Afghanistan: A New Balance

The long-awaited battle for Kandahar Province has begun and Time’s Jason Motlagh is there, at the heart of the fight in the same Zhari district where I embedded last April. There is a larger story here, about a change in emphasis by General David Petraeus, from counterinsurgency toward counterterrorism, that Fred Kaplan laid out here [...]

In the Arena

Afghanistan is not Anbar

The latest news coming out of Afghanistan is not good. There is likely to be a second round of voting in the presidential race, which will keep the government in flux and U.S. troops preoccupied for at least another month–and the results of any election will be questioned because of the semi-successful Taliban suppression of [...]