‘Ending Our War on Schedule’

President Obama’s address at the United Nations was at times eloquently aspirational, and for the most part conventionally unobjectionable. But there was one sentence that gave away the fundamental lack of seriousness of the Obama worldview: “We have begun a transition in Afghanistan, and America and our allies will end our war on schedule in 2014.”

Really? Isn’t this statement almost a parody of wishful liberalism? Do we get to end our wars on schedule? It would of course be nice if the world allowed us to fight and end wars on schedule. But wishing doesn’t make it so. Reality doesn’t operate on our preferred schedule.