I Begin to Wonder

If, as Austin Bay reports, our strategy in Afghanistan has been severely compromised by the Isikoff/Newsweek story, I begin to seriously wonder if our strategy isn’t all wrong. A strategy should not be vulnerable to such a serious set back as a result of a small adversity completely out of your control. And the U.S. government can’t control what journalists say about it.

Maybe we should have pursued a strategy based on “arm’s-length diplomacy,” as Angelo Codevilla has suggested, which would be insensitive to changes in political climate and would not rely in any way on America being popular, understood or well-thought of. All that would matter would be whether other nations thought it was in their interests to oppose us. If they thought “no,” then the strategy would be a success.