WE'RE IN DUTCH – AT 7:48 A.M. ET:  A decision in The Netherlands is further evidence that Barack Obama's foreign policy just isn't working.  The Dutch government has collapsed...over Afghanistan.  NRO reports:

Then-candidate Obama, back in May of 2008: "Right now, we don't have enough troops, and NATO hasn't provided enough troops because they are still angry about us going into Iraq. "

The news, today:

"A day after his government collapsed, Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenendesaid Sunday that he expected Dutch troops to come home from Afghanistan before the end of the year.

"A last-ditch effort by Mr. Balkenende to keep Dutch soldiers in the dangerous southern Afghan province of Oruzgan instead saw the Labor Party quit the government in the Netherlands early Saturday, immediately raising fears that the Western military coalition fighting the war was increasingly at risk.

"Even as the allied offensive in the Taliban stronghold of Marja continued, it appeared almost certain that most of the 2,000 Dutch troops would be gone from Afghanistan by the end of the year. The question plaguing military planners was whether a Dutch departure would embolden the war’s critics in other allied countries, where debate over deployment is continuing, and hasten the withdrawal of their troops as well."

So here's a country with about 2,000 troops in Afghanistan. Iraq is calmer, our troops are gradually leaving that country, we've elected a president who opposed the war, and who spent two years pledging to carefully listen to allies. And now, they're not only not sending reinforcements, they're preparing to quit entirely. In retrospect, our NATO allies' disinclination to send more troops to Afghanistan for much of the past decade had very little to do with Iraq or George W. Bush, and a whole lot to do with their own populaces' de facto pacifism and isolationism. The Dutch people aren't convinced that this is their fight.

COMMENT:  Obama completely misled the American people in his foreign-policy pronouncements and pledges during the 2008 campaign.  He has gotten essentially nothing out of our allies, and less than nothing out of our enemies. 

How to you like the way Iran has abandoned its nuclear-weapons program because The One has demanded it?  What persuasion.  What charisma.  What...let's move on.

The Dutch don't see Afghanistan as their fight because NATO, with the exception of the Brits and Canadians, has largely been a one-way street.  It's the U.S. doing the heavy lifting and the Europeans accepting the lift.  True, some NATO members have done some things in Afghanistan, but, again with Britain and Canada being the exceptions, they've been minimal. 

The Dutch withdrawal is a major blow.  It will probably be followed by others.  The impact of our sending 30,000 additional troops will be eroded. 

Obama, how about doing some of that convincing that you promised us.

February 22,  2010