No Spring offensive by Taliban this year

AP:

The top military commander in the Mideast said Wednesday that he does not expect Taliban forces in Afghanistan to launch a spring offensive this year. If anything, he said, he sees the momentum continuing to swing in the direction of coalition forces.

"The spring offensive is going to be by our people, as they move out and take advantage of the situation that they helped create through their good works there in the fall of last year," Adm. William Fallon told the House Armed Services Committee.

The U.S. is sending another 3,200 Marines to Afghanistan, in part to stave off any uptick in violence that might come with the warmer weather.

Fallon said the influx of troops will give Gen. Dan McNeil, head of forces in Afghanistan, the "shot in the arm he needs to really go after the security, particularly in the south, where he intends to deploy those forces."

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Other reports have been less optimistic. I don't think the Taliban is capable of sustaining an offensive. It can probably launch a few raids and ambushes as it did last year. Most of those have been self destructive. The real problem in Afghanistan is that there is not a high enough force to space ratio to protect the people. More Afghan forces are needed as well as more allied support.

The Democrats still argue the false premise that the Iraq war was a distraction. In fact it was a distraction for al Qaeda forces who would otherwise have gone to Afghanistan while Saddam continued to menace the middle east. Iraq has been a strategic disaster for al Qaeda and the Democrats are too locked into their investment in defeat to admit it.