Trump had a line in his Afghanistan policy speech Monday night that will no doubt be magnified and held up to scorn (or at least sarcasm) by his critics. (Video below.)
In the prelude to outlining his new strategy, Trump acknowledged that his earlier instinct was to pull out of Afghanistan. The media have been busy for the last couple of days publishing tallies of Trump’s previous comments on the campaign there, and the number of times he criticized our Afghanistan operations and/or said we should get out.
That’s all fair enough. He said what he said, and his critics are entitled to their sniping.
But there’s a more important meaning to the line he uttered, even if it’s an unintentional one. Before going on to outline a policy that has us putting 4,000 more troops in Afghanistan, and continuing to train Afghan forces to take over security for their
