small special forces missions. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, today called for an overhaul of military strategy there as part of his anticipated assessment of war efforts. So after five years of Democrats calling for an end to operations in Iraq, I guess we've come full circle. Will raises the question of whether nation-building is plausible, and, as Politico notes, it's a prescription that likely won't sit will with the national security wing of the Republican Party. Will is a fiscal conservative, and if his recommendation takes hold for fiscal reasons, there will be true symmetry: in 2006, the cost of Iraq was arguably the reason for withdrawal that Democrats pushed most aggressively.