So, the good news is that Obama is sending General McChrystal 30,000 troops. It’s about halfway between what McChrystal said was needed for a medium-risk mission and a high-risk mission going forward.

You can read the text of his speech here.

There is, of course, the prerequisite Bush-blaming. After all, what Obama speech would be complete without it? He also makes excuses for his slowness on making his decision, saying that McChrystal never asked for troops this year. This is, of course, ridiculous considering McChrystal told Obama three months ago that we had only twelve months to win this war. What did he think that meant? That the twelve months could just take place whenever, and that, in the meantime, Al-Qaeda and the Taliban would just call a time-out?? Wait for us to get all ready to come and take them on? News flash, Obama: while you were dragging your feet and making our troops over there wait, the terrorists were still fighting full force. And they were winning. And while we’re waiting for more troops to get there, they’re going to keep fighting at the same level. Obama’s dithering may have had a heavy price.

The troop surge will be deploying over the next six months, quicker than some anticipated. But for those of you who can count, that leaves McChrystal with… three months. Three months with enough troops in Afghanistan to eradicate Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Gee, thanks Obama. What a great leader.

Of course, all of his liberal buddies are just crying in agony over this. The possibility that we might be victorious in Afghanistan is heartbreaking to libs, I know, but really — they should tone down the caterwauling. It’s embarassing.

Now, the really great news? He’s already thinking about an exit strategy:

However officials said that Mr. Obama in his speech will give a time frame — something Mr. Bush did not do — for when the United States will start pulling the reinforcements out and begin turning over security responsibilities to Afghan forces one province at a time.

Mr. Obama’s aides would not say how specific he would be on Tuesday night about the time frame of the American presence. But clearly it would be well more than a year. That would take him to 2011 or 2012 — when Mr. Obama is up for re-election — before the troop levels would begin to fall again to fulfill the president’s oft-repeated assertion that he would offer no “open-ended commitment” to the Afghan government.

It is that date that is bound to be the focus of attention for his own party, at a time when many Democrats are openly opposed to sending more troops. Some have questioned how Mr. Obama can simultaneously argue for a troop increase and a relatively quick pull-back. But in interviews, administration officials said that without the accelerated deployment, there was little hope of being able to stabilize the situation in the region enough to start withdrawals.

“This is to speed the process,” one said.

No open-ended commitment. Unlike President Bush, President Obama is not committed to victory. When he feels like it, he’ll take our troops back out of Afghanistan, even if it means we lose and our national security is once again in jeopardy. This man clearly has no understanding of how war works. You cannot plan when a war will end. The war should end when we have won — no matter how long it takes. But placating his liberal buddies is more important to Obama than victory over Al-Qaeda, clearly. Things might very well go badly for a time there. It did in Iraq. But Bush, unlike Obama, was not ready to just cut-and-run. He wasn’t ready to let the men and women who gave their lives in service for their country have died in vain. He stayed the course and changed his strategy, and we were victorious in Iraq. We won’t have the same result in Aghanistan if Obama just leaves whenever he feels like leaving.

A war cannot be ended. It can either be won or it can be lost. Someone needs to drill that message into Obama’s head. If he withdraws our troops too early, it’s a loss. Al-Qaeda will be strengthened and encouraged. Afghanis will see that the jihadist side is the stronger side. We cannot afford to give up in Afghanistan. This is not a game of freaking Battleship, where you can just start and stop whenever you want. This is real life, the real world, and there are real repercussions to losing.