Capitol Hill Wants to Cash Out on COIN?

The Washington Post ran a story on Sunday's front page entitled, Lawmakers Push for a New Afghan Strategy.

It's something I wrote about last week ($$) -- the consensus that is building among senators that regardless of the initial size of the troop draw down come July, President Obama and Co. need to come up with a sharp shift in strategy that entails a far smaller footprint in Afghanistan.

It's not just the usual suspects, either. While the liberal and conservative wings of both parties have their issues ($$) with the war, some of the strongest calls for a change of course are coming from the middle -- folks like Richard Lugar, R-Ind., Bob Corker, R-Tenn., and Jim Webb, D-Va.

Coming on the heels of an extensively researched report from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee majority staff, which raises fundamental questions about the effectiveness of aid work in conflict zones, the critiques during last week's Senate hearings seem to point to a hardening on Capitol Hill against the whole concept of COIN -- the counterinsurgency strategy the military is employing in Afghanistan, with Obama's blessing.