Gen. David Petraeus, the new head of U.S. Central Command, tells the BBC that what's been done in Afghanistan hasn't worked.
The general says he is giving much thought to how strategy towards Afghanistan and Pakistan - and the two countries are symbiotically linked - needs to be revised.
Since many in Washington credit him with rescuing the situation in Iraq - from one where insurgent attacks peaked at 180 per day in June 2007 to one where there are around 25 each day now - the pressure to find some new answers to the Afghan imbroglio is, to put it mildly, intense.
Gen Petraeus is also credited with revising US counter-insurgency doctrine, making its primary objective "securing the population".
This idea can be applied in Afghanistan. Indeed it can be argued that it already has been, with the alliance's adoption of an "ink spot" strategy of trying to create safe areas for pro-Afghan government people to live and operate.
The problem is, it hasn't worked yet.
'Bedrock'
So the Afghan situation begs the question: does the country need its own "surge", extra troops to allow the creation of larger "safe areas"?
Or will the historic hatred of foreigners exhibited by rural Pashtuns, the bedrock of Taleban support, simply mean that sending in more troops exacerbates the rural revolt?
Another Iraqi approach that is already being used on a limited scale in Afghanistan but may be expanded there is the use of "Concerned Local Citizens" or Awakening Councils - a tactic that essentially consists of hiring gunmen away from the insurgency.
There are plenty of precedents for this in Afghanistan - and in fact the Soviet army had some success with this tactic in the 1980s - but Gen Petraeus will need to remember the old frontier saying that you can rent an Afghan but not buy him.