On the other hand, if he had done that, he would have been blamed for causing confidence in the Afghan government to collapse, leading to its fall. The scenes from Kabul are tragic and painful. Biden will be remembered for this, but in the end, these scenes would have played out for any president who made the call to draw down U.
The U. You suggest that, beginning with Iraq in , there were lessons to be learned and conversations to be had around restraint and creative, less costly policy options. Can you expand on that and provide some examples? The question we need to ask ourselves is did our costly nation-building efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan help very much here?
The answer on that is mixed at best. In short, the Iraq war did little good to advance U. Nation-building in Afghanistan was very costly in terms of lives lost and money spent, though it allowed us a base for counterterrorism there and in Pakistan. Less costly policy options will be those we try going forward. Again, offshore strategies, where we work with regional allies for surveillance, the use of limited strikes against terrorists of global reach, perhaps some special-operations forces for targeted missions against terrorists, and engagement with the Taliban to encourage it to control terrorists in its territory — these will all be critical elements of this policy.
Categories: Faculty , Top Stories. Media Contact Cheryl Walker walkercv wfu. WFU students get face to face with former Secretaries. We help media by facilitating interviews, connecting with faculty experts or providing interesting story ideas. Our team also offers a variety of communications resources for Wake Forest students, faculty and staff.
Wake Forest News. And, if the United States does need to intervene on foreign soil again, focus is the key. A member of the United Nations since , it boasts at least in theory the full panoply of government institutions at home and embassies abroad.
In view of this mixed reality, it is fair — indeed, vital — to ask whether Afghanistan, as currently configured, has the legs to keep going within the community of nation-states.
Afghanophiles, in whose number I count myself, typically claim the existence of a deep and real Afghan identity. They note that, whatever warts may appear on the face of the national body politic, Afghans continue to think of themselves as Afghans. The best evidence for that unified sentiment, they say, is the absence of separatist movements over the past three horrendous decades.
No other country had a worse last quarter of the 20th century than Afghanistan, and yet virtually there were no calls for its dissolution.
The anti-Marxist jihad was waged — so Afghan leaders proclaimed and expatriate observers believed — in the name first of Islam but then, emphatically, of the country as a whole. Likewise both the Taliban regime and that of Hamid Karzai present have operated as if Afghanistan were unified, both spatially and socially. And rather than become, like Texas, part of some grander enterprise, it risks going the dangerous way of quarrelsome post-Yugoslavia.
Consider its strands of DNA in turn:. Topography: Unlike rivers whose populations tend to be the same on both sides, mountains truly divide. The Hindu Kush mountains, running northeast to southwest and reaching 20, feet, not only split Afghanistan in half but also serve as the natural division between Central Asia and the Indian sub-continent.
Until no all-weather road linked south and north. Even in mild years, the Salang Pass is closed for days during winter. Thus Afghanistan, rather than being a topographical unit, in fact represents three separate fringe areas of three distinct Asian landmass segments. Ethnicity: Axiomatically a human crossroads, Afghanistan is left with the demographic legacy of many crossings.
Anti-Soviet resistance parties were ethnically based. So are the main political factions today. Kabul University has never been so ethnically tense. Whole sectors of local employees in embassies and ministries and the United Nations Assistance Mission to Afghanistan UNAMA are known to be the exclusive domain of this or that ethnic group.
And the fact that the Taliban are overwhelmingly Pashtun makes them more acceptable to their co-ethnics … and anathema to all others. You should receive an activation email shortly. Afghan Presidential Palace via Getty Images. Aug 20, Daron Acemoglu. Support High-Quality Commentary For more than 25 years, Project Syndicate has been guided by a simple credo: All people deserve access to a broad range of views by the world's foremost leaders and thinkers on the issues, events, and forces shaping their lives.
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