Hi, SpeakerNancy. The word "waffle," much like "dither" carries a certain value judgement, so if that is genuinely how you view Obama's delay, it would seem to me your mind is mostly made up about him, at least on this point. Personally, I am hard-pressed to fault anyone for trying to know their own mind and, as I said in my top post, I see this as a very complex and difficult choice to make. Still, your point is well taken that Obama cannot play Prince Hamlet forever here (and elsewhere) and must finally make up the mind he has tried to know so well.

D Day was over two years in planning -- it was more than a year before the Combined Chiefs of Staff approved the basic tactical plan and turned the thing over to Eisenhower. From what Western historians can piece together, the Viet Cong spent over six months planning the Tet Offensive. I am not trying to draw exact comparisons but I do think Obama has a very major decision to make about our future in a country where we have already been fighting longer than the entire length of the Second World War and which threatens to consume as much time, lives, and emotional drain as Vietnam. If we must err one way or another, I perfer caution.

Thank you for replying.