The launch of Operation Moshtarak is a big moment in the Afghan conflict. Brigadier James Cowan, commander of British forces in Helmand, believes it will mark the beginning of the end of the insurgency. At the very least it is a test of whether Afghan forces can shoulder their share of the burden of trying to make their country peaceful and safe.
Afghanistan is not Iraq and the comparison to the successful troop surge in Iraq is not perfect. But the evidence is that these surges work; even critics would surely acknowledge that bold moves were needed to take what had become a war of attrition into a new phase.
True, the strategy of warning the enemy in advance must rank among the strangest of