President Obama told Congressional leaders on Tuesday that he would not substantially reduce American forces in Afghanistan or shift the mission to just hunting terrorists there, but he indicated that he remained undecided about the major troop buildup proposed by his commanding general. Meeting with leaders from both parties at the White House, Mr. Obama seemed to be searching for some sort of middle ground, saying he wanted to "dispense with the straw man argument that this is about either doubling down or leaving Afghanistan," as White House officials later described his remarks.

But as the war approached its eight-year anniversary on Wednesday, the session underscored the perilous crosscurrents awaiting Mr. Obama. While some Democrats said they would support whatever he decided, others challenged him about sending more troops. And Republicans pressed him to order the escalation without delay, leading to a pointed exchange between the president and Senator John McCain of Arizona, his Republican opponent from last year's election.

Mr. McCain told the president that "time is not on our side." He added, "This should not be a leisurely process," according to several people in the room. A few minutes later, Mr. Obama replied, "John, I can assure you this won't be leisurely," according to several attendees. "No one feels more urgency to get this right than I do." ...

More at The New York Times.

Afghan Strategy Divides Lawmakers - Scott Wilson, Washington Post.

Congressional leaders left a rare bipartisan meeting with President Obama on Tuesday divided over what strategy the administration should adopt to fight an increasingly unpopular war in Afghanistan and how quickly it must do so to protect US forces already on the ground. Obama called congressional leaders to the White House at a key moment in his Afghanistan policy review, which will determine whether the United States pushes deeper into a war that military officials have warned will probably be won or lost over the next 12 months.

Congress must approve any additional resources that Obama would need if he accepts the recommendations of Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top US and NATO commander in Afghanistan, who favors a broad expansion of the effort on the battlefield and the push to build a stable national government. But much of the president's party is resisting calls for more combat troops after eight years of war, forcing him to seek support from Republicans who favor McChrystal's strategy...

More at The Washington Post.

Obama Mulls Middle Ground in Afghanistan War Strategy - Christi Parsons and James Oliphant, Los Angeles Times.

At a White House meeting aimed at tempering increasingly politicized debate over the war in Afghanistan, President Obama told congressional leaders Tuesday that he does not plan to dramatically reduce the American troop level or switch to a strictly counter-terrorism mission. Asking for patience until he completes an assessment of the situation over the next few weeks, the president urged lawmakers to keep their minds open to a nuanced range of options. Obama did not indicate to the bipartisan group whether he is leaning toward or against a significant troop escalation. Instead, he suggested he is looking at the middle range of the spectrum, somewhere between a major increase in forces and a large drawdown. "The president reiterated that we need this debate to be honest and dispense with the straw man argument that this is about either doubling down or leaving Afghanistan," one senior administration official said after the meeting ended.

Still, the 90-minute session demonstrated the growing pressures on the president, who has to contend with many fellow Democrats hesitant to increase American troop levels and Republicans eager to boost the war effort. Several people in attendance said some Republicans openly embraced the recent analysis of Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the US and NATO commander in the Afghanistan effort, who has recommended sending as many as 40,000 additional troops. Republican lawmakers expressed concerns about how long Obama is taking to review the war strategy, saying US troops need more support now and that a delay is putting them at higher risk...

More at The Los Angeles Times.

Behind Afghan War Debate, a Battle of Two Books Rages - Peter Spiegel and Jonathan Weisman, Wall Street Journal.

The struggle to set the future course of the Afghan war is becoming a battle of two books - both suddenly popular among White House and Pentagon brain trusts. The two draw decidedly different lessons from the Vietnam War. The first book describes a White House in 1965 being marched into an escalating war by a military viewing the conflict too narrowly to see the perils ahead. President Barack Obama recently finished the book, according to administration officials, and Vice President Joe Biden is reading it now. The second describes a different administration, in 1972, when a US military that has finally figured out how to counter the insurgency is rejected by political leaders who bow to popular opinion and end the fight. It has been recommended in multiple lists put out by military officers, including a former US commander in Afghanistan, who passed it out to his subordinates.

The two books - "Lessons in Disaster," on Mr. Obama's nightstand, and "A Better War" on the shelves of military gurus - have become a framework for the debate over what will be one of the most important decisions of Mr. Obama's presidency. On Tuesday, in a White House meeting that went well over its allotted hour, Mr. Obama discussed the war with 31 members of Congress. Republican leaders, and some Democrats, pressed him to quickly accept the judgment of his commanders and send as many as 40,000 additional troops to Afghanistan. But some Democrats asked if the war was winnable...

More at The Wall Street Journal.

Obama and the General - Wall Street Journal editorial.

Democrats have found someone worth fighting in Afghanistan. His name is Stan McChrystal. The other night, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi went after the commander of US and allied forces in Afghanistan, "with all due respect," for supposedly disrespecting the chain of command. Around the Congressional Democratic Caucus, we're told Members refer to General McChrystal as "General MacArthur," after the commander in Korea sacked by Harry Truman.

White House aides have fanned these flames with recent leaks to the media that "officials are challenging" his assessment asking for more troops. In the last two days, the White House National Security Adviser and the Secretary of Defense have both suggested that the general should keep his mouth shut. President Obama called him in Friday for a talking-to on the tarmac at Copenhagen airport.

Though a decorated Army four-star officer, the General's introduction to Beltway warfare is proving to be brutal. To be fair, Gen. McChrystal couldn't know that his Commander in Chief would go wobbly so soon on his commitment to him as well as to his own Afghan strategy when he was tapped for the job in AprilWe're told by people who know him that Gen. McChrystal "feels terrible" and "had no intention whatsoever of trying to lobby and influence" the Administration. His sense of bewilderment makes perfect sense anywhere but in the political battlefield of Washington. He was, after all, following orders...

More at The Wall Street Journal.

The first article appeared in the New York Times. This excerpt summarizes the article's main theme:

Administration officials said the United States had eliminated more than half of its top targets over the last year, severely constricted Al Qaeda's capacity to operate and choked off a lot of its financing. The sense of progress against Al Qaeda and its allies has helped shape the internal debate over the best way to fight in Afghanistan as President Obama explores alternatives to a large escalation.

The White House has begun promoting the missile strikes and raids that have killed Qaeda operatives in Pakistan, Somalia and elsewhere. Mr. Obama will visit the National Counterterrorism Center on Tuesday to call attention to the operations. While aides said the public focus was not related to the Afghanistan review, it could give Mr. Obama political room if he rejected or pared back the request for 40,000 more troops from Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top commander in Afghanistan.

The second article appeared in the Washington Post. It discussed how U.S. law enforcement authorities tracked and then arrested Najibullah Zazi on conspiracy to assemble improvised explosives. Here is an excerpt from the article:

In late August, shortly after federal agents began tracking the movements of the suspected terrorist in Colorado, senior officials added the case to Obama's daily intelligence briefing in the Oval Office.

Agents had only fragmented information about Zazi at that point, administration officials said. But the case quickly piqued Obama's curiosity and led to what aides called an intensive three-week White House focus on the case.

The 24-year-old Afghan immigrant was arrested last month, accused of seeking to build bombs on U.S. soil after attending an al-Qaeda training camp in Pakistan. Investigators think Zazi was "entering the execution phase" of a bombing plot, a senior administration official said over the weekend, possibly timed to coincide with the president's trip to New York for a meeting of the U.N. General Assembly or the anniversary of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

[...]

"The Zazi case was the first test of this administration being able to successfully uncover and deal with this type of threat in the United States," a senior administration official said. "It demonstrated that we were able to successfully neutralize this threat, and to have insight into it, with existing statutory authorities, with the system as it currently operates."

Commentary

Part of the administration's exposition of the Zazi case is to promote an urgent legislative matter, the extension of some Patriot Act provisions that made the tracking of Zazi possible. These provisions, which include expanded wiretap authorities, are due to expire at the end of the year unless renewed by statute.

More broadly, the administration officials who are making this case in the New York Times and Washington Post must reassure skeptics that U.S. intelligence collection on al Qaeda, both overseas and inside the U.S., will be very good. One argument for why the U.S. needs to maintain a large presence in "Af-Pak" is that such a presence is needed for the intelligence that a counter-terror strategy relies on.

Proponents of the counter-terror/law enforcement approach are hoping to avoid the cost and risk of an expanded COIN campaign. But a counter-terror/law enforcement approach has its own costs and risks. Absent a large U.S. military presence, getting the intelligence to strike al Qaeda leadership targets will require the U.S. government to make deals with the most unsavory characters in Central Asia. Do the intelligence officers who will be called upon to aggressively develop this constant stream of intelligence wonder when they will be called upon to discuss their actions either in front of a congressional committee or perhaps a grand jury? As for the Zazi case and domestic security, safety against terrorism will likely require ever greater preventive electronic and database surveillance. Proponents of the counter-terror/law enforcement approach will have to be —to make the case for these measures, even more so if a terror attack succeeds.

The case being made in today's New York Times and Washington Post bypasses the issue of America's moral commitment to Afghanistan and the consequences to America's prestige from a drastic change in policy. I am not arguing for McChrystal's plan and against the counter-terror/law enforcement approach. Indeed, regardless of whether it is the right approach or not, I think the counter-terror/law enforcement approach is the inevitable end-state. But it will come with its own set of costs and risks which we should think through.

Congratulations are in order for a SWJ friend - The Pritzker Military Library - job well done.

The Pritzker Military Library has been named one of 10 recipients of the 2009 National Medal for Museum and Library Service, the nation's highest honor for museums and libraries. The annual award, made by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) since 1994, recognizes institutions for outstanding social, educational, environmental, or economic contributions to their communities. The Pritzker Military Library will receive the National Medal at a ceremony to be held in Washington, D.C., including a $10,000 award in recognition of their extraordinary contributions.

"On behalf of our founder and president, James N. Pritzker, we are honored to be selected as a recipient of the 2009 National Medal," said Ryan Yantis, executive director of the Pritzker Military Library. "While our library is relatively young, we feel this award is a tribute to our members, staff, trustees, and volunteers for their steadfast service and innovative efforts. This recognition will inspire us to achieve even more with our programs, events and outreach."

"Every day, the Pritzker Military Library makes a real difference in their community," said IMLS Director Anne-Imelda M. Radice. "Their exemplary programs respond to community challenges, positively impact people's lives, and serve as models for the nation's libraries. I applaud their outstanding efforts and encourage others to follow in their footsteps."

Founded by Colonel (IL) James N. Pritzker, IL ARNG (Ret.), the Pritzker Military Library has become a national resource for study of the Citizen Soldier in American history. It is the only library in the United States devoted to military history that is free and open to the public, located not on a military base but in downtown Chicago -- a short walk from Navy Pier, Water Tower, and the Magnificent Mile. Stories of courage, valor, and sacrifice are told not only through an extensive collection of books, photographs, posters, and artifacts, but also through weekly programs on topics from military history and current affairs, enjoyed by thousands in person at the Library and around the world via live Internet webcasts.

"The Pritzker Military Library is a national treasure," said Hershel "Woody" Williams, who earned the Medal of Honor as a young Marine on Iwo Jima in World War II. "What they do with their programs to help tell the story of our American soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen is incredible. I am proud to be associated with such a fine and effective organization."

Williams, 86, first visited the Library in January 2008 and was interviewed about his experiences in earning the nation's highest award for valor in combat. He has since donated significant items pertaining to his service to the Library's rapidly growing collection. Williams lives in Ona, West Virginia, and reflects the growing national and international audience of the Library.

The size of the Library's collection has quadrupled in just six years. Many of these items are one-of-a-kind or limited edition memoirs, biographies, and personal papers of Citizen Soldiers. These materials are available to members, researchers, and school groups who visit its physical facility, but the Library extends its reach through a commitment to digital collections, with staff assigned to research and digitize historic photos, posters, prints, medals, uniforms, and more. These resources are accessible to scholars, researchers, and genealogist through the Internet.

Since opening in 2003, the Library has produced over 250 programs including lectures by award-winning authors, interviews with Medal of Honor recipients by the Library's executive producer for programs Ed Tracy, and an Emmy-nominated public affairs program on military issues; questions are taken from viewers attending in person and watching the live Internet webcast. Regular webcast audiences include senior citizen centers, veterans groups, and others around the world. All programs are recorded for later broadcast on WYCC-TV/Channel 20, a PBS affiliate, and also available for download as audio podcasts. The Library also houses a gallery with regular exhibitions of military related art, vintage posters, and photography.

'We're at a point in Afghanistan right now in our overall campaign," the US general says, "where increasingly security can best be delivered by the extension of good governance, justice, economic reconstruction." Afghan security forces "fight side by side with us" more and more frequently, he adds, and American troops are working hard to develop the Afghan security forces. Coalition forces are focusing on securing the population, because "the key terrain is the human terrain." This all sounds like Gen. Stanley McChrystal's proposed strategy for victory. But those words were spoken in May 2006 by Lt. Gen. Karl Eikenberry, then the top US military commander in Afghanistan. Should we be concerned that the McChrystal strategy advocates the same counterinsurgency approach that has failed to achieve success in years past?

Not necessarily. The easy part of any counterinsurgency is formulating the strategy and tactics. The hard part is implementing them. Achieving results requires, first and foremost, skilled and motivated tactical leaders in suf ficient numbers - the absence of which caused the 2006 strategy to fail. With the insurgent environment different in every Afghan valley, command must be decentralized. So finding and implementing the right tactics is primarily the job of battalion commanders and district police chiefs, not presidents or four-star generals...

More at The Wall Street Journal.

The Pentagon is establishing two new units devoted to the Afghan war, highlighting the military's focus on the conflict even as the White House considers scaling back the overall US mission there. The units - a so-called Afghan Hands program run out of the Pentagon and a new intelligence center within Central Command, which oversees the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan - are designed to help troops deepen their intelligence about the country's complex political and tribal dynamics.

The Defense Department also is expected to announce that Brig. Gen. John M. Nicholson, one of the military's top experts on counterinsurgency, will assume the helm of the Pakistan-Afghanistan Coordination Cell, a Pentagon office established earlier this year to improve the military's performance in Afghanistan. The moves underline the military's efforts to remake itself in response to the Afghan war despite the Obama administration's signals that it is far from committed to the current counterinsurgency approach...

More at The Wall Street Journal.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates cautioned military and civilian leaders Monday against publicly airing their advice to President Obama on Afghanistan, just days after the top US general in that country criticized proposals being advocated by some in the White House. "In this process, it is imperative that all of us taking part in these deliberations - civilians and military alike - provide our best advice to the president candidly but privately," Gates said in a speech at the annual meeting of the Association of the US Army. The Army's top general immediately echoed Gates's remarks, which seemed designed to rein in dissent within the ranks.

The remarks by Gates and Gen. George W. Casey Jr. came four days after Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top commander of US and international troops in Afghanistan, said publicly that a proposal to scale back significantly the US military presence in the country would be "shortsighted." Since then, the administration has sought to tamp down the appearance of any divisions over strategy between McChrystal, Obama's handpicked commander, and the White House. In a blunt assessment disclosed last month, McChrystal warned that the coalition's mission in Afghanistan could fail without a new military strategy and additional troops. Officials are reviewing that assessment and are discussing strategy in a series of meetings at the White House...

More at The Washington Post.

Tensions Rise Over Afghanistan War Strategy - Christi Parsons, Los Angeles Times.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said Monday that President Obama's advisors should keep their guidance private, in effect admonishing the top commander in Afghanistan for publicly advocating an approach requiring more troops even as the White House reassesses its strategy. The comment by Gates came a day after Obama's national security advisor, James L. Jones, said that military commanders should convey their advice through the chain of command - a reaction to Army Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal's public statements in support of his troop-intensive strategy for stabilizing Afghanistan.

The exchanges suggested some disarray in the Obama administration's attempts to forge a new policy on Afghanistan and underscored wide differences among top officials over the correct approach. In May, Obama tapped McChrystal, a special forces commander, to take charge of the Afghanistan effort and institute a sweeping counterinsurgency strategy. Obama and McChrystal spoke Friday aboard Air Force One on an airport tarmac in Copenhagen, and White House officials did not detail what the two talked about. Still, Pentagon officials dismissed suggestions Monday that the 55-year-old commander was in any professional jeopardy. Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said it would be "absurd" to think McChrystal had lost favor or standing with the administration...

More at The Los Angeles Times.

A General Within Bounds - Michael O'Hanlon, Washington Post opinion.

Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the US commander in Afghanistan, has come under fire for making public comments about the war. While answering questions after an Oct. 1 speech - in which he avoided taking sides in the policy debate - McChrystal challenged a popular alternative to the approach that President Obama sent him to Afghanistan to pursue. An op-ed on this page Saturday argued that a battlefield commander should not get ahead of his president in public. Next, national security adviser James L. Jones faulted McChrystal for speaking outside his internal chain of command while the president is reviewing his strategy and basic assumptions about the war. Certainly, if given a do-over, McChrystal might make different, more nuanced statements; he was indeed too blunt and impolitic. But the criticism goes too far.

The Obama/McChrystal plan is classic counterinsurgency and focuses on protecting the Afghan population while strengthening Afghan security forces and government. McChrystal was asked about a "counterterrorism" strategy that would purportedly contain al-Qaeda with much lower numbers of American troops, casualties and other costs. McChrystal did not try to force the president's hand on whether to increase the foreign troop presence in Afghanistan. The general critiqued an option that is at direct odds with Obama's policy and conflicts with the experiences of the US military this decade. That is not fundamentally out of line for a commander...

More at The Washington Post.

Attacks on Remote Posts Highlight Afghan Risks - Sabrina Tavernese and Sangar Rahimi, New York Times. Insurgents attacked a pair of remote American military bases in Afghanistan over the weekend in a deadly battle that underscored the vulnerability of the kind of isolated bases that the top American commander there wants to scale back. The commander, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, is pressing for a change in strategy that would shift troops to heavily populated centers to protect civilians and focus less on battling the insurgents in the hinterlands. As though to reinforce his point, insurgents carried out a bold daylight strike on two bases on the Pakistani border, killing eight Americans and four Afghan security officers in the deadliest attack for American soldiers in more than a year, Afghan and American officials said Sunday. The assault occurred less than 20 miles from the site of a similar attack that killed nine Americans last year, which had already become a cautionary tale at the Pentagon for how not to win the war in Afghanistan.

Worst Losses for a Year as Taleban Storm NATO Outpost - Martin Fletcher, The Times. It began before dawn - a devastating, well-planned attack. About 300 insurgents swarmed out of a village and mosque and attacked a pair of isolated American outposts in a remote mountainous area of eastern Afghanistan with machineguns, rockets and grenades. They first stormed the Afghan police post at the foot of the hill in the province of Nuristan, a Taleban and al-Qaeda stronghold on the lawless Pakistan border. They then swept up to the NATO post. The battle lasted all day. American and Afghan soldiers finally repelled them, with the help of US helicopters and warplanes - but at heavy cost. Eight American soldiers and two Afghan policemen were killed, with many injured. It was the worst attack on NATO forces in 14 months, and one of the deadliest battles of the eight-year war. The insurgents seized at least 20 Afghan policemen whose fate last night remained unclear. The attack came at a crucial juncture in the war, with President Obama soon to decide whether to accept a request by General Stanley McChrystal, commander of the 100,000-strong US and NATO force in Afghanistan, for 40,000 extra troops, or to reduce the counter-insurgency operation against the Taleban and focus on al-Qaeda.

Afghanistan Assault Points Out US Vulnerabilities - Laura King, Los Angeles Times. In one of the most lethal battles for American troops in the Afghanistan war, a wave of insurgents attacked a pair of relatively lightly manned bases near the Pakistani border over the weekend, triggering a daylong clash that left eight Americans and as many as half a dozen Afghan troops dead. It was precisely the kind of attack the top US commander in Afghanistan is hoping to stave off by recently ordering troops to withdraw from such small outposts, concentrating instead on defending population centers. The outposts attacked Saturday had already been slated to be abandoned soon, the military said. The toll was the highest in a single incident for American forces in Afghanistan since nine US soldiers died in a strikingly similar insurgent assault 15 months ago on an outpost in the same northeastern province, Nuristan. Military officials describe the attack on the jointly run US-Afghan outposts in the Kamdesh district as a tightly coordinated onslaught by hundreds of insurgents.

McChrystal Planned to Move Soldiers Killed in Afghan Siege - Mark Sappenfield, Christian Science Monitor. One fundamental tenet of Gen. Stanley McChrystal's controversial Afghanistan strategy aims at avoiding precisely the kinds of attacks that killed eight American soldiers Sunday. In what is being described as one of the boldest attacks of the Afghan insurgency, an estimated 300 militants sustained a day-long siege against a coalition outpost in Nuristan Province - a place where the rule of law is so tenuous and the terrain so forbidding that it is seen as one of the likeliest hiding places for Osama bin Laden. It is also has fewer people than Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Beyond the request for more resources that has engrossed America, McChrystal's battlefield assessment proposes deploying American troops in a profoundly different way. Rather than sending them to the farthest-flung corners of a far-flung nation to hunt down scores of militants hiding in remote mountain caves, it intends to protect the Afghan population first, giving the most Afghans the greatest opportunity of establishing something approaching a safe and normal life. Fourth of McChrystal's "four fundamental pillars" for a new strategy is: "prioritize available resources to those critical areas where the population is most threatened." In fact, the very troops in Nuristan forced to fight off unseen attackers firing down from ridge lines cloaked in inclement weather Sunday are poised to be redeployed under McChrystal's new leadership, according to the Washington Post.

American Strategy of Winning Trust of Afghan People is High Risk - Tom Coghlan, The Times news analysis. Attacks such as that which killed eight Americans in Nuristan are a risk inherent in a US strategy that prioritises putting soldiers inside Afghan village communities. The American system, developed over the past three years, aims to separate the population from the insurgents and ultimately to win their trust. That means being among the people, rather than remote from them, and giving up the safety of large bases for small combat outposts of a few dozen troops alongside local security forces. These small outposts are built as satellites to larger forward operating bases which provide artillery support. It was a combat outpost and an Afghan police base close by that were attacked in Nuristan. The outposts are vulnerable if the insurgents can attack with surprise and in large numbers. In the mountains of eastern Afghanistan many of the advantages the Nato forces have in equipment are offset by the local conditions. Nuristan is at high altitude and air cover can be affected at this time of year by the onset of winter. The first snows usually fall at the end of October. The insurgents in the region tend to include highly competent foreign elements with al-Qaeda links as well as Pakistani militants, operating from groups originally trained by the Pakistani Army to fight India in Kashmir, such as Lashkar-e-Toiba. The insurgents operate from safe havens just across the border in Pakistan and enjoy short resupply lines. The steep, wooded valleys mean that they can often get close to US bases without detection, and can routinely overlook American positions from surrounding mountains.

... Afghanistan's presidential election, held Aug. 20, should have been a milestone in the country's transition from 30 years of war to stability and democracy. Instead, it was just the opposite. As many as 30 percent of Karzai's votes were fraudulent, and lesser fraud was committed on behalf of other candidates. In several provinces, including Kandahar, four to 10 times as many votes were recorded as voters actually cast. The fraud has handed the Taliban its greatest strategic victory in eight years of fighting the United States and its Afghan partners.

The election was a foreseeable train wreck. Unlike the United Nations-run elections in 2004, this balloting was managed by Afghanistan's Independent Election Commission (IEC). Despite its name, the commission is subservient to Karzai, who appointed its seven members. Even so, the international role was extensive. The United States and other Western nations paid the more than $300 million to hold the vote, and UN technical staff took the lead in organizing much of the process, including printing ballot papers, distributing election materials and designing safeguards against fraud...

More at The Washington Post.

In his assessment of the Afghan conflict, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, painted a dire picture and is recommending an infusion of U.S. forces on top of the sixty-eight thousand Americans already allocated. But six months after unveiling a new objective for the Afghanistan-Pakistan region - focused on protecting the public and preventing al-Qaeda from reconstituting in Afghanistan - President Barack Obama is reportedly reconsidering the U.S. commitment to the fight amid mounting Democratic opposition to a surge of U.S. forces. Six analysts - Peter R. Mansoor, Andrew J. Bacevich, Amin Tarzi, Thomas E. Ricks, Candace Rondeaux, and John A. Nagl - offer a range of strategic choices for U.S. planners in Afghanistan.

Peter Mansoor - Provided the Afghan government can gain legitimacy, and that it can be a government that the Pashtuns and other peoples that fuel the Taliban can support, then in the long run we can gain our objectives in Afghanistan and defeat the Taliban insurgency. But you have to ask that question first. Provided that such an Afghan government develops, because clearly the current government is not wholly legitimate...

Andrew Bacevich - Washington has gotten itself all tied up in knots over the wrong question. The issue that really cries out for attention is not what to do about Afghanistan. The question that cries out for attention is: eight years into the so-called 'long war,' does the long war make sense as a response to the threat posed by jihadism? And from my point of view, the idea that fixing Afghanistan will provide any sort of antidote to the threat posed by jihadism is simply absurd...

Amin Tarzi - We are not very clear now on our objectives. The objectives as stated to the Afghan side are confusing them. In my view, the objectives have to be very clear, and the goals have to be achievable. We need to achieve them because the issue of confidence, the time on that is running out...

Thomas Ricks - Can we achieve our goals in Afghanistan if they don't get the troops that [McChrystal] has asked for? No, [but] it is not clear you can achieve your goals even if you get the troops. The president laid out in March what the strategy was, and all McChrystal has done is said, 'Okay, if you want to implement the strategy, here are the resources required to do it.' Now the president seems to be saying, 'Well, I'm not sure I want to spend that many resources...

Candace Rondeaux - Three important factors will have to be considered in shaping the strategy for Afghanistan. First and often least discussed is the impact of the U.S. military presence on regional actors. Russia, China, Iran, Pakistan, and India each have distinct regional and global interests that must also be taken into account when weighing the calculus of a further troop surge in Afghanistan...

John Nagl - There are always other options, but I personally believe that the counterinsurgency campaign has the best chance of success. For it to succeed it will have to be resourced to a greater extent than it has been to date. We need additional troops to build a bigger Afghan army faster, but we also need additional troops to provide a latticework, a framework of security within which those nascent Afghan security forces can operate...

In full at the Council on Foreign Relations.

1. Reform or Go Home - David Kilcullen: Counterinsurgency is only as good as the government it supports. NATO could do everything right - it isn't - but will still fail unless Afghans trust their government. Without essential reform, merely making the government more efficient or extending its reach will just make things worse..

2. End Suicide Attacks - Robert Pape: To win in Afghanistan, the United States and its allies must prevent the rise of a new generation of anti-American terrorists, particularly suicide terrorists. The metric for measuring this threat is not the amount of territory controlled by the Taliban or Al Qaeda, but the number of people —to be recruited as suicide terrorists...

3. If You Can't Beat Them, Let Them Join - Linda Robinson: Within a year, we must persuade large numbers of insurgents to lay down their arms or switch to the government's side. Afghanistan's doughty warriors have a tradition of changing alliances, but success will require both military operations focused on the insurgent leadership and, even more important, incentives for fighters at the local level. Mid-level insurgents and their followers should be offered a chance to join a revised version of the Afghan Public Protection Force...

4. Pump Up the Police - Anthony Cordesman: For all the disputes over strategy, virtually everyone agrees that we need to strengthen the Afghan security forces, make them true partners and put them in the lead. Afghans want lasting security, and they want it to have an Afghan face. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top American commander there, wisely wants to double the size of the Afghan Army and increase the police forces to 160,000 men. This requires not just money, but also a commitment to send more trainers, embedded advisers and partner units...

5. Kick Out Corruption - Nader Nadery: To defeat the insurgency, the Afghan government and its main partner, the United States, need to win the confidence of the public. Accountability must replace the widespread immunity enjoyed by officials who abuse their power. Despite all the problems with our recent election, the incoming government will have a chance to start fresh, and a proper vetting of all new officials is the place to begin...

6. Learn to Tax From the Taliban - Gretchen Peters: Skeptics of state-building proposals question whether the Kabul government - now almost fully dependent on foreign aid - will ever be able to support the military and police forces being trained. Yet there has been comparatively little investment by the international community in helping Kabul collect taxes, even though insurgents and corrupt officials have proved it can be done...

7. Polls Have the Power - Merrill McPeak: By and large, my generation of military professionals trained for and thought about what we might call "Type A" war - modern war, featuring the clash of mechanized forces fielded by industrial states. Happily, we never had to fight the Soviets on the northern German plain, though Operation Desert Storm showed we might have been pretty good at it, had the balloon gone up. In Afghanistan we're fighting a "Type B" war that is in some of its essentials "postmodern." Like postmodernism itself, the concept has a variety of meanings and may not represent a coherent set of ideas...

8. Take a Risk - Andrew Exum: While in Afghanistan last summer as part of Gen. Stanley McChrystal's initial assessment team, I found many American and other international units more focused on protecting themselves than protecting the Afghan population. Traveling through the allegedly secure city of Mazar-i-Sharif with a German unit, for example, was like touring Afghanistan by submarine...

9. Don't Believe That We Can Afford to Lose - Frederick Kagan and Kimberly Kagan: America cannot achieve even the minimal objective of preventing Al Qaeda from re-establishing safe havens in Afghanistan without a substantial increase in forces over the coming year. The Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan's south is growing. The Afghan and international forces there now cannot reverse that growth. They may not even be able to stem it. That is the assessment of the top American commander there, Gen. Stanley McChrystal...

10. Pakistani Patronage - Paul Pillar: The government of Pakistan, through its intelligence agency, has long been a patron of the Afghan Taliban, and Gen. Stanley McChrystal recently warned that the collaboration continues. Pakistan sees the relationship as a way of hedging its bets in Afghanistan, an asset in its confrontation with India. It is difficult to define a clear benchmark for ending that aid because the Pakistanis refuse to acknowledge that any relationship exists...

In full at The New York Times.