Victor Davis Hanson

As usual, VDH spouts a lot of conventional wisdom that is not entirely correct.
For one thing, he apparently belives that the elections in Afghanistan are showing that Afghanistan is creating a real democracy, and that they prove wrong those who said:
"They said the country had descended into rule by warlords, and called the very idea of scheduled voting a laughable notion."

The possibility that the elections were rigged or that to a great extent, the way people voted was directed by their warlords:
"And there are those who will be happy to help - notably warlords who have already been reported using their militias to ensure local people vote in the required fashion."

He also gives the impression that Afghanistan has suddenly gone out of the media spotlight now that the elections have proven the medai wrong.
Actually, Afghanistan went out of the spotlight shortly after the fall ofthe Taluban in 2001, and only a few people have commented on it since.

Hanson also says: "Instead, Westerners simply now assume that there was never any controversy, but rather a general consensus that Afghanistan is a "good thing""

With the implication that many of the people who condemn the war in Iraq but who support the one in Afghanistan didn't initially support the war in afghanistan and are now trying to get on the train.

I don't know about everyone, but I know that I supported going to war in Afghanistan in 2001, although I never shared the beleif that it would turn into a democracy and I ahev always been skeptical of reports that Afghanistan is becoming a free nation. In fact, I got some people angry at me for supporting the war.
I will admit, though, that at one point I opposed bombing, preferring that we put in ground troops, because of the fear of massive starvation (a fear that did not materialize; I should have been more skeptical); however, unlike some of the leftists, I did not see the possibility of massive starvation from bombing as a reason to simply let the Taliban stay in power and to be nice and charitable. We lost lives, damnit, and we needed to make an example of those who were sheltering bin Laden.

In any case, there were several people who supported going into Afghanistan who later turned against going to war in Iraq. And I wager that a good number of those opposed to Afghanistan have not changed their tune, so Mr. Hanson's implication is wrong.

Also, any attempts to prove the success of Iraq based on the "People doubted we could win in Afghanistan, too" - type arguments falter on the grounds that Afghanistan doesn't seem to be worsening in the same way as Iraq.

A look at fatality metrics suggests that in Afghanistan a steady average of around 45 troops a year are being killed. I can try to crunch the numbers month-by-month later (click on the "+" signs for a day-by-day dropdown count of deaths) to see if there were any spots at which things seemed temporarily to go downhill, but I doubt there were.

On the other hand, in Iraq the rate at which soldiers are killed has kept going up.
Looking at total coalition fatalities, American fatalities, coalition hostile fatalities (my preferred metric), or whatever metric shows a marked increase in fatalities over time. This first started in October 2003, when the monthly hostile fatalities broke 30, and only went below once (February 2004, with 16, probably largely because we pulled all our troops back into their bases) and increased again after April, at which point monthly hostile fatalities never went below 40, and then in August, after which monthly fatalities never went below 58.

I'm sorry if I seem pessimistic, but very little irks me more than Utopian triumphalism of any stripe, including Messianic Democratism.