Recommended: Afghan Agony - More Toops Won't Help

Ralph Peters is one of the nation's leading military strategic thinkers. A retired Army Lieutenant Colonel, he has authored a number of excellent books on military strategy (some are listed in my book list – see sidebar), as well as a few pretty good military novels. So when he speaks out on our military policy in Afghanistan, it is worth listening.

His article Afghan agony: More troops won't help in today's New York Post is excellent. In essence, he argues that the Obama administration, like the Bush administration before it, has set an impossible goal in Afghanistan - to turn a poor, fragmented, tribally-oriented collection of people into a modern democratic nation in a matter of a few years. As more than one historian has noted, Afghanistan has been the graveyard of empires throughout history, from Alexander the Great and the Persians in ancient times to the British and the Soviet Union in modern times. The degree of hubris inherent in Washington's belief that it can succeed were so many other have failed is astounding - or perhaps politicians just don't know history.

Peters argues that we should redefine the mission to the simple, narrow goal of tracking down and eliminated or at least seriously crippling al Qaeda and its allies, and forget about nation-building in Afghanistan. Sounds like a valid argument to me.