Well-written article. The India/Pakistan sections seem especially spot on.
After thinking and reading a lot about Afghanistan in the past week, I still can’t wrap my head around the arguments for staying in Afghanistan in a material way any longer. The withdrawal bogeyman seems overblown to me, and it seems the question people think of is whether a post-US Afghanistan will be like Libya as you mentioned, or like Afghanistan at 9/11/2001. Whether it’s a destabilized regional problem state or a failed state that harbors terrorists plotting foreign attacks. But as you smartly pointed out, the reality is that truck-attack terrorism doesn’t need a home base to inflict casualties on foreign soil. So why is leaving Afghanistan so unthinkable?
For Americans, leaving Afghanistan seems especially scary since the last time we didn’t have troops in the country the Taliban harbored Al Qaeda and 9/11 happened. No one wants to roll the dice and see what happens, and I agree that “preventing the Taliban from taking over Afghanistan” sounds reasonable. But at what cost?
After billions of dollars, thousands of American lives, and tens of thousands of American wounded is it worth it? How many different permutations of troop levels and strategies (variations of the same) need to be tried before we throw in the towel? If an “endless game of whac-a-mole is the best we can hope for” then I say let’s stop playing.
P.S. My response is not meant to be a tear down of your article. I enjoyed reading it and value your insights. I think your article triggered my recent frustration on this topic and I just needed to write a few sentences!
