Fred Kagan had an excellent piece over the weekend in the Wall Street Journal on how important the fate of the Afghan war is to the fate of Pakistan. The beginning of the piece got to another important point. Critics of the war airily say we are losing and therefore conclude, sweepingly, that it’s simply an un-winnable war. But details matter. As was the case in Iraq prior to the surge, we are doing better in the places where we’ve had the proper resources and tactics. That should point to the way to improving our overall effort — again, as it did in Iraq. Instead, we are getting a right-left pincer movement of despair. Anyway, here’s Kagan:

Winning the war in Afghanistan—creating a stable and legitimate Afghan state that can control its territory—will be difficult. The insurgency has grown in the past few years while the government’s legitimacy has declined. It remains unclear how the recent presidential elections will affect this situation.
Trying to win in Afghanistan is not a fool’s errand, however. Where coalition forces have conducted properly resourced counterinsurgency operations in areas such as Khowst, Wardak, Lowgar, Konar and Nangarhar Provinces in the eastern part of the country, they have succeeded despite the legendary xenophobia of the Pashtuns.
Poorly designed operations in Helmand Province have not led to success. Badly under-resourced efforts in other southern and western provinces, most notably Kandahar, have also failed. Can well-designed and properly-resourced operations succeed? There are no guarantees in war, but there is good reason to think they can. Given the importance of this theater to the stability of a critical and restive region, that is reason enough to try.