This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Wednesday, July 6, 2011. I'm Caleb Brown.

The relationship between our efforts in Afghanistan and Pakistan is largely counterintuitive,

and many myths about what we should do there never seem to go away.

Joshua Rovner is co-author of the Cato paper, Domino's on the Durand Line. We spoke last week.

How did you take President Obama's discussion of Afghanistan related to his earlier time in office, ramping up of troops there.

I'm cautiously optimistic.

I think that there were parts of the speech that I wasn't crazy about. He repeated the myth of a safe haven,

that the notion that if we leave precipitously, Al Qaeda will reestablish a safe haven in Afghanistan. I think that's wrong and I wish

that he hadn't brought that up in the speech. On the other hand the direction of

policy seems to be improving.

It does seem to be moving towards a more streamlined

counterterrorism mission.

There seems to be a move away from counterinsurgency

and state building, and I think this is all for the good.

Now it remains to be seen whether or not the implementation of this change lives up to this

promise that that's why I say I'm cautiously optimistic.

Was the killing of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan with relatively few guys?

Does that help fuel the argument to get out of Afghanistan?

I think it's an important inflection point in the war against al-Qaeda.

Osama bin Laden was a very important and unique figure in the history of Al Qaeda.

He was this enormously charismatic individual with a lot of personal resources that he could inject into Al Qaeda's fight.

Now that he's gone, the United States has a real opportunity to reconsider just what it's

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