This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Monday, January 11, 2010.

I'm Caleb Brown.

President Obama and the GOP both have some reconciling to do.

For Obama, he must reconcile facts on the ground, with his pledge not to take the war in Afghanistan beyond American interests and means.

Republicans, for their part, must reconcile their new found fiscal conservatism with an expensive war that has no visible end.

Cato Senior Fellow Doug Bandau comments.

Uh, how does President Obama reconcile his refusal, public refusal, to set goals that go beyond

our responsibility, means, and interests with regard to Afghanistan and then sends 30,000 more troops there.

Well, what the president's trying to argue is that what he's really engaged in is not so much nation-building as dealing with terrorists.

I mean, they're trying to argue that if we don't

you know fix the government in Kabul we don't get a more stable Afghanistan we're

still going to have a problem of terrorism. Of course I think that the issue of Yemen shows how misguided his approach of major problem of terrorism. You know, so it's not a question of Afghanistan or the government in Kabul, terrorists

can operate anywhere.

Trying to build a stable pro-American governments around the world is a fool's errand.

It's going to be no easier in Afghanistan than elsewhere.

So I think the president's made a very significant mistake.

He's also said that the goal has not changed, that it is to disrupt and dismantle Al-Qaeda.

Well, yes, and of course, Al-Qaeda itself, I mean, the Al-Qaeda that attacked America

in 9-11, has been disrupted, has been substantially weakened.

You know, the greatest threat that we have today is not from bin Laden and the old al-Qaeda.

It's from new threats. It's local jihadists.

It's like the would-be Christmas Day bomber.

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