Obama Speech: The light of a secure peace?  

It has been very frustrating to watch the debate about Afghanistan in advance of President Obama’s speech.  The numbers game – 5 000, 15 000, 30 000 – illuminates little except competing interests in the Washington beltway.  It certainly does not do justice to the care and thought in the Administration about the right thing to do in Afghanistan and Pakistan.  It seems to me President Obama has navigated a skilful path within the American political debate, but what happens on the ground is a different matter.  Caroline Wadhams and Clive Cookman of the Center for American Progress have been writing consistently excellent material on this from Washington.  They say the troop numbers issue only “scratches the surface”.  I think that is right. The truth is that the number of troops withdrawn in the next 18 months matters less to the situation on the ground than the clarity, coherence...