The New York Times reports that senior administration officials are divided on whether to send more troops to Afghanistan. In brief, Hillary/Holbrooke in favor; Gates trending in favor; Biden against. This simply confirms my own prejudices—I have a high opinion of Hillary Clinton, Dick Holbrooke, and Bob Gates. Biden? Not so much. He should really be known as “Three Iraqs” Biden, since he was the author or co-author of an outlandish scheme to try to end the fighting in Iraq by splitting the country into three, notwithstanding the deep-rooted antipathy to such a project from most Iraqis. That alone should have destroyed his reputation as a foreign-policy “wise man.” Yet Obama seemed to fall for his reputation when he chose Biden as his VP. At least Obama was smart enough to ignore Biden earlier this year when he decided to send more troops to Afghanistan; I hope he is equally wise now that he faces a similar debate.

Here’s one idea that Obama should embrace: military historian Mark Moyar’s suggestion of assigning American officers and NCOs to command Afghan army units. This is an idea based on long-standing practice; Moyar mentions the precedent of the U.S. in the Philippines and the Brits in Malaya, but there are countless other examples, the most famous being the Gurkhas. This is an ingenuous idea for fielding much bigger Afghan security forces in a hurry, breaking one of the chief bottlenecks, which is lack of qualified indigenous officers.

It won’t obviate the need for more U.S. troops, but it will bring closer the day when we can start drawing down our forces in Afghanistan as we are in Iraq—as a consequence of winning not losing.