Will President Obama betray our military one last time by pardoning Bowe Bergdahl?

He’s already imposed rules of engagement that protect our enemies, kill our soldiers and deny us victory. He’s targeted the US armed forces for social engineering, undermining combat effectiveness. He dishonored our dead by throwing away our hard-won success in Iraq. And he so emasculated our military that the world saw crying US sailors captive to Iran, disgracing the traditions of our fighting Navy.

The only occasions when Obama embraced our troops came when he could pose for the cameras pinning medals on far better men. His administration has shown more understanding for imprisoned traitor Private Bradley Manning’s desire for a sex-change operation than for gravely wounded veterans struggling for health care.

Now Private Bergdahl (those of us who earned our stripes will never call him “Sergeant”) has jumped outside of his military chain of command to ask Obama for a pardon. Before this defeated, skulking administration goes the way of all flesh.

Bergdahl abandoned his comrades in a combat zone and bobbed up with the terrorists.

Desertion in the face of the enemy is the second-gravest military crime, just behind willful fratricide. Although Pentagon sycophants continue to deny it, Bergdahl’s former platoon mates and others who served in Afghanistan when Bergdahl fled his post believe that good men died as a consequence of the massive search for the runaway (which paralyzed other military actions).

Within days of Bergdahl’s disappearance, a senior general in Afghanistan admitted to me that we knew Bergdahl had deserted. He claimed that a decision had been made not to go public with the charge to avoid adding to his parents’ pain.

What about the pain of the parents whose sons never came home?

Through it all, the Obama administration seemed to regard desertion in wartime as the equivalent of skipping class. Team Obama refused to make public the intelligence reports revealing Bergdahl’s behavior. And then, in one of the whopping p.r. misjudgments of all time, the president traded five hardened terrorists and a ransom to get Bergdahl back, convinced that those serving honorably would celebrate his return.

Instead, we saw a storm of outrage as Obama welcomed Bergdahl’s parents to the White House, and the president’s staff insisted Bergdahl served honorably.

The West Wing didn’t have a clue. Its occupants still don’t.

To avoid further embarrassment to the president, the administration has been slow-rolling Bergdahl’s court-martial, while a supine Army awarded him automatic promotion for “time in grade.” At the current pace, Bergdahl will retire as a sergeant-major.

Meanwhile, his lawyers attempt to convince us Bergdahl has suffered enough. Even though he came back alive and whole, while comrades didn’t. Bergdahl did learn that the Army he’d despised was preferable, after all, to the rear-area hospitality of Islamist terrorists. But his self-wrought captivity in the hands of an enemy he’d idealized doesn’t absolve him of a single charge.

The case is far bigger than one man, though. The crimes of which Bergdahl stands accused go to the heart of military service.

“Good order and discipline” are the foundation stones of the US armed forces. Lawful orders must be obeyed, whether we like them or not. To pardon a soldier who abandoned his front-line post in wartime would set a precedent that desertion’s no big deal. It would raise the bar for future prosecutions and make light of battlefield treachery.

Were Obama to pardon Bergdahl, this soldier who betrayed his trust could even appeal for military benefits and a lifetime of care from the Department of Veterans Affairs.

But the administration wants to avoid an embarrassing trial with televised replays of Obama welcoming his loopy-left parents to the Rose Garden. And Bergdahl’s lawyers do not want a trial they’re bound to lose — they’re pulling out all the stops and making preposterous claims.

So Obama may “end it” with a presidential pardon for an apparent deserter who has never faced justice: pre-emptive damage control.

This is a classic case of culture clash. On one side are the left’s reflexive soldier-haters, who see the case as a sanctioned way to spit on our vets again. On the other side are those who risk their lives to defend us.

Which side will the president back?

Obama’s actions over the past eight years suggest he’ll pardon Bergdahl, our military be damned.

Ralph Peters is a retired US Army officer and former enlisted man. A prize-winning author, he is also Fox News’ strategic analyst.