Signs of hope in Obama's Afghan plan

Today's column by Trudy Rubin reviews Obama's Afghanistan strategy:

...consider what, to my mind, makes this plan so impressive: The troop increase is part of a much broader strategy encompassing the entire South Asia region. It emphasizes economic aid and diplomacy as much as guns.

As Richard Holbrooke, Obama's special representative for AfPak, put it: "The media is talking about a military surge. What Obama is talking about is a comprehensive surge." The word comprehensive is key.

This approach contrasts sharply with the Bush administration's narrow take on the Iraq war, which ignored Iraq's neighbors and permitted al-Qaeda and the Taliban to regroup on the AfPak border.