AFGHAN DILEMMA - AT 7:24 A.M. ET:  We forget that The One has declared Afghanistan to be the good war - the one where things aren't going well - as opposed to the "bad" war, Iraq, where we're winning.  Look, I don't get that either, but my mind is not as deep, as subtle, and as flexible as...you know whose.

One of Urgent Agenda's sources in Afghanistan, a Westerner traveling through, writes us today, and asks this question:

Follow discussions about Afghanistan closely as the administration and commanders struggle to come to grips with the fact that, for counterinsurgency force-to-population ratios to work, either coalition forces or Afghan forces or both will have to grow exponentially.  Allowing Afghanistan to drift along in the background was no longer acceptable once Barack declared it the "good" war.  But is he willing to make the massive commitment necessary to really make a difference here?

Ah, that is indeed the key question. Will Obama make the commitment, or are we about to see one of those "leave Afghanistan to the Afghans" statements, or, just as bad, a quick and deceptive deal with the Taliban?  My confidence in this administration is not running too high.  This is the crowd that was willing - until an uproar stopped it - to appoint Samuel Freeman, a China- and Saudi-loving lobbyist, to a sensitive intelligence post.  Judgment, anyone?

March 13, 2009