Second Thoughts on ‘The Good War’ | Afghanistan, with its potential to drain national resources and wreak havoc with Obama’s political capital, ranks at the top of these challenges, and Obama’s policy there is at a turning point. The new president made good on campaign promises to add troops (some 20,000) to “the good war,” while moving to set an exit date from Iraq. But Afghanistan’s September elections dealt a blow to Obama’s characterization of the war. UN and other observers reported massive fraud on behalf of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, undermining the long-term goal of building a credible central government in Kabul that can ultimately take over the fight against the Taliban.  | Shortly after the vote, a memo leaked to the Washington Post detailed a request for 30,000 more troops from Obama’s hand-picked commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal. The leak emboldened critics of the war, particularly liberals in Obama’s own party, into demanding a withdrawal. This remains a minority stance, but the war has lost significant support among the U.S. public, and uncertainty about where Washington stands on the issue can only hasten moves by NATO and other U.S. allies deployed in Afghanistan to remove their own forces. | Besides posing a risk to Obama’s presidency should casualties and public support move sharply in opposite directions, a severe setback for the United States in Afghanistan at this juncture would strengthen the narrative depicting American power as being in steep decline and possibly embolden rivals to test areas of the global status quo propped up largely by the U.S. since the Cold War ended.