Got back late last week from Afghanistan. People have asked me what surprised me most. I guess it was how relatively safe Kabul was. In Baghdad in ‘07 and ‘08, you had a sense that anything could happen; you could be on the enormous Camp Victory and still have to worry about a rocket attack. Kabul is nothing like that. We traveled in lightly armored Land Rovers. Of course, one reason is that it’s a rural insurgency concentrated in points east and south from Kabul.

We met a lot of impressive people, in the military, with civilian agencies, and–yes–with the United Nations. To a man, they believe the mission is achievable, given the proper resources, which it hasn’t had until now. (It’s rather extraordinary that, prior to the surge, the Bush administration was in two wars of counter-insurgency and managed to disastrously under-resource both of them.) I think Obama’s policy is basically the right one although I have yet to hear any good answer about how to get Pakistan to step up in the tribal areas and in Baluchistan, and I’m made nervous by Obama’s hedging, as we outlined in this editorial.