Afghanistan Is Doing Better Than You Think by Michael O’Hanlon, Politico
In the minds of most Americans—and perhaps most members of Congress, too—the war in Afghanistan is already long since lost. Spasms of violence like Thursday’s attack on the Serena Hotel in Kabul, a popular haunt for Western expatriates, only seem to underscore the country’s ongoing fragility after more than 12 years of frustrating, grinding conflict. And periodic anti-American eruptions from Hamid Karzai, Afghanistan’s often difficult president, have made it harder still to persuade the U.S. public that things here are better than they seem from afar.
The bottom line is this: There are some areas of particular concern in Afghanistan—no question. I’ve just spent a week there, on a trip sponsored by the U.S. military, after many previous such trips in the past, and it’s still very much a land at war. But the overall military picture is fairly good. Afghan forces now constitute 85 percent of all coalition forces, lead 95 percent of all operations and take more than 95 percent of all coalition casualties, according to U.S. and NATO figures—yet the enemy is not gaining momentum. And as Afghans prepare to go to the polls to elect Karzai’s successor in coming weeks, and as a new fighting season begins, with NATO forces two-thirds of the way through their drawdown, Afghanistan is doing far better than most critics imagine. A clockwise sweep of the country, starting with Kabul in the country’s central/eastern region, shows why…