Ben Buckman.net

David Brooks and Gail Collins discuss Obama's speech yesterday on Afghanistan, concluding:

David: In short I thought it was a good but puzzling speech. You?

Gail Collins: Pretty clear, actually. Plus deeply depressing. If I got the message correctly, he was saying that we’re in a bad place with no good options but to try to push things to a less-bad-although-still-not-terrific level.

Can he do it? I have no idea. But what do I know? I thought there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

I support the new policy, in the sense that I don't strongly oppose it. Bush let the effort languish for years, and the wasted time and lives and money aren't refundable. But leaving now because the last administration had a failed policy seems to be wrong too. The 2-year timetable, real or just a threat to Karzai, is crucial: one last try, then we're done.

The question I ask is, if we had done this policy 8 years ago, would it have worked? If the answer is no, then escalating now is pointless. If the answer is yes, then it seems worth a last shot.

Rewind to Iraq 2006, with the surge debate, somewhat similar to this one. I was very skeptical it would work. I thought the civil war had deteriorated to the point where it was no longer our war to fight. I thought it was the U.S. occupation that had triggered the civil war, so escalating it couldn't make things better.

History turned out better than I expected, and the surge worked pretty well there. Applying the same reasoning (and hindsight) now, I don't think NATO military action in Afghanistan started the war (if anything, the years of Taliban rule were a break in a war that's still ongoing); I don't think it's so hopeless that COIN can't work; I do think there's a reason to continue the mission there toward some reasonable end.

Even if large-scale COIN would have worked 8 years ago, it doesn't mean it will necessarily work today. That's the big unknown. But my reading of the situation is that the odds for a decent outcome now are reasonably good, and I hope that's right.