EDITORIAL: "The Afghan Panic," Wall Street Journal, 3 September 2009.

OPINION: "How to Win in Afghanistan," by Max Boot, Wall Street Journal, 3 September 2009.

OPINION: "A Stable Pakistan Needs a Stable Afghanistan," by Frederick W. Kagan, Wall Street Journal,

The WSJ asks if Obama "has the nerve of his predecessor to withstand a Washington panic." That gives too much credit to Bush. His administration fought much needed changes in our approach in Iraq for years before finally getting religion after the 2006 midterms. Bush deserved a panic and didn't change until he got one.

Not a useful editorial.

Boot does better tackling Will's lets-pull-out-now-column, by noting that we are not interpreted by Afghanis as the second coming of the Sovs and that the Taliban's Achilles' heel is their lack of popular support. Two good rebuttals to the panic argument.

Kagan makes a few good points on the requirement to fight the Taliban on both sides of the border, but says little else worth reading here.

In sum, a fairly unimaginative lot, which helped trigger my recent WPR rant.