Eight Years Gone, Holding On

By Steve Hynd

Glenn Greenwald has an excellent post on the "suffocatingly narrow" debate about Afghanistan, which he correctly writes is predicated on the Villagers' utter unwillingness to contemplate their own mistakes over the last eight years.

For myself, I'd like to see a radical option debated. Why not let the UN take over, with a China-led peacekeeping force. Even Robert Kaplan sees the benefits and the Chinese have already indicated they are willing. The major losers would be Al Qaeda and, unfortunately, India.

Matt Eckel at FPWatch fears Obama's statement that the one thing definitely not being considered is a drawdown of US troop numbers is a punt, but not a clever one.

now that he's more or less rejected the notion of scaling back the American role in central Asia, Obama's got noplace to go but in a more expansive direction. The specter of a Vietnam-like creep in Afghanistan, where we engage in a slow but steady buildup, never enough to win but enough to bleed lots of political capital (not to mention lots of actual blood) while not losing exactly, looms large.

Yup. Which means that the title of the tune in my head is almost certain to come true for America's Afghan misadventure.