NEW YORK (AP) — As a presidential candidate, Barack Obama denounced the war in Iraq and U.S. strategy there, vowing if elected to draw down troops and send them to Afghanistan to address the growing threat from al-Qaida and the Taliban.

“There is no military solution in Iraq,” Obama said.

Now, with mounting U.S. casualties in Afghanistan, waning public support for the war and a dire assessment of the situation on the ground by his commanding general, Obama may be forced to decide there is no military solution in Afghanistan, either.

“He really did make a strong point as a candidate about the significance of Afghanistan as the place to fight against terrorism, but it’s a lot easier said than done,” said Natalie Davis, a political science professor at Alabama’s Birmingham-Southern College. “You have a sense now that the current thinking among many around him is that this is a loser, that it really does resemble Vietnam.”

Campaign rhetoric is coming up against a tough reality for the president, who now must make a crucial decision about how to proceed in what he’s called a war of necessity.