Quotes From Around Yon Blogosphere

We have an instant, violent reaction to anyone who sounds like an Islamic bigot. This is understandable. Many Islamists are bigots, reactionaries and extremists (others are charlatans and opportunists). But this can sometimes blind us to the ways they might prove useful in the broader struggle against Islamic terror. The Bush administration spent its first term engaged in a largely abstract, theoretical conversation about radical Islam and its evils -- and conservative intellectuals still spout this kind of unyielding rhetoric. By its second term, though, the administration was grappling with the complexities of Islam on the ground. It is instructive that Bush ended up pursuing a most sophisticated and nuanced policy toward political Islam in the one country where reality was unavoidable -- Iraq.

The veil is not the same as the suicide belt. We can better pursue our values if we recognize the local and cultural context, and appreciate that people want to find their own balance between freedom and order, liberty and license. In the end, time is on our side. Bin Ladenism has already lost ground in almost every Muslim country. Radical Islam will follow the same path. Wherever it is tried -- in Afghanistan, in Iraq, in parts of Nigeria and Pakistan -- people weary of its charms very quickly. The truth is that all Islamists, violent or not, lack answers to the problems of the modern world. They do not have a world view that can satisfy the aspirations of modern men and women. We do. That's the most powerful weapon of all.

-- FAREED ZAKARIA

Can anyone imagine the Bush administration attempting to defrost relations with Russia by making goodwill gestures? Of course you can't, because for most of the time they were either in denial that relations were declining or they blamed Moscow for everything.

-- DANIEL LARISON

President Obama declared in an interview that the United States was not winning the war in Afghanistan and opened the door to a reconciliation process in which the American military would reach out to moderate elements of the Taliban, much as it did with Sunni militias in Iraq.

Mr. Obama pointed to the success in peeling Iraqi insurgents away from more hard-core elements of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, a strategy that many credit as much as the increase of American forces with turning the war around in the last two years. "There may be some comparable opportunities in Afghanistan and in the Pakistani region," he said, while cautioning that solutions in Afghanistan will be complicated.

-- HELENE COOPER and SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

[B]oth Barack Obama and his agent, Hillary Clinton, have been methodical in their moves affirmatively and diplomatically on the mid-east foreign policy front; however they have been aggressive and far more enlightened than the Bush/Cheney regime. And, let's be honest, this is not something that could be done precipitously or overnight. I am critical of Obama on several domestic fronts, but as to foreign policy, with the possible exception of Afghanistan, there is some healthy credit due.

-- BMAZ

The counterinsurgency lessons that [CIA covert actions expert] Bill Lair tried to impart to us young spies are relevant today: Keep your footprint small. Don't use trainers who don’t know the language or culture. Don't let the locals become dependant on American airpower. Train them in tactics suited to their circumstances. Don't ever let the locals think mighty America will fight their battles or solve all their problems for them; focus on getting them ready to fix their own problems. Keep the folks in Washington out of the way of the people doing the work in the field.

This is why President Obama's plans to send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan should be seen as a mixed blessing. In fact, it may be equally significant that the Pentagon has announced it is sending 900 new special operations people to Afghanistan over the spring and summer, including Green Berets, Navy Seals and Marine special operations forces. Ideally, these troops will be well trained in Afghan languages and culture, and prepared to fight in the dry, mountainous terrain the Taliban occupy.

. . . This is not a war we can win ourselves; the Afghans are going to have to win it by fighting to retake their own country from both Taliban thugs and corrupt government officials. While additional American troops may be an unavoidable necessity to provide security in the short and medium term, we should never forget that doing too much for a weak ally can be just as bad as doing too little.

-- ARTHUR KELLER