>>As far as the campaign pledge, I am guessing that once he was elected he started getting better and more complete information about what was really going on in Afghanistan, something beyond "all is well" and "stay the course." He clearly came to view it as a long term and very expensive quagmire, and he did not want to continue pursuing that strategy.
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>During the campaign candidates get "the briefing". During the campaign they also tell people what they think they want to hear. Some are better at it - and less principled about it - than others. ( vis JFK in the debates re Cuba )
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>Obama may be right about Afghanistan per se, in terms of long-term American interest and the cost-benefits ratio. I don't see a lot of future there in nation-building. Soldiers get pretty focused on accomplishing the mission as it is defined. The mission definers have to be more big-picture.
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>But I think there are strategic interests in that region that involve a nuclear Pakistan and if he thinks he's going to finesse that with charm or the force of his rhetoric he is deluded by the sound of his own voice. Iran, Pakistan, North Korea don't have a lot of middle-class guilt going around. Not sure what the answer is in dealing with them.

Pakistan is the one that concerns me, too. North Korea is so dysfunctional, basically broke, that I don't know how much harm they can do other than fire on the occasional South Korean boat. Afghanistan has been inhospitable forever, ruled by tribes and warlords and the Taliban in places, with the most corrupt government on earth, but IMO they constitute no threat to us. So why are we there exactly? Pakistan, that's another story. They have nuclear capability now and with the unstable political climate you have to worry what might happen if some wackos take power.