From whence came the leak of two cables from the US Ambassador to Kabul, Karl Eikenberry, warning against an escalation in Afghanistan? It's not clear, though most of the speculation assumes that Eikenberry himself publicized it to shift the public debate away from how many more troops to send to whether to send more troops at all.

What to make of the news that the U.S. Ambassador in Kabul, Karl Eikenberry, is arguing against an increase in troops because of his doubts about Karzai? Eikenberry is presumably in a better position than any other American official to assess Karzai's government. And if you take it as a given that a successful COIN approach depends on a credible Afghan partner, his doubts have to carry a lot of weight.

With the Iraq war spinning out of control in mid-2005, retired Marine General James L. Jones spoke with his old friend Peter Pace, the incoming chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Jones, who is now Barack Obama's national security advisor, had been sounded out for the Joint Chiefs job but demurred. One reason: He felt that civilian leaders in Washington were warping the military planning process. "Military advice is being influenced on a political level," Jones warned Pace, according to Bob Woodward's book State of Denial. Jones's warning squared with other reports at the time that U.S. commanders in Iraq felt pressure to keep troop levels low. Faced with a growing Democratic onslaught, the Bush White House was all too determined to pretend that the war was under control.