Milt Bearden, in March 2009:

The only certainty about Afghanistan is that it will be Obama's War.

Garry Wills:

Most presidents start wondering -- or, more often, worrying -- about their "legacy" well into their first term. Or, if they have a second term, they worry even more feverishly about what posterity will think of them. Obama need not wonder about his legacy, even this early. It is already fixed, and in one word: Afghanistan.

The President might have been saved from the folly that will be his lasting legacy. But now we are ten years into a war that could drag on for another ten, and could catch in its trammels the next president, the way Vietnam tied up president after president.

David Petraeus:

Hard is not hopeless.

Nir Rosen:

"You Westerners have your watches," the leader observed. "But we Taliban have time."