希拉里没看错奥巴马：没准备好接午夜三点的电话

希拉里没看错奥巴马：他还没做好准备接午夜三点的电话

奥巴马当总统以前，除了竞选，从来没有当过任何级别的行政领导，没有管理过任何人或组织。从实际管理经验方面，他是一张白纸。希拉里在竞选时说，奥巴马没有能力和经验成为三军统帅，还没做好准备接午夜三点的电话。

近两年的总统经历，证实了希拉里的判断。奥巴马处理危机的能力（墨西哥湾漏油）还比不上倍受批评的小布什（飓风）。

奥巴马多次宣称，伊拉克战争是布什的战争，是不该发生的（没错儿），阿富汗战争是奥巴马的战争，是应该打的战争。他上任以后，大举增兵，调遣将领，誓言打赢阿富汗战争，但是，他却事先确定了撤军日期 （２０１１年七月）。军方将领和奥巴马自己的幕僚都认为那是不可能的，奥巴马坚持必须这样，不因为军事或取胜的需要，而是政治和选举的需要。

Hillary was right all along. President Obama wasn’t ready for the 3:00 a.m. phone call. As Bob Woodward’s new book, "Obama’s War," demonstrates in page after page, President Obama doesn’t know how to be a good wartime president, and doesn’t really want to be one. He sees it as a distraction from his goal of transforming America, and his aides’ worry it will be hard to spin in a reelection campaign.

President Obama may complain that he inherited the Afghanistan War and yet again try to blame Bush. But the fact remains that candidate Obama said Afghanistan would be HIS war, that it was the Good War, the War of Necessity in contrast to Iraq, which was Bush's War of Choice. And as "Obama's War" describes in great detail, once in office the president changed his commanders, altered our military strategy and added more troops – lots of them. Yet Woodward’s book shows us he did so not because he thought we could win, but because of politics.

A fundamental rule of warfare is if you have a military mission, you must provide the resources required to achieve that mission. If you’re not willing to pay the price, you need to change the mission; otherwise you’re setting up a situation designed to fail.

Yet that seems the trap Obama has fallen into. He’s ordered a near-term exit from Afghanistan, but at the same time wants to destroy Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Pakistan’s tribal regions. His military advisers warned that such a strategy would require a lot more troops and a lot more time.

But Obama went against their advice and has now has the Afghanistan War on a footing where failure is all but inevitable. He’s given the commanders more troops, although not as many as they asked for; but at the same time set a firm withdrawal date. The troops will be packing up and coming home almost before they’re finished unpacking. Why? Not because it will lead to victory, or save lives, but because of politics. “I have to say that,” Mr. Obama tells Sen Lindsey Graham. “I can’t let this be a war without end, and I can’t lose the whole Democratic Party.”

Yes, even some of Obama's top aides – military and civilian – think he’s pursuing a strategy that “can’t work.”

The one lesson we learned in Vietnam is we shouldn’t fight a war unless we’re willing to devote the resources necessary to win it. Yet, for all the self-proclaimed intelligence of the Obama White House, it’s the one lesson they’ve missed.