Obama Channels FDR And Truman

Geopolitics: The Pak Army says that it has control of the three S. Waziristan fortress cities that the conventional thrust was aimed at. Good but not great news. The Army has control of most but not all of S. Waziristan. The conventional phase of the campaign is winding down and the guerilla war is getting bigger. The Pakistani Taliban has stepped up its presence in the Swat Valley and the other tribal lands. The fighting has diminished by about 40% but is nowhere close to stopping. Pakistan is now in a constant state of war. The whack-a-mole effect is being felt. This is a phenomenon were thousands of bad guys leave a collapsing theater of war and move on to other hotspots where the good guys aren’t as ascendant. Friday, a Russian commuter train was bombed by Chechen terrorists, killing dozens of innocent civilians. This was the biggest Islamic terror attack in Russia in 6 years. Chechen fighters are leaving S. Waziristan to fight in Russia and Afghanistan. Sunday, Afghan border police killed 27 Taliban fighters in a huge battle and captured one Chechen Al-Qaeda type for interrogation. This guy is probably a whacked mole from Pakistan. Most of the Pakistani Taliban will set up shop in the many tribal regions of Pakistan and hook up with other Taliban factions and then resume the jihad against their own country. If the Pak Army can capture and kill H. Mehsud it will take a big bite out of the whack-a-mole effect and be very bullish.
Obama launches his new Afghan war policy on Tuesday. This will be the most important speech of his career. This might be the most important speech of the 21st century. He is going to talk about an exit strategy. What we want to see in the speech is vagueness and little emphasis on the exit strategy. The more detailed the exit strategy references, the more bearish the speech. A large amount of time spent talking about the exit strategy is also bearish. If the first sentence includes the words, exit strategy, it would be very bearish. If the speech were to make zero reference to an exit strategy it would be extremely bullish. Of course every word of the speech will be important. The President has to show that he is a warrior. He needs to seize the moment and channel FDR and Truman. He has dithered for 3 months on the troop decision. He needs to step up to the plate and hit a homerun.