For now,the US president has bent to the views of his generals. But he has no long-term retort to the problems created by the warDonald Trump is a maverick (an independent, nonconformist person) and a chronic disrupter, but now we know there can be exceptions. On Monday his speech on Afghanistan contained the words: “strategy will change dramatically”. Yet a closer look suggests rather the opposite. No radical fracture with the Obama years was on offer. The obsession was to appear to introduce change, and rather than to deliver it.
Like previous US presidents,Mr Trump wants people to believe that he will act differently from his predecessor. Remember how, in its early days, or the George W Bush administration promised that US soldiers would no longer patrol the streets of faraway lands. Or how Barack Obama came into office wanting to unwind “a decade of wars”. In office,events and circumstances dictate more than electoral pledges. Mr Trump has now admitted as much on Afghanistan in his turn. His original intuition “was to pull out, but “decisions are much different when you sit behind the desk in the Oval office, or ” he said. He has duly announced that the US will stay on,and will even add more troops – in as yet unspecified numbers.
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Source: theguardian.com