More Conservatives Are Questioning the Afghanistan War

Matt Lewis
Columnist
politicsdaily.com

The list of conservatives who are questioning our involvement in Afghanistan is growing.

As Josh Rogin at Foreign Policy magazine reported: "Americans for Tax Reform President Grover Norquist said he wants to build a center-right coalition to advocate for considering pulling out of Afghanistan in order to save the hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars being spent there."

One of the first prominent conservatives to sound the alarm on Afghanistan was Tony Blankley, a columnist and press secretary for former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

Blankley has written several columns on the topic over the years. Questioning President Obama's strategy in Afghanistan, Blankley recently wrote, "I do not understand how, as a country, we can continue to send our troops into that cauldron with no rational expectation of success."

Washington Post columnist George Will was even more explicit in September 2009, when he authored a column simply titled: "Time to Get Out of Afghanistan."

In July 2010, RNC Chairman Michael Steele touched off a firestorm when he called Afghanistan "Obama's war."

When Bill Kristol called on Steele to resign over the comments, Ann Coulter answered with her own column: "'Bill Kristol Must Resign." In it, Coulter wrote, "As Michael Steele correctly noted, every great power that's tried to stage an all-out war in Afghanistan has gotten its ass handed to it. Everyone knows it's not worth the trouble and resources to take a nation of rocks and brigands."

On the heels of Coulter's column, former Republican congressman -- and host of MSNBC's "Morning Joe" -- Joe Scarborough noted: "For too long you have had John McCain and you've had Bill Kristol, Lindsey Graham and Joe Lieberman define what it meant to be a Republican when it came to foreign policy . . . This is a very important op-ed that Ann Coulter wrote yesterday."

After July, Republicans essentially put the issue on the back burner and focused on winning the November elections, and columnists presumably focused on the midterms, too. But news that Grover Norquist is now questioning our involvement in Afghanistan may signal the debate is back.

One wonders if there's a "tipping point?" Will a real debate on the right take place over the war in Afghanistan -- and is it possible for an anti-war Republican presidential candidate to emerge?