MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti political commentator...

The first new arrivals of the 30,000 reinforcements, which were promised in November, will join the fight in southern and central Afghanistan by Christmas, although Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who is running the war in Afghanistan, said he would like Obama to send 40,000 troops.

But Obama has ordered only 30,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan, which is a lot, and the decision is a heavy gamble that may stand in the way of his reelection.

Together with the 20,000 U.S. troops sent to Afghanistan in April 2009, the reinforcements approved by Obama will total 50,000, or half of the troops the United States will have in the country by the spring of 2010. This will make Obama and Bush equally responsible for the Afghan war.

The 44th U.S. president had to strengthen the American group in Afghanistan, a country where many other foreign armies failed before. Britain lost its Afghan war in the 19th century and the Soviet Union in the 1980s. It is difficult to say if the United

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