THE NEXT GREAT CHALLENGE - AT 9:32 A.M. ET:  Things are coming to a head in Afghanistan, which President Obama has declared a war of necessity, the good war.  The New York Times reports:

AGRAM, Afghanistan — Military commanders with the NATO mission in Afghanistan told President Barack Obama's chief envoy to the region this weekend that they did not have enough troops to do their job, pushed past their limit by Taliban rebels who operated across borders...

...The assessments about troop needs came as the top American commander in the region, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, has been working to complete a major war strategy review, and as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, described a worsening situation in Afghanistan despite the recent addition of 17,000 U.S. troops ordered by the Obama administration and the extra security efforts surrounding the presidential election.

"I think it is serious, and it is deteriorating," Mullen said Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union" program. "The Taliban insurgency has gotten better, more sophisticated, in their tactics."

COMMENT:  For Obama, this comes at a bad time.  His popularity is down and downer.  The United States is deep in debt.  The American people, in the absence of any serious campaign to strengthen public support, are souring on the war.  And the increasingly angry left wing of the Democratic Party wants to do to Afghanistan what it failed to do to Iraq - turn it into a place from which Americans run. 

The president has, admirably, supported our effort in Afghanistan.  But up to now the decisions have been relatively easy, and the left has left him alone.  Now he may well be asked for a major commitment of additional troops.  Already there are stories wondering whether Afghanistan will be "Obama's Vietnam."  (There's a whole generation of journalists who just won't let go of Vietnam, and who believe that the "anti-war" movement of the sixties was some kind of high point in godliness, morality, sophistication and togetherness.)

As another story in today's Times reports:

“The analogy of Lyndon Johnson suggests itself very profoundly,” said David M. Kennedy, the Stanford University historian. Mr. Obama, he said, must avoid letting Afghanistan shadow his presidency as Vietnam did Mr. Johnson’s. “He needs to worry about the outcome of that intervention and policy and how it could spill over into everything else he wants to accomplish.”

The problem is, Obama must win in Afghanistan.  His party's national-security credentials are weak enough.  If he loses, or pulls out, they'll be zero, and the United States will, as after Vietnam, be weak in the eyes of the world.

We have said here that this autumn shapes up to be dramatic politically.  We adhere to that judgment.  Many things are coming to a head for Mr. Obama, and the stars are not aligning in his favor.

August 24, 2009