The war in Afghanistan has cost about $233 billion since it started in 2001, or less than a third of the single "stimulus" bill that the Democrats passed. Both wars to date have accumulated a price tag of around $940 billion, or only about two-thirds of what we spend on entitlements every year.

If someone tells you that the wars are breaking the budget, you are talking to someone who doesn't have the facts.

The hard fact is that it will take years to get Afghanistan "immunized" against terrorists (civilians supporting the government instead of the Taliban, effective government forces, etc) which would require a long-term presence there. There may be other options. We could destroy terrorist enclaves from the air as needed, which will involve civilian casualties. This too would be a long-term project, but with fewer troops.

Then there's Pakistan.

All the solutions are messy, and there aren't any of them that are going to do what Obama wants, which is to take the "commander in chief" sign off his desk and put it in the closet before the next election. He never wanted that part of the job, and I don't know what he thought was going to happen.

It is amusing that Obama has said the same things about what it will take to deal with Afghanistan that Bush said about Iraq, and sometimes in as many words.