Closer To A Progressive Consensus On Afghanistan?

I mused earlier about how establishing a national consensus on the Afghanistan might still be possible. As it turns out, Jason Rosenbaum, one of the progressive forces behind Get Afghanistan Right, read Les Gelb’s op-ed in The New York Times and noted approvingly that Gelb, a founder of the National Security Network — which doesn’t always see eye to eye with Get Afghanistan Right — wrote something he could embrace. Jason emailed me:

I would agree with a lot of what Gelb said. It’s particularly noteworthy that Gelb has proposed a timeline of three years for a possible withdrawal, which I feel is a key component of a plan to start splitting the Taliban from Al-Qaeda, jump-starting Afghan self-governance, and forming a true coalition government. Our goal with regard to Afghanistan should be to keep America safe, and I think Gelb is starting to outline a policy that could protect our security interests without a commitment of 30,000 or 100,000 ground troops.