No Good Choices

David Ignatius of WaPo explains our Afghanistan policy this way:

As key policymakers returned to Washington this week, they were weighing
the Afghanistan conundrum. Should President Obama back a broad counterinsurgency
strategy that would try to build long-term stability by protecting the Afghan
population and promoting political reconciliation? Or should he opt for a
narrower and less costly counterterrorism approach that would use high-tech
firepower to prevent al-Qaeda from rebuilding havens?

Obama hasn't decided which approach he favors, nor have his top
advisers. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the commander in Kabul, has just delivered
his recommendation for the broader strategy -- which would almost certainly mean
more troops next year. Meanwhile, Vice President Biden and many members of
Congress are urging a narrower focus. Some critics have warned that this could
be "Obama's Vietnam."

The counterinsurgency doctrine McChrystal is advocating has excited a new
generation of military officers. I've seen it applied in outposts in Iraq and
Afghanistan, and it's impossible not to be impressed by the dedication and even
the idealism of its proponents. But there is little hard evidence that it will
work in a country as large and impoverished as Afghanistan. Even in Iraq, the
successes attributed to counterinsurgency came as much from bribing tribal
leaders and assassinating insurgents as from fostering development projects and
building trust.

Obama will have to roll the dice when he decides on Afghanistan
strategy. McChrystal's broad approach is risky, but so is the limited,
counterterrorism alternative that Biden and others are advocating. In truth, the
kinetic counterterrorism approach is what we've been doing -- and it hasn't been
working.