Against a backdrop of violence and civilian casualties, the last few days have witnessed strong moves by the Obama administration to complete the move to a counter-insurgency strategy – in the strategy and management of US forces in Afghanistan and in the actions of US allies in Pakistan.

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Throughout this campaign Senator McCain has failed to lay out concrete plans on some of the most important national security issues before the U.S. McCain has either adopted an incoherent approach, such as with Iran, where he will attack his opponent’s position in one sentence and then agree with it in the next, or replaced policy proposals with empty platitudes about “not surrendering” and achieving “victory” in reference to Iraq and Afghanistan.

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This week General McKiernan, the top commander in Afghanistan, and General David Petraeus made an obvious point: “Afghanistan is not Iraq.” Both insisted that the challenges in Afghanistan are very different than the ones in Iraq and therefore require a very different strategy and approach.

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The Bush Administration finds itself pinned by a dilemma of its own making: Yesterday the Bush administration approved the request from Gen. McKiernan for three additional brigades to shore up the beleaguered effort in Afghanistan, but it announced no corresponding withdrawals from Iraq, despite indications that it would not be possible to increase levels in Afghanistan without either reducing force levels in Iraq or once again increasing Army deployments from 12 to 15 months

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