Matt Yglesias cautions against listening to the neocon concern-trolling on Afghanistan: Barack Obama is probably not used to thinking of John McCain as an ally, given that McCain ran against him last year and since the election has opposed every one of the administration's initiatives, even going so far as to abandon previous support for cap-and-trade out of spite. Lindsay Graham and quasi-Democrat Joe Lieberman don't really seem to be Obama's friends either. Yet, here the three senators were on The Wall Street Journal op-ed page -- also not typically where Obama finds his allies -- insisting that's exactly what they were, in at least one situation: "The president and his allies -- and we count ourselves among them on this issue -- must invest significantly greater effort to explain why, as the president recently put it, Afghanistan is a 'war of necessity.'" In context, it's clear that this neocon troika is not trying to help but instead is concern-trolling. They're not supporting the administration's policy in Afghanistan. Instead, they're attempting to prejudge the still-ongoing strategy-review process in order to demand "a significant increase in U.S. forces" that they claim will "commit the 'decisive force' that Gen. [Stanley] McChrystal tells us carries the least risk of failure." KEEP READING ...
