Free Republic

His West Point speech and his policy of retreat are characterized by smallness. It is fitting that the day before President Obama gives his grand West Point address defending the wisdom and prudence of his foreign policy, his government should be urging Americans to evacuate Libya. Libya, of course, was once the model Obama intervention — the exquisitely calibrated military engagement wrapped in the rhetorical extravagance of a nationally televised address proclaiming his newest foreign-policy doctrine (they change to fit the latest ad hoc decision): the responsibility to protect, or R2P. (snip) For the same reason, perhaps, that the Afghan...

The U.S. troop surge in Afghanistan, which began in 2009, ended this week. As the Times aptly notes, the conclusion of one of Obama’s biggest military endeavors has come and gone with little fanfare. The president is doubtless happy about this, as the mission has been far from an unqualified success: The milestone, which still leaves 68,000 American troops in Afghanistan, went nearly unremarked here, with no statement from President Hamid Karzai or the United States military commander, Gen. John R. Allen, or even from the American ambassador. It was announced on the other side of the planet, by the...