Obama Faces Critical Decision On Afghan Troop Withdrawal -- John Bolton, L.A. Times

President Obama's pledge to start pulling troops from Afghanistan in July was imprudent. It will be downright dangerous if the conditions on the ground he pays attention to are political ones at home.

President Obama must soon make a critical decision: how many and what type of U.S. forces to begin withdrawing from Afghanistan this summer. The July withdrawal date is an artificial deadline, one the president created not because it would help us reach our goals in this strategically critical country but for his own domestic political purposes. When Obama made the promise in 2009, at the same time he announced the surge in U.S. troops in Afghanistan, it was imprudent. The way he keeps it now could be downright dangerous.

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