I'm hopeful because he put an 18-month limit on it... but in my cynicism, I wonder if that will be stuck to. Mostly I'm concerned that this is merely an escalation against a variety of different factions of people who really just want occupying forces OUT, not the single entity that the media conveniently labels "Taliban". Plus, I don't see how this won't bleed further into Pakistan, which is already messy and looks to grow worse with any increase in troops in the vicinity.