AP Photo

Obama's plan for Afghanistan assumes stability Iraq. That's the kind of excessive optimism that got Bush in trouble

In dismissing General David McKiernan, the top US and Nato commander in Afghanistan, and replacing him with Lieutenant General Stanley McChrystal, a former Joint Special Operations Command chief, President Barack Obama has tipped the balance dramatically in favour of counterinsurgency tactics, as violence there reaches the highest levels since the war began in 2001.

Forces under McChrystal's command were credited with tracking down and killing Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the head of al-Qaida in Iraq, in 2006. Defence secretary Robert Gates couldn't have said it better: the military operation in Afghanistan needed "fresh...