The administration of services and justice is not going well, mainly because the Afghan government, from top to bottom, is riddled with corruption. President Hamid Karzai’s power base is essentially a vast patronage network, much of it criminal. As long as this is so, and perceived to be so, there will be a vacuum of authority and legitimacy that the Taliban can fill. In fact, in many parts of southern Afghanistan, Taliban courts and shadow structures of governance are seen as fairer and more efficient than the official institutions. (Part of this is ethnic as well; the Taliban are Pashtun, as are most southerners.)…

The strictly military operations are going well, better than anyone might have predicted a couple of years ago—at least that part of the operations that General Allen is stressing: building up the Afghan army and police. But this assessment sidesteps the crucial question in a counterinsurgency campaign: Are the people being protected?

According to some unclassified charts that Allen gave the House committee, but which nobody brought up at the hearing, the verdict here is gloomy. Insurgents launched 350 successful attacks with homemade bombs just this past January—compared with fewer than 200 in December 2009, when Obama announced his new policy. Taliban suicide bombings also killed 80 percent more civilians in 2011 than in 2010. Yes, the Taliban are culpable, not the United States, NATO, or the Afghan government. But this is beside the point in a counterinsurgency campaign: The task is to protect the people, and we are seen as unsuccessful at doing that.