It all sounded so simple during the campaign. There was nothing wrong with Afghanistan that couldn’t be sorted out by ditching the idiot Bush for a president who knew what he was doing and who would not be “distracted” by Iraq.

That was then. Now Obama faces a situation that every day becomes eerily more like the one that confronted LBJ 45 years ago.

Your commander in the field tells you that without more troops the war is lost. You doubt whether pouring more men in will bring victory and are frankly desperate to get out. You could probably weather the resulting political firestorm by blaming your predecessor for the mess you inherited.

But you cannot afford to quit because of the effect, both psychological and material, on neighbouring territories.

Obama is stuck. He cannot honourably stay in Afghanistan without giving the general the forces he says he needs. But if he gets out, the effect on Pakistan could be catastrophic.

Barack Obama, hero of the anti-war left, and now a prisoner of the hated Domino Theory that gave us Vietnam.

Much wailing and gnashing of teeth in the Guardian this morning over climate change. It seems that the Obama administration doesn’t like the Kyoto treaty any more than its predecessor did.

So the whole thing wasn’t Bush’s fault after all? Ah well, not so fast. It’s still all the Republicans’ fault, according to Jonathan Freedland, who somehow manages to admit one minute that ”it was not Bush who killed the Kyoto treaty in the US. The Senate rejected it by a margin of 95 votes to none” and in the next breath characterise its opponents as “Republican headbangers”.

The new administration is kicking the sainted Kyoto treaty into the long grass. Score another one for the Obama-Bush doctrine.

UPDATE Re-posting the Van Jones piece here to escape the spammers:

What week-long controversy say MSM viewers as Van Jones quits

On Tuesday night’s Hardball, the scales finally fell from Chris Matthews’ eyes about the bogus enthusiasm on the left for the war in Afghanistan.

Matthews: ‘I believe that what Barack Obama, who I support generally, did in this campaign… was back into this policy. I think he wanted to say he was for some aggressive action against the enemy because he wasn’t for the Iraq war.’

Bang on, Chris. You’ve just admitted your hero committed himself to a war he didn’t believe in just to make himself look tough. What are you going to do about it?

Here’s the video. Matthews’ guilty confession comes right at the end.