In an interview with Jeremy Scahill, Russ Feingold says that the Obama administration is whistling past the graveyard on Afghanistan. It’s a great interview, and it’s refreshing to see a Senator of Feingold’s intellectual caliber put pressure — any at all — on Afghanistan war strategy at a time when pretty much no politicians talk about the war at all. And there are many, many reasons to be worried about the viability of the enterprise, even if you accept the premises that the war is worth waging and that a counterinsurgency strategy is an appropriate means for waging it, as I do.

Feingold mentions the facts that both Richard Holbrooke and Adm. Mullen have conceded that there are some holes in Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy, and tells Feingold:

"They admitted that it’s a problem, but where’s the follow-up? This administration is almost whistling past the graveyard on this issue." Feingold added, "How is it that the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and our special envoy to this region both agree that this could be a problem and that it is not talked about as a serious mistake if we’re going to keep increasing troops and increase that effect? This is, in my view, the central flaw in what is otherwise a policy that is better than the Bush administration’s. This is the central flaw in the thinking of the administration on this issue, and it needs to be pursued." 

I’m not inclined to disagree. But it strikes me as still significant that the administration is grappling with these problems rather than denying they exist. It’s more than legitimate to criticize the administration for throwing Marines into southern Afghanistan without coordinating with the Afghan government for Afghan soldiers and police to hold what the Marines clear. But it’s also not as if there are two clear sides here. What’s struck me about the Afghanistan debate so far is how tentative and caveated and, frankly, open-minded the (for lack of a better term) pro-war side is. Here’s Josh Foust expressing skepticism. Here’s Steve Biddle. Here’s Andrew "Part Of The McChrystal Review" Exum, and here he is again.

Now, this isn’t meant as a kind of preening, to say, Oooh look how subtle and tortured the people who agree with me are, and by contrast look how unnuanced all you people who disagree with me are. There’s no substitute for actually answering the questions people are raising about Afghanistan. But I’m not sure that an inability to have thought things through completely by 4:15 on Friday July 24 is the same thing as whistling past the graveyard, and the side that thinks the war implicates American interests is refreshingly attuned to the flaws in their/our arguments. Now to fill the gaps, or determine that they’re un-fill-able and to change course.