On Feb. 13, 1985, I stood in the Theaterplatz in Dresden listening to Erich Honecker give a speech.  The speech was not simply one of those standard commie stemwinders to which those of us reporting from Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union were accustomed.  For one thing, we were gathered outside the newly restored Semper Opera House, designed by the architect Gottfried Semper in 1841, rebuilt after a fire in 1869 and long considered one of the glories of 19^th-century musical architecture.  For another, it was bitterly cold, at least twenty below zero on the Fahrenheit scale if not colder.  For a third, all Honecker wanted to talk about – at great length – was the U.S. missile defense system, then under consideration by the Reagan Administration.

This was odd, because the occasion we – and by ‘we” I mean the western press, opera dignitaries, the local nomenklatura (party bigwigs and apparatchiks), the East German Stasi officers assigned to shadow us, and their KGB bosses – were there to witness was the celebratory re-opening of the great opera house, destroyed for the second time on the night of Feb. 12-13, 1945 “by Anglo-American bombers,” as the commemorative poster helpfully reminded us.  (I have my copy, suitably framed, on the wall of my home.)  If memory serves, Honecker, however, had very little to say about Semper or the opera house or the work we were about to hear, Weber’s Der Freischütz, which had been playing the night the city was incinerated.  Instead, the little party boss – I had run into him in the Bellevue Hotel across the river, where the westerners were staying, and was pleased to see that he was as unimpressive in person as he was on television – went on a prolonged rant about die Sternkriege, the so-called “Star Wars” program that even then was setting off protests among the “peace demonstrators” in western Europe, England and, of course, at home as well.

As we stood there, shivering and bored, my colleague and friend, John Rockwell of The New York Times (who, like me, spoke fluent German) leaned over and said: “Personally, I think Star Wars is bullshit, but it really has these guys scared.”  John was right: Star Wars pretty much was bullshit, especially at the time, but it nonetheless terrified the technologically backward Soviets and their satellite marionettes, and it set off the inexorable forces (as Marxists like to say) that just four years later would bring down the Berlin Wall.  Reagan was playing poker with a lot of chips but lousy cards, raising the rear ends off the morally, culturally and fiscally bankrupt Soviets.

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As the president wraps up his swing across all of the talk shows and collects his Nobel Peace Prize, one gets the sense that we are rapidly approaching a defining moment in the Obama presidency. 9-11 was thrust upon President Bush just nine months into his administration, and President Obama now faces an unwelcome, but completely predictable, dilemma in his first year. The key issue of course is whether the President should resource the McChrsytal strategy or does he listen to his base and deny his general on the ground the troops he believes are needed to win?

When Obama came into office there were 35,000 troops in Afghanistan. Soon there will be 68,000, meaning Obama ordered 33,000 of them into combat. Just 3,000 more and Obama owns the balance.

Even if he doesn’t send the additional 40,000 troops General McChrystal asked for, there’s no doubt that this is his war now. The president may be looking at this the way a relief pitcher views the situation coming into an inning with runners on base. What counts against him and what doesn’t? But as commander in chief, he has to unhinge himself from such personal considerations. He must take off his political hat and listen to the sound advice of his military commanders and the Secretary of Defense. (more…)