Is America losing the war on terrorism?

Still others fault the administration for its political planning - or lack thereof - of a post-conflict Afghanistan. "Just defeating the Taliban militarily by itself will not be victory.... We need a different regime in Afghanistan," says James Steinberg, deputy national security adviser to President Clinton.

Zbigniew Brzezinski, national security adviser to President Carter, is concerned that the administration is switching goals. "When we started out, we were going to smash Al Qaeda and punish the Taliban. Now we seem to be getting engaged in an Afghan civil war, almost as an end in itself. That could be a quagmire."

Like many others, he says it is far too early to judge whether America is winning the war on terrorism or not. In World War II, American troops didn't win a decisive battle against the Japanese until six months into the fight and against the Nazis until 11 months.

The Pentagon, for its part, is satisfied with the campaign so far, says Rear Adm. John Stufflebeem, deputy director of operations of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. This week, the campaign intensified markedly, with saturation bombing of Taliban frontline positions north of the capital, Kabul, and outside of Mazar-e Sharif.

Airstrikes have damaged the Taliban's communications system to the point that field commanders have trouble summoning reinforcements, he said this week. "They are having extreme difficulty communicating one to the other."

The intensification is perhaps the "Round 2" that Mr. Kagan says is so needed.

US officials are now describing a new strategy of pairing US advisers with anti-Taliban forces on the ground. The advisers are expected to move with the forces of the Northern Alliance during any advance.

The Bush administration had at first held the alliance at arm's length, so as not to offend rival groups in the south who would be needed for an eventual coalition government. For the moment, though, military concerns appear to be trumping political ones.

On the home front, the anthrax attacks continue to puzzle authorities, as they try to discover how the fourth person to die - a stockroom worker in a New York City hospital - was exposed to anthrax spores in the first place. It's a worrisome issue for Americans: 53 percent of them say the government has not done enough to prepare for biological attack, according to the New York Times poll.

The growing criticism on all fronts must be of concern to the White House, says James Thurber, a political scientist at American University here. "The ultimate danger," he says, "is [that] the president becomes undermined and has no central core of authority to produce a solution or multiple solutions."

Page: 1 | 2