DURING THE LAST FEW DAYS the administration has been coming under increasing pressure to step up its war efforts against the Taliban in Afghanistan. In yesterday’s Washington Post, William Kristol wrote that the United States would need significant ground troops to unseat the Taliban and Charles Krauthammer suggested that it was time to turn to the old Powell Doctrine of overwhelming force. On Sunday Sen. John McCain said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” that “we’re going to have to put troops on the ground. We’re going to have to put them in force. And although they will not be permanent, they are going to have to be very, very significant.”

Defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s reaction, when asked about the Kristol and Krauthammer op-eds yesterday, was to tell reporters that “it’s helpful for people to write articles like that.”