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" The explosion of information coming out of WikiLeaks is now going on two days old \u2014 time enough for some perspective. In general, reaction has fallen into two camps: One, that the document dump is a game-changer because it proves the war in Afghanistan is going worse than the Obama administration has acknowledged; the other, that the dump is no big deal because everyone already knew the war was going worse than acknowledged, anyway. The debate is raging, and will for days, but I can&amp;#039;t shake the feeling that all the sound and fury is signifying nothing. Media narratives, even ludicrous ones, have huge sway over domestic policy (remember &amp;quot;death panels&amp;quot;?), but foreign and defense policy is made of sterner stuff. And besides, the WikiLeaks affair is so complex, so multi-faceted \u2014 it&amp;#039;s about the war; it&amp;#039;s about how the war is sold; it&amp;#039;s about a security breach; it&amp;#039;s about journalistic ethics; it&amp;#039;s about some crazy Aussiewith an axe to grind \u2014 that no clear media narrative is likely to appear, anyway. The document dump matters in the sense that it&amp;#039;s a big story. But the only important question is whether it will matter in the sense of changing policy. James Fallows, one of the real adults in the policy business, makes a simple point the screaming heads miss: this Afghanistan leak will change policy if it sways public opinion over the war, and won&amp;#039;t if it doesn&amp;#039;t. That is one side of the answer. And that really is the nut: Does the public care? And does it care enough that there will have to be a policy response?  I very much doubt it. The recession grinds on. Domestic politics is the war the nation cares about. Afghanistan is distant, its cost in lives small (though growing). It is not Vietnam. It does not seem likely to loom large in the elections this fall. The other side of the answer lies in Washington, in the Capitol and in the White House. To the same extent that foreign and defense policy is resistant to media influence, it is responsive to political influence. Crudely put, wars are run by presidents but funded by senators. The opportunities for influence-peddling are too juicy to pass up. The New York Times suggests that the WikiLeaks issue will make it more difficult for President Obama to sell the war to the Senate for another year&amp;#039;s funding.  Will it? Certainly we can expect that many shots will be taken, especially by the right, at the president for &amp;quot;lying to the American people&amp;quot; about how the war is progressing.  But we can then expect a nearly unanimous vote to give the president as much money as he wants. Neither side can afford to say no: the Dems because this is &amp;quot;their&amp;quot; war now; the Republicans because they&amp;#039;re supposed to be the ones who are tough on terror. Which leaves the president. Does the dump matter to him? I think it does, but not in the obvious way. The White House has not responded very forcefully to the release, and didn&amp;#039;t flex much muscle to stop it. Their top man on defense called it &amp;quot;irresponsible.&amp;quot; A more subdued response is hard to imagine.  Doubtless some of this cool is tactical. It simply looks better to treat WikiLeaks like a pest, not a threat. But given that the leak is now the reality, I am sure the White House is figuring it into its strategic planning. M.S. at Democracy in America thinks the White House is plotting a surge-and-leave plan for Afghanistan much like the one now nearing completion in Iraq, and suggests that the leaked documents will encourage its implementation. Much, too, is being made of the documents&amp;#039; suggestion that Pakistan is more deeply invested in the Taliban than previously thought. An uncomfortable revelation \u2014 but also a powerful carrot for Pakistan to start behaving like an unalloyed ally. The billions we send them in military aid are now a bargaining chip, rather than a buy-in. Even at home, the leak does not seem to be the disaster some predicted. Obama has been very careful to avoid any suggestion of triumphalism in discussing the war, and has steered clear of the &amp;quot;existential threat&amp;quot; argument also employed by the previous administration. I think it unlikely, then, that the public will see the leaked documents as exposing a political fraud, nor a national weakness. That may help Obama keep us in the war. It may also make it easier for him to say it&amp;#039;s time to get out. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/news/a8067/wikileaks-obama-response-072710/>