Max Boot , Senior Fellow for National Security Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, and most importantly a Petraeus advisor, had a chat with Charlie Rose. I invite you, my reader, to watch the whole interview here.
There are a few takeaways that you might want to keep in mind as you watch Boot talk to Charlie about what’s coming down the pike in Afghanistan. If Boot’s comment correlate to reality even somewhat well, then we’ll be looking at a considerably less gloomy picture a year out in Afghanistan. To put it roughly Boot heralds good news if at least 3 ways.
1. David Petraeus would not have taken the job if he didn’t think he could show President Obama some reasonably measurably results.
2. Gen. Petraeus thinks we can still achieve victory, which Boots seems to describe as something between a maximalist and a minimalist definition of victory through insurgency
3. The Afghanistan time-line has moved. It is not the case, Boot seems to imply, that Obama will do much of anything in July 2011. After all, how can he ask his new commander to deliver victory within less an year of his command?