I have just returned from Afghanistan, and here is what I have concluded.

America has put its emphasis on establishing a central government based in Kabul as the dominant authority in Afghanistan, something no one - foreign or Afghan - has been able to do for centuries.

Rather than lack of "boots on the ground," victory is being turned into defeat by the insistence on centralized power. That takes the form of a grandiose plan to train and equip a 135,000-man National Army. "It won't work," I sadly told a U.S. general who briefed me in Afghanistan over the recess. "This plan will fail."

The general could not fathom how his plan, based on centralizing power in Kabul, was totally unworkable. I predicted all the militias and ethnic and provincial power brokers left out of the general's plan soon would be hired on by the drug cartels and Taliban fanatics. The situation, I cautioned, would worsen, not improve.

Here's how we can win instead.

Economic hope produced the American Revolution. Economic hopelessness delivered the French Revolution. Demagogues, not democrats, will hallmark the worsening economic crisis.

The potential for political turmoil is vast. Among the populated continents, only Australia has a chance of avoiding serious violence. We in the West stand at the brink of a terrible global struggle. Our response has been to fight among ourselves.

The order that diplomats adore is crumbling.

The European Union faces its first existential crisis. The EU worked well in the good times, when dissenting voices could be bought off, but worsening hard times threaten to knock it apart.

Half of Europe is broke (but still putting on the dog), while the other half tries to shun its spendthrift neighbors. Not long ago, the Europeans smugly lectured the US on our financial incompetence. Now it looks like their mistakes were worse.

Greed is universal. But it's especially dangerous when masked by self-righteousness. European financial managers and investors were at least as greedy as our worst Wall Street wizards. They just fell for different -- and even bigger, even worse -- scams.

How appropriate that Barack Hussein Obama featured Aretha Franklin in his inaugural festivities since her signature song is "Respect."  Literally from the moment she finished belting out "My Country Tis of Thee" on January 20, the new President has been conveying his "respect" the Moslem world.  Unfortunately, the way he practices it seems to be spelled S.U.B.M.I.S.S.I.O.N.

Several observers have noted in recent days that Mr. Obama's outreach to the Moslem world is not only defensive and apologetic.  It explicitly embraces a narrative that is factually erroneous and deprecating to his own country.

What is really worrying is that Mr. Obama's actions and rhetoric are almost certainly being perceived by his target audience as evidence not of respect but of subservience-- precisely what Islam (the word "islam" literally means "submission" in Arabic) requires of all of us, Moslems and non-Moslems, alike.  

I don't suppose this  will get much coverage in the States as the news is so good.  No, the news is unbelievable.  

Something didn't happen in Al  Anbar Province, Iraq today, Saturday January 31.

Once the most violent and most dangerous places on earth, no suicide vest bomber detonated killing dozens of voters.  

No suicide truck bomber drove into a polling place collapsing the  building and killing and injuring over 100.

No Marine was in a firefight engaging an Al Qaeda terrorist trying to disrupt democracy.

What did happen was Anbar Sunnis  came out in their tens of thousands to vote in the first free election of their lives.
 

Barack Hussein Obama is a beguiling but confounding figure. As he said of himself in "The Audacity of Hope," "I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views."

It is indeed audacious that he should proclaim this consciously disingenuous attribute. And as one reads his inaugural address, it is hard not to conclude that it was crafted shrewdly to perpetuate such confusion.

Run-of-the-mill politicians try to hide their duplicity. Only the most gifted of that profession brag that they intend to confound and confuse the public.

And it is working. Many of my fellow conservative commentators are embarrassingly eager to search Obama's words, groveling for hopeful signs that he is not a radical intent on changing the face and nature of our republic.