Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) cut through the pleasantries. How can Ambassador Richard Holbrooke be sure that the troop buildup in Afghanistan wouldn’t “escalate, rather than diminish the threat” by pushing insurgents eastward into Pakistan?

If this were the Bush administration — and Peter Feaver can disagree with me here — an emissary would have denied Feingold’s premise. Holbrooke didn’t. “The additional amount of American troops, particularly if they’re successful, could end up creating pressure” on Pakistan that could lead to “additional instability.” During the administration’s strategy review, he continued, he raised that prospect with the White House, “and I was not alone in raising it.” At Central Command, Gen. David Petraeus is “well aware” of the risks of using a NATO hammer against the insurgents without a Pakistani anvil to strike against, and so the administration is having “very intense discussions with the Pakistani Army so they’re prepared this time as they were not prepared in 2002″ when the Taliban and al-Qaeda, driven out of Kabul, Kandahar and then Tora Bora, flooded into the Pakistani tribal areas.

Feingold continued: are you sure the build-up won’t be counterproductive?

“No,” Holbrooke said. “I am only sure that we are aware of the problem” and so are the Pakistanis. Indeed, the current Pakistani military offensive will probably have the effect, Holbrooke said, of driving insurgents back to the border area with Afghanistan, so the United States has to be seized by the problem. “We’re aware of the consequences,” Holbrooke said, which was “not true seven years ago.”

Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), chairman of the hearing, called it an “honest answer.”