“This is Western military thinking which is totally irrelevant to Afghanistan,” says Marc Sageman, a former CIA operative in the region now with the Washington-based Foreign Policy Research Institute. “You can pacify Kandahar and you’ll still lose the war because Afghanistan remains a highly decentralized society, and in the countryside, the Kabul government has little legitimacy.”…

“If you win in Kandahar it will have a major effect throughout the south. If Kandahar flourishes, other things will flourish. This is an iconic place for the Pashtun psyche,” the British commander of NATO forces in the south, Maj. Gen. Nick Carter, told reporters recently. In other words, the domino theory, Afghan-style.

Others argue the focus on Kandahar is diverting troops and resources from other areas of the country where the insurgents are making significant gains, that the war, according to some on-the-ground U.S. officers, must be fought village by village, valley by valley.