Nicely worded, but...

A link to the transcript of Obama's foreign policy speech. He does a good job of readdressing the threat (to a degree...) that we face in the 21st Century - stateless foes and the anarchic weak states in which such foes thrive. HOWEVER, when one walks down that road - and uses our disengagement from Afghanistan following the Soviet retreat - he can't also speak of Iraq as the "wrong battlefield" or a pressing need to withdraw and let them fight it out. Certainly the case can be made that going into Iraq was the wrong solution to the threat we faced. Now that we have developed a better understanding of that threat, it should be obvious to those who watch the barely constrained anarchy of Iraq that an early military departure will only seed more chaos...and further create the conditions that allowed AQ to grow within Afghanistan and the border regions of Pakistan.

If we depart Iraq too hastily and the Shia majority sees greater collaboration with Iran as the best means for securing their control of the political system; if the Sunni minority finds itself pushed further into the corner by Kurds and Shia, AQI will resurge. And having two or three Brigades of Americans locked in FOBs that are scattered around the country will not offer us the flexibility to act against them. Instead, it will increase their justifications for remaining a force while creating a no-win condition for those forced to hide behind blast walls while the war swirls around them.

That is the lesson from Afghanistan, just as Obama lays it out in his speech:

Above all, I will send a clear message: we will not repeat the mistake of the past, when we turned our back on Afghanistan following Soviet withdrawal. As 9/11 showed us, the security of Afghanistan and America is shared. And today, that security is most threatened by the al Qaeda and Taliban sanctuary in the tribal regions of northwest Pakistan.

Unfortunately, he badly misreads what an early departure from Iraq will look like:

Ending the war will help isolate al Qaeda and give Iraqis the incentive and opportunity to take them out. It will also allow us to direct badly needed resources to Afghanistan. Our troops have fought valiantly there, but Iraq has deprived them of the support they need—and deserve.

Our departure has nothing to do with "ending the war" in Iraq. Something made clear throughout the rest of the speech. If they are in the grips of a civil war, departure will not change that. It will accelerate it. That accelerated cycle of violence will create conditions for extremism to thrive - on all sides of the equation. For the Sunnis, it will mean falling back on groups such as AQI as defenders. For Shiites, it will mean further emboldening of militia groups or complete co-opting of the tools of government in order to exterminate the Sunnis. For the Kurds, it will mean an aggressive push for territory that brings it into further conflict with all of its neighbors. So...when Obama says:

"The first step must be getting off the wrong battlefield in Iraq, and taking the fight to the terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan."

...he's a day late and a dollar short. What used to be the wrong battlefield has become practically the only one that matters. Afghanistan is NOT the heart of the stateless threat we face. One could argue that Pakistan is far closer to that heart than Afghanistan...and I'd agree. But, much as we don't want to turn and face it, we have created a new threat that is far worse than that we faced in the mountains of Afghanistan. We have created the seeds for a chaos that could grip the Middle East. If we choose to let those seeds grow, our children and grandchildren will be using Iraq as the example of foolish abandonment rather than Afghanistan when they are putting together their stump speeches full of easy answers and high minded policy suggestions.