Robert Dreyfuss | The Nation

For anyone with a pulse (and, I suppose, a few brain cells), the scores from Monday night were clearly: San Francisco 9, St. Louis 0 and Barack Obama 1, Mitt Romney 0. On a point-for-point basis—and not that Obama’s positions and debate points were progressive or left-leaning, by any means—Obama won by a knockout. He was calm, consistent, well-informed and articulate. Yet the fact remains that Obama probably didn’t win over any undecided voters last night, if there are any of that rare breed left. Here’s why.

As in the first debate, when Romney the Radical disappeared and was replaced by Mitt the Moderate, last night it was the Moderate once again who sat down next to Obama. Many progressives and supporters of Obama thought that the framework of the foreign policy debate would be simple. They believed that Romney could be slammed as a radical, neoconservative, war-mongering militarist who, in addition, was a know-nothing. Too many analysts, including at The Nation, believed that it would be a simple matter to equate Romney with those among his advisers who were neocons left over the Bush administration.

But facts are facts, and the fact is that Romney is not a neocon. His rightward drift in the primary season, during which he placated the most militant among the Republican faithful, was Etch-A-Sketched away. That was entirely predictable. In fact, of course, Romney advisers said that he’d do exactly that during the general election. It’s foolish to pick and choose among the various positions that Romney has taken to conclude which is the “real Romney,” Romney the Radical or Mitt the Moderate. That’s because Romney is blank slate, a kind of cyborg programmed to win, in which ideology doesn’t play a part. As one adviser said, Romney is a businessman who sees everything in balance-sheet format, and “balance sheets don’t hate.” That’s true when it comes to domestic policy: abortion, Obamacare, same-sex marriage, Medicare privatization. And it’s true for foreign policy, too.

Last night’s debate between President Obama and Mitt Romney didn’t say much about Afghanistan, and neither did the earlier one. As I blogged last week, the debate between Vice President Biden and Paul Ryan did touch on Afghanistan, and it was marked by Biden’s strong assertion that US forces are on the way out.

Perhaps the next presidential debate on Monday, slated to cover foreign policy, will address Afghanistan, but don’t expect any revelations—or even much disagreement.

But Americans are sick of the war, and that was the jumping-off point for a remarkable New York Times editorial last Sunday called “Time to Pack Up.” It was a reversal of sorts for the Times, which has opted for a stay-the-course approach mostly in line with the conventional wisdom that Afghanization of the war will somehow allow the center to hold. It won’t. Belatedly, the Times acknowledges that, suggesting that Afghanistan is a lost cause. And it says that getting out sooner, rather than later—even within a year—is a good idea.

Last night, Vice President Joe Biden managed, on Afghanistan at least, to sound like a peacenik. Not so, Ryan.

Listen to Biden:

[W]e are leaving. We are leaving in 2014. Period. And in the process, we’re going to be saving over the next 10 years another $800 billion. We’ve been in this war for over a decade. The primary objective is almost completed. Now, all we’re doing is putting the Kabul government in a position to be able to maintain their own security. It’s their responsibility, not America’s.

The outgoing head of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Afghanistan, Reto Stocker, delivered a sober warning about that war-torn nation’s future, in particular that civilians in Afghanistan—who’ve been suffering for three decades—face a bleak future.

Stocker’s important warning, which contrasts sharply with the Pollyannish views of Secretary of Defense Panetta and the head of the UN in Afghanistan, was issued as he left the country after seven years in Kabul:

I am filled with concern as I leave this country. Since I arrived here in 2005, local armed groups have proliferated, civilians have been caught between not just one but multiple front lines, and it has become increasingly difficult for ordinary Afghans to obtain health care. People are not just suffering the effects of the armed conflict. Hardship arising from the economic situation, or from severe weather or natural disaster, has become more widespread, and hope for the future has been steadily declining.