Bob Kagan weighs in on Obama's speech:

Hats off to President Obama for making a gutsy and correct decision on Afghanistan....

It is also evidence that the president is pragmatic in the best sense of the word. He and his key advisers, such as Richard Holbrooke, understand that better and more effective government in Afghanistan is a key to the successful defense of American security. Self-proclaimed “realists” argue, as always, that the pragmatic course is to pull back in Afghanistan. But President Obama recognizes in Afghanistan what the previous administration only belatedly recognized in Iraq: that the only way out is forward.

Kagan has some criticism for the president, too, but today the overwhelming sense is one of relief -- that Obama has stepped into the breach and claimed this fight as his own, and that he's set U.S. forces on the path to victory.

Read the whole thing here.