The experts are starting to scream about Afghanistan

I know it's "the other war," but we need to pay attention to Afghanistan/Pakistan. Yesterday we learned that Pakistan was largely ending its military efforts along its tribal border.

Today we learn that the Taleban is extending its attacks and reach to the areas just around Kabul.

If the Taleban is operating around Kabul, that means they have significant support there, and that is new support.

As the commanders in Afghanistan are acutely aware, there are no troops ready to surge into Afghanistan, so they're having to conduct a "soft" counterinsurgency. Significant numbers of Taleban and foreign fighters continue to be killed in the south and along the border areas, but the "soft" part of the counterinsurgency, swaying the populous into the government camp, is slowly failing as Karzai's government stagnates.

(The real shame of this is that Afghanistan is a counterinsurgency that we could actually win if the resources weren't being sucked into Iraq.

Unlike the complex sectarian civil war in Iraq, Afghanistan is a relatively simple one sided insurgency where the population started on the US side of the midline. But slowly, that support is slipping away.)