Ben Buckman.net

Peter Baker in the NYT has an in-depth story of the Obama administration's Afghanistan review. It's bound to disappoint those who want a pullout from Afghanistan immediately - Obama ruled that out early - but the quality of the deliberations covering the whole rest of the policy options spectrum instills a lot of confidence. Every voice was heard, considered, analyzed, cross-examined. Leaks were strongly rebuked. Obama kept his own views to himself until the very end. When the final decision were made, he got total buy-in, even from those who originally disagreed.

There were no great options, but I feel even more confident now that the policy chosen was the best possible one. But even that is a crap shoot; there are so many factors that could mess up this best-of-the-bad plan. (And the cost is still troubling: at one point in the narrative, Baker describes Obama getting "sticker shock" from an OMB memo implying the cost of an Afghan surge would derail his domestic agenda.) There isn't necessarily a correlation between good policy making and ultimately good policy, judged in retrospect by good outcomes. But there was clearly a correlation between bad policy making - the groupthink, idealogical, demagogic processes of the Bush administration (especially in the first 6 years) - and bad policy, causing bad outcomes. So the odds of success here have to be better. If this plan fails, it will be fair to say, no reasonable plan would have worked. That's the best that can be done, in the end.