We painfully enter 2010 with the United States and many thousands of our young men and women in military uniforms and dangerously engaged in two wars — in Afghanistan and in Iraq!
We surely want to find satisfactory ways out of them to produce a happy 2010.
We cannot get out of them by retreat. They are very complex and are difficult to win. We have weak and unreliable allies. While we hate both of these wars, we would hate much more the results of our not doing what is necessary to win them, stabilize bad situations and withdraw without tragic events following — for us, the Afghans and the Iraqis.
There is no “victory plan” that is “sure fire” and “quick.” We must do what we must do in 2010, as we yearn for real peace. We must seek to do the best we can to make it possible for us to end both of these regrettable wars with satisfactory results.