This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Friday, March 27, 2009.

I'm Caleb Brown.

Barack Obama has unveiled his plan for the war in Afghanistan taking a more regional approach

than the US has in the past.

Aido Institute Foreign Policy analyst Malu Innocence says it's a critical step in the right direction.

But stabilizing Afghanistan and fighting an insurgency can't be effectively won while killing

the livelihoods of so many Afghan farmers by destroying opium poppy.

Her forthcoming paper, Pakistan and the future of U.S US policy will be released by the

Cato Institute next month. Well we shouldn't be too surprised with Barack Obama's

plan to refocus America's efforts toward the war in Afghanistan and its

blowback effects and spilling over into neighboring Pakistan.

In fact, during the presidential campaign Barack Obama was unequivocal in his commitment to go after Al Qaeda and the Taliban and

argued that unfortunately his predecessors neglect

of the region is why U.S. and NATO forces are having such trouble there today.

Just this week, Barack Obama outlined a plan to essentially forge a diplomatic cooperation with

neighboring countries, also to train Afghan forces, and to refocus our efforts not simply on the national government,

on the central government in Kabul, but also to focus more on the local and provincial levels

to bring security to these far-flung provinces.

These are steps in the right direction,

and they're all critical to ensure

that we can at least stabilize this war-ravaged nation

and to bring some semblance of stability

...