For all that the media focuses on ostensible Taliban achievements, they have not, in fact, taken or maintained control of any territory where forces - national and international - have been deployed to push back. Even in Helmand province, the insurgency's heart, the Taliban are on their back foot with the recent arrival of aggressively on-the-offence U.S. Marines, driving insurgents downwards to the Pakistan border, whence most came.A keyhole view is often favourable to the Taliban as the shadow-government in this district or that region. They get big splashes with increasing IED attacks and suicide bombings, especially now aimed at Kabul. That ratchets up the terror and discourages foreign investment but has not brought the Taliban any closer to regaining power. That, remember, is their objective - to drive out NATO, usurp or assassinate Karzai, shred the Constitution, dissolve Parliament and reimpose their puritanical dominion.
They are not remotely close to doing so.
Rosie DiManno looks at the Afghan War and likes what she sees.