After the Taliban had curtailed the opium production, we laid plans for an invasion to set things right. Jane's Intelligence Review reported the U.S. led coalition to invade Afghanistan in a article published in March of 2001. 911 had nothing to do with our invasion plans for Afghanistan.

If you thought the Iraq war was a mess, wait until Obma's ZB raises up the cold war again.

The new President makes the old President look good.

Pardon me, but did you really mean to suggest that only Ralph Nader had the foresight and common sense, the only one with the vision to suggest we get the hell out of Iraq? OK, maybe you have a point there, since all the other choices (except the guy who actually won the election, of course) would have kept us from even going in during the previous term.

Hindsight is 20-20. On hindsight Nader can be 100 per cent right, because, of course, he may well have got us in there to begin with by having the temerity to run without a prayer of winning, but only serving to make his "point" and stealing votes from halfwits who could have put Al Gore in almost seven years ago -- and we wouldn't even be having this discussion now.

Yeah, Nader's been right ever since the Corvair. Unsafe at Any Time.

Keeping Afghanistan as a focus is important but making unilateral raids into Pakistan is a very dangerous plan. This was one of the reasons I favored Hillary over Obama. However, the Bush Administration has neglected Afghanistan to our detriment...chosing instead to aim our focus at Iraq. This proved incredibly stupid and I fear Obama's emphasis on Pakistan could entangle the U.S. in yet another conflagration with another country thus drawing more world disapproval. A unilateral approach to terrorism is the wrong approach. Period.

I can only speculate that Obama is making these kinds of bellicose statements for political purposes. (To show that he is "tough on terror" etc.)

But the situation at the border is at least as gnarly as Iraq, and unlike Iraq, the U.S. presence is not needed to keep the (internal) peace.

Like it or not, the only way to achieve gains in Afghan-Paki region is with certain quid pro quos. The U.S. waging war on the Taliban is just going to backfire in unanticipated ways.

Stop sucking on that Naderaid it'll make you stupid.

Quoting from the article:

By shifting emphasis from Iraq to Afghanistan, would a President Obama be jumping from the frying pan into the fire?

Perhaps. But he'd also be going after the organization that attacked America on 9/11 and, crucially, he'd have world and domestic support for doing so.

Russian officers caution that Afghans cannot be conquered, as the Soviets attempted to do in the 1980s...

Who (I mean, really, who?!) is trying to "conquer" the Afghans?! This is a total straw man, and a dangerous and deliberate one.

In pursuing the policy he's laid out, Obama is seeking to destroy the organization most directly responsible for 9/11, force Pakistan to deal with its own issues with the same organization inside (and just outside) its borders (rather than the double-dealing they have been engaged in since the 80s), all alongside a dramatic increase in the rebuilding effort and its funding -- reversing two decades of bad US policy.

This is not to say that there are not legitimate criticisms of an overall policy that could use some fine-tuning.

But deliberately misstating the issues, misrepresenting the policy being discussed, and indulging in wild hyperbole -- all things Juan Cole does in this article -- are not useful parts of the debate.

Superb analysis, Juan...the media and many of Obama's ardent fans are blinded by the circus of his tour, ignoring important details as you have pointed out...

What is Obama trying to accomplish? Reassure those voters who see him as weak against terrorists? If that is his only aim and if he adopts a less aggressive policy once elected then he would be guilty only of deception. He wouldn't be the first President to do so.

The Pashtuns are the Kurds of Pakistan and Afghanistan. They have more loyalty to their ethnic brethren than to either country. Regrettably, they have come under Taliban rule. The more they are attacked, the stronger the Taliban will become. It may be futile but the only way to solve this problem may be to convince Pashtun tribal chiefs that the Taliban are bad for them. It worked in Iraq when we convinced Sunni tribes that support of Al Quaeda is counter productive.

Unilateral military actions in Pakistan run the risk of destabilizing the Pakistani government. The last thing we need is a hostile Pakistan. Lest we forget, they have nuclear weapons. Remember Cambodia? North Vietnam used Cambodian territory to supply their forces in South Vietnam over the Ho Chi Minh Trail. The Cambodian King was unable to prevent it, just like Pakistan is now unable to prevent Pashtun support to the Taliban in Afghanistan. When we and South Vietnam went into Cambodia Prinz Sihanouk was replaced by the Red Khmer. Better think twice, Barrack Obama. There are landmines out there!

Have Juan Cole and apparently several others on this board forgotten HOW we were attacked on 9/11? The Taliban specifically harbored Bin laden and Al-Qaeda and allowed their plans to take shape from the safe haven of Afghanistan. We drove out the Taliban, the correct and appropriate military and strategic step to take. Then we oddly veered off into Iraq on trumped up evidence.

Obama is right. We need to return our focus to the nation where our real conflict resides, Afghanistan. We will not be trying to occupy Afghanistan as the Soviets did (a stupid analogy) but we will be supporting a government that has significant support from the population. Afghanistan needs massive aid to support rebuilding of infrastructure. It needs support to build a professional police force and, of course, to develop a sustainable economy. All of these opportunities have been squandered by our focus on Iraq, a country that did not attack us and certainly posed no threat to the U.S.