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that the arrival in Afghanistan of the final surge brigade (nicknamed Currahee) from the 101st Airborne Division was scheduled for September. He concluded:
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    The combination of all these initiatives is intended to slowly but surely establish the foundation of security that can allow the development of viable local political structures, enable the improvement of basic services, and help Afghan leaders and local governance achieve legitimacy and greater support. . . . While relentless pursuit of the Taliban will be critical in Kandahar and elsewhere, we know from Iraq and other counterinsurgency experiences that we cannot kill or capture our way out of an industrial-strength insurgency like that in Afghanistan. Clearly, as many insurgents and citizens as possible need to be convinced to become part of the solution rather than a continuing part of the problem.
    As the confirmation hearing concluded, Democratic and Republican senators effusively praised their new commander in Afghanistan. Senator Saxby Chambliss, a Republican from Georgia, gave Petraeus credit for defending not only America but the entire globe. “Thanks to you, thanks to your family, for the great commitment that you continue to make to protect America, as well as literally the whole world.” One of his longtime mentors, Keith Nightingale, a retired Army colonel, called the hearing a coronation—and it worried Nightingale greatly. Obama’s decision to nominate Petraeus to succeed McChrystal, Nightingale said, was brilliant. If Petraeus could pull a rabbit out of the hat in Afghanistan, so much the better. If he couldn’t, Obama would be able to say he’d done all that he could by appointing America’s best general to command the campaign—and blame Petraeus. How their relationship would evolve was anyone’s guess.
    There remained great skepticism about the United States’ ability to succeed in Afghanistan. Many analysts, particularly those in the Democratic Party and the Obama administration, doubted whether the United States, struggling economically and beset by record budget deficits, could continue spending $100 billion a year on the war in Afghanistan—borrowed money—for the amount of time it would take Petraeus’s counterinsurgency strategy to succeed. Few believed that would happen anywhere close to the July 2011 drawdown date. Many also argued that the initial rationale for war in Afghanistan—driving out al-Qaeda—no longer existed, since the terrorist organization had long since left Afghanistan and regrouped in the tribal areas of Pakistan, as well as in Yemen, East Africa and Iraq. Pakistan’s covert role in supporting the Taliban remained deeply troubling and had the potential to undermine whatever progress Petraeus’s forces made on the ground in Afghanistan. And many saw the government of President Hamid Karzai as deeply corrupt and inept, hardly a force around which to win hearts and minds.
    Indeed, some analysts in Washington argued that, as a strategy, counterinsurgency wasn’t really applicable, because Afghanistan was not a country with a central government beset by a repressive insurgency, but rather one in the midst of a civil war with multiple ethnic and sectarian parties vying for power. Many believed that international intervention in Afghanistan was a hindrance to the development of effective government in Afghanistan, not a catalyst for creating it, and that counterinsurgency was the problem, triggering a surge of suicide terrorists reacting to foreign military occupation. Richard N. Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations and a reported centrist Republican, summed up the policy angst in a cover story in
Newsweek
that hit the newsstands shortly after Petraeus arrived in Afghanistan. The headline: “We’re Not Winning. It’s Not Worth It. Here’s How to Draw Down in Afghanistan.”
    The next night, following