The Afghan Debate

The Washington debate about the Afghanistan war -- pitting advocates of a broad
counterinsurgency strategy against those who favor a narrower counterterrorism
approach -- has sometimes been misleading, at least in terms of what actually
goes on here. The fact is that U.S. forces are doing both missions every day and
night -- and indeed are becoming increasingly effective at each one.

But
there's a danger: A strategy that combines stroking your friends and pounding
your enemies runs the risk of sending mixed messages. The public, here and
around the world, may conclude that for all their new talk about drinking tea,
the Americans are ruthless killers. Meanwhile, the enemy may conclude that
whatever its firepower, the United States is impatient and will eventually go
away. The wires may get crossed, in other words, with people getting the
opposite message from the one intended.

David Ignatius is one of the more valuable Washington Post writers on things military/foreign affairs because of his background and non-ideological perspective (or at least less than most). The two prior paragraphs show his on-the-scene analysis of what's going on in Afghanistan.

Now compare that column with the interview given to Fareed Zakaria by Matthew Hoh, the recently resigned foreign service officer in Afghanistan. Hoh represents well the perspective of those (like myself) who think we're on a fool's errand in Afghanistan, that we need to cut our losses and basically pull out now. Ignatius sounds to me like the debate that's probably going on in Obama's head and presence.