Over the weekend, Sen. John Kerry provided some covering fire for President Obama’s dithering about his strategy for Afghanistan, telling CBS News that: “I don’t see how President Obama can make a decision about the committing of our additional forces or even the further fulfillment of our mission that’s here today without an adequate government in place or knowledge about what that government’s going to be.” Although he reportedly does not support Vice President Biden’s counterterrorism strategy, Kerry also argued that troops alone are not the answer: “Counting the numbers of troops is not going to define our success here . . . There is no military success ultimately to Afghanistan. The Afghans themselves are going to define what happens here and we have to convince ourselves that we have a strategy in place that empowers them to do
that and that is realistic in what our expectations are from them and on what schedule.” It seems that Kerry has joined the ranks of Democrats who were for properly resourcing the war in Afghanistan before they were against it. In a passionate 2006 speech at Howard University, Kerry took the Bush administration to task for its focus on Iraq instead of Afghanistan, saying:
