Reply #4: Interesting article that looks favorably on Kerry's hearings - from Center for American Progress

[karynnj]

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry (D-MA) voiced his concern in a Boston Globe interview published this weekend that current U.S. policy in Afghanistan not be allowed to “continue<…> simply because it is there and in place.” Sen. Kerry also announced his intention to hold hearings reviewing Afghanistan strategy this spring. His proposal of greater congressional scrutiny offers a much-needed opportunity to more robustly examine assumptions underpinning America’s current policies in Afghanistan and the region, and their effectiveness at addressing our medium- and long-term strategic concerns.

These questions went largely unchallenged in the White House’s own review released last December and they need a more thorough public debate. Strategic drift and crisis management have characterized much of the Afghanistan war’s nine years to date. Breaking this pattern requires tackling the difficult questions of how to conduct a durable transition and establish a sustainable peace in Afghanistan now, rather than expecting a dramatic turn of fate three years into the future and leaving current policy trajectories unchanged.

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2011/02/kerry_transition.html