REPORT FROM AN EYEWITNESS - AT 8:42 A.M. ET:  Urgent Agenda has a number of contacts around the world, and we welcome their expertise.  This report, from an American expert visiting Afghanistan, reacts to the president's plan for the region, unveiled Friday:

I have been able to look at it only briefly and only in second-hand
summaries. That said, I have to say that it seems surprisingly adult. Seems to "get" the nature of the counterinsurgency fight here, no sign of a crippling time-based exit strategy, willing to apply the appropriate resources that a serious plan requires.

The "get-tough" with Pakistani and Afghan leaders aspect is a little
troubling. It is important to remember the personal risks these
leaders take in stepping forward. And to understand the balancing act
they are performing, battered by countervailing pressures from power
centers that are hard to understand from afar. I am not at all
against the accountability and transparency that the administration
seems to be demanding, but we will have to give leaders in precarious
positions enough maneuver space to survive (sometimes literally) among
their own people. I think the criticism of the Bush administration
as too beholden to Karzai and Musharraf is a bit simplistic and naive.

But overall, this approach to Afghanistan seems to depart from the
pattern of unserious non-solutions this administration has established
thus far.

COMMENT:  Okay.  We hope our traveler is correct, and that this is an improvement over past plans.  We'll be watching carefully, always happy to praise the president if he gets it right. 

March 30, 2009