My full react to this powerful Washington Post story is over here at the Windy, but I’ll repeat myself, for a teaser:

McChrystal has tacitly paid respect to the critique, saying in his much-derided London address that jobs programs could do much to deprive the Taliban of foot soldiers who fight because their lack of economic alternatives accelerate their antipathy to the U.S. presence. That approach won the support yesterday of Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, in his uneasy embrace of a modified version of McChrystal’s counterinsurgency strategy. But if Hoh is right, then it’s simply too late for that strategy, as the mere presence of the U.S. military will have reached the “tipping point” that Gates warned about in January.

The “they’re fighting us because we’re there” critique has really yet to gain purchase in the general discourse. My best guess is because that has yet to be sufficiently quantified in poll data, but that might be too optimistic or blinkered a take. It took a long time in Iraq before that depressing reality sunk in (I don’t really know if it’s a reality in Afghanistan, but still), perhaps because facing that bleak fact is hard and constraining. But resignations like Hoh’s — Marine veteran of Iraq, chief civilian official in Zabul — have a way of concentrating the mind. He would not have done what he did if he thought the war effort could be saved.

Update: Just to be clear, this diplomat-blogger reminds us that Hoh was not actually a foreign-service officer. Not that that changes the substantive concerns in any way. But interests of accuracy n’ all that.