Bush a Big Fan of Obama’s War in Afghanistan

Escalation 'Worth the Cost,' Insists Bush

Though President Obama made much of criticizing President Bush’s foreign policy and his commitments to endless and unwinnable wars during the 2008 campaign season, once elected he seamlessly segued into continuing the Bush policies and even escalating the war in Afghanistan dramatically twice in his first year in office.

Of course neither of those escalations in Afghanistan, now decidedly “Obama’s War,” have accomplished anything good, the situation has continued to worsen with record death tolls. But at least someone is happy: his predecessor, George W. Bush.

In his new memoirs President Bush cheers on Obama’s foreign policy, lauding him for having “stood up to critics by deploying more troops” and insisting that “the mission is worth the cost.” The fact that the mission is increasingly ill-defined and the American death toll is spiraling out of control are never mentioned in the book.

Nor, indeed, are any criticisms of the Obama-era foreign policy, which underscores the reality that, from a foreign policy standpoint, this may as well be called the third Bush term. On election night 2008 one might have foreseen President Bush condemning Obama for ending the Iraq War in May of 2010, or for closing Guantanamo Bay, or for coming to a negotiated settlement with Iran instead of just threatening them every few days. Far from a conciliatory note from Bush, the lack of these complaints stems from the fact that President Obama has roundly failed to pull off any of these measures.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.