Senator John McCain, President Obama's Republican foe last year, has largely supported his rival since the election.
But now, the Vietnam War hero and Iraq troop surge supporter is putting increasing pressure on Obama to send more troops to Afghanistan -- and do it soon.
The president has held six war councils and counting to decide the strategy going forward, and some expect him to wait on deciding on his top commander's request for as many as 40,000 additional troops until after the Nov. 7 Afghan presidential run-off election.
But McCain said on "The Early Show" on CBS this morning that the war policy in Afghanistan "has been reviewed time and again" and it's time to act because the long delay "is not helpful to our effort" and is frustrating military commanders and making allies nervous.
And in an op-ed posted online on CNN today, McCain calls on Obama to move as quickly as possible to grant General Stanley McChrystal's request for additional troops.
McCain notes that he supported the Afghanistan strategy that Obama laid out in March, when he announced his decision to dispatch 21,000 more US troops. And the senator also stresses that he backed Obama's appointment of McChrystal as the top US commander on the ground -- so the president should listen to the general now.
See McCain's article at CNN, "Why We Can — And Must — Win in Afghanistan."
RELATED: Common Sense Political Thought, "Is President Obama's Foreign Policy Making a Difference Yet?"
No comments:
Post a Comment