Afghanistan's Importance

The blogger formerly known as Calpundit raises the Afghanistan issue, with the clear implication that Afghanistan is the true "War on Terror" with Iraq as a sideshow. For the record, I think that cat's out of the bag. Regular readers know that for months now we've seen evidence that al-Qaeda has used the lull in our attention to spread its tendrils into different parts of the world, uniting regional groups from Algeria to Turkey behind a common al-Qaeda inspired agenda with Bin Laden's organization as a dispersed central nexus. I don't think Afghanistan is a vital core of this, despite the presence there of top leadership. Afghanistan and Iraq are now both fronts in the War on Terror, as are a lot of other places.