A Win
Victory makes everything look different.

November 13, 2001 3:55 p.m.

ictory makes everything look different.

What appears to be the Northern Alliance's extraordinary rout of the Taliban in the north and west may be temporary, as the Afghan way of war sometimes features armies running away in headlong retreat, then running right back again as the other side, in turn, runs away in headlong retreat.

But be that as it may, you can feel the forces beneath the international status quo buckling a bit, as the application of American power turns the world a little plastic, makes possible fundamental reorderings that would have been unthinkable otherwise.

What is Saddam thinking right now as he sits in Baghdad, perhaps a marked man? The mullahs of Iran, as they sit above a powder keg of domestic unrest? Yasser Arafat, as he watches what a dollop of American power has wrought in Afghanistan?

What they should be thinking is, "Oh, s---," and if the U.S. plays to that fear — increasing and manipulating it — we will able to effect serious change in the Middle East.

The last couple days have been a vindication of the strategic shift the administration made in response to the failure of its initial strategy, of bombing the south in hopes of prompting Pashtun defections. Instead, as NR had urged for weeks, the administration began killing Taliban troops in the north, with delightful results. There is no substitute for destroying your enemies.

There's also no substitute for taking and holding ground. Relying on the Northern Alliance to do it was a risk, as I wrote last week, but once we began to bomb Taliban troops in earnest and arm the Northern Alliance, there was little doubt about the ultimate result (although I, of course, had no idea how quickly things would work out in the north).

R.W. Apple's piece in the New York Times about how Afghanistan could be another Vietnam looked silly at the time, but seems positively ridiculous now.

Of course, there is much work to be done. In most wars, we kill people to take territory. In this war, we are taking territory to kill people — the Taliban military and leadership, and Osama bin Laden.

That goal may still be months — or even longer — away. That goal may yet take an appreciable American force on the ground. But it is now closer, and that is a wonderful thing.