We continue to spend American lives and treasure in a place that is and always will be a tribal, third-world nation.
With a budget battle looming and the United States trying to extricate its fighting forces from Iraq and Afghanistan, he was loath to commit troops and treasure in a country that his defense secretary, Robert M. Gates, said was not a vital interest of the United States.
This may not be the "victory" sought by Bush Administration speechwriters, but for many Americans in both major political parties, after the expenditure of so much blood and treasure in a war that became a strategic cul-de-sac, it would be more than good enough.
There is little reason to expend American blood and treasure in a region of remote concern beyond oil and the presence of a liberal democracy.
Postponing a final end to U.S. military action in Afghanistan until 2014 puts U.S. taxpayers and American troops on the hook for an enormous investment of blood and treasure in a failing enterprise with no prospects for a turnaround.
So let's not fool ourselves by thinking that we're doing favors for Afghan women by investing American blood and treasure in an unsustainable war here.
If not, I fear that in a few years, as America spends its blood and treasure in an unwinnable counter-insurgency war in Central Asia, protesters may soon be chanting the same slogans at Obama as were once chanted against LBJ.
War is what we invest our time, energy, and treasure in on a scale that is, in its own way, remarkable, even if it seldom registers in this country.
On hand through Thursday are 72 dealers from the United States, Canada and Europe, offering furniture, paintings, silver, ceramics, rugs, textiles, antiquities, jewelry, wallpaper, books, manuscripts and other treasures in a glamorous one-stop shopping mall that adds pizazz to the city's status as a mecca for art and antiques buying.
The decision will bear directly on the payoff America could yet reap for all its spent blood — more than 4,000 American lives — and treasure, in the form of a democratic ally in a combustible region that would be a check on Iranian power and offer American access to Iraq's vast oil reserves.
