They're Beating Us on Both Screens

It's outside his normal bailiwick, but I think Paul Krugman's analysis of our twin failures in Iraq and Afghanistan is likely right. We don't have nearly the requisite level of resources to succeed in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Afghanistan is not, however, yet as bad as Iraq and it's possible that if we left Iraq then we'd have enough manpower to succeed in Afghanistan -- especially when you consider that we're not ally-less in Afghanistan, and one can imagine that if we agree to do more there we might also be able to secure additional assistance. Insisting on maintaining anything resembling our current commitment to Iraq, however, is just going to guarantee failure in Afghanistan without producing anything useful in Iraq.