The Week

• Newt Gingrich’s aides seem to be leaving him for a younger, more attractive candidate.

• American forces have routed the Taliban in its traditional strongholds in Kandahar and Helmand provinces in the south over the last year. This is the fruit of the surge of 30,000 additional troops that President Obama ordered in 2009. Astonishingly, the White House is now debating whether to hand these gains back to the Taliban with a large, premature troop withdrawal beginning next month. Obama will probably feel obliged to bring out some troops, since he foolishly promised to begin a drawdown in July 2011. But it would be a mistake to make it more than symbolic. The Taliban is trying to fight its way back, with little success so far. If we repel them, we will have a chance to consolidate our gains. The public is understandably fatigued with the war. As critics point out, it has lasted ten years. But for much of that period we were not heavily engaged. The current counterinsurgency campaign got fully under way only last year. Afghanistan will always be a mess of a country. But it need not be governed or partially controlled by Islamic militants allied with international terrorists. President Obama should see through what he began.