November 19th, 2008 11:06 am | by Marc Gallagher | Published in Blowback, Foreign Policy, Maven Commentary, Obama, Politics, War, terrorism | Comment
And so it begins. The pixels barely dry on my commentary this morning about Obama’s coming intervention is Afghanistan we get a new message from Al-Qaeda’s number two man, Ayman Zawahiri, warning Obama and the U.S. of the likely outcome of such a policy.
“What you have announced before … that you will withdraw (US) troops from Iraq (and send them) to Afghanistan is a policy that is doomed to failure,” Zawahiri said in the message made available by the SITE Intelligence Group.
“If you still want to be stubborn about America’s failure in Afghanistan, then remember the fate of (US President George W.) Bush and (Pakistan’s former president) Pervez Musharraf, and the fate of the Soviets and British before them,” he added.
Do these words have merit? Will Obama’s Afghanistan become the failure leading to his undoing? Perhaps the most compelling aspect of Zawahiri’s prediction is that it will not be an unexplored theory. Obama is going to intervene, and we are going to be able to judge the results of that intervention.
Will Obama’s own style of intervention succeed where Bush’s failed? I have my doubts.
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