George Will makes a fair bit of sense these days:

al-Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan do not number in the tens of thousands, or even thousands. Or perhaps even hundreds. Although “the people who attacked us” were al-Qaeda, the threat that justifies today’s escalation is, Clinton says, a “syndicate of terror” of which al-Qaeda is just an important part. But is Afghanistan central to the syndicate?

George W. Bush waged preventive war in Iraq regarding (nonexistent) weapons of mass destruction. Obama is waging preventive war in Afghanistan to prevent it from again becoming “a staging platform for terrorists,” which Somalia, Yemen or other sovereignty near-vacuums also could become. To prevent the “staging platform” scenario, U.S. forces might have to be engaged in Afghanistan for decades before its government can prevent that by itself.

… The president’s party will not support his new policy, his budget will not accommodate it, our overstretched and worn down military will be hard-pressed to execute it, and Americans’ patience will not be commensurate with Afghanistan’s limitless demands for it. This will not end well.

Of course, if Will had found his backbone seven or eight years ago, when the Republicans who listen to him held power in Washington, he might actually have had an effect. Will he put pressure on GOP hawks as the 2010 midterms approach? Will he say that Mitt Romney is wrong and Ron Paul and Gary Johnson are right? I’m not betting on it, but I hope I’d like to be proved wrong.