Is Afghanistan worth it?
Thursday, September 9, 2010 at 12:07AM 
Bret Stephens column in WSJ by way of WPR's Media Roundup.
Solid piece that made me covetous of its argument the moment I read it. Nicely done.
The guy navigates some dicey terrain:
It's never easy to point out that, in the scale of American military sacrifice, Afghanistan does not figure large. But acknowledging a historical fact does nothing to belittle the cost the war has exacted on America's soldiers and their families: It merely offers some mental ballast to offset the swelling panic. What does belittle the sacrifice—both for those who have fallen and those who fight—is to suggest that the war is nothing but a misbegotten errand in a godforsaken land.
And then lays down the conservative case with great intelligence:
For conservatives in particular, the answer ought to entail notions of consistency and responsibility. Consistency, in the sense of supporting a counterinsurgency strategy for Afghanistan similar to the one conservatives urged (and that worked) for Iraq after the abject failure of the "light footprint" approach advocated by Joe Biden. Responsibility, in the sense of keeping faith with those to whom we make commitments.
This is not just a moral argument: The U.S. cannot remain a superpower if the suspicion takes root that we are a feckless nation that can be stampeded into surrender by a domestic caucus of defeatists. Allies or would-be allies will make their own calculations and hedge their bets. Why should we be surprised that this is precisely what Pakistan has done vis-a-vis the Taliban? It's not as if the U.S. hasn't abandoned that corner of the world before to its furies.
How a feckless America is perceived by its friends is equally material to how we are perceived by our enemies. In his 1996 fatwa declaring war on the U.S., Osama bin Laden took note of American withdrawals from Beirut in 1983 and Mogadishu a decade later. "When tens of your soldiers were killed in minor battles and one American pilot was dragged through the streets . . . you withdrew, the extent of your impotence and weakness became very clear." Is it the new conservative wisdom to prove bin Laden's point (one that the hard men in Tehran undoubtedly share), only on a vastly greater scale?
Nor does it seem especially conservative to subscribe to the non sequitur that because Hamid Karzai is not George Washington our efforts in Afghanistan will be of no avail. Utopia is a liberal temptation; conservatism is comfortable with the good enough. In Afghanistan that would mean a run-of-the-mill Third World country that can fend for itself, menaces nobody and is an updated version of what the country was in the 1960s. That's a reminder that Afghan history does not ineluctably condemn it to chaos or fanaticism. It's also a reminder that the measure of success in Afghanistan isn't whether we create a new Switzerland, but whether we avoid another South Vietnam.
Nothing to add, save that I admire the logic and the writing.
Reader Comments (3)
The US will morph into a light footprint War faction in Afghanistan.
OBL thinks he's still winning when you spend billions every week with the heavy footprint.
Bret has a need to play a blame game here( liberals= failure) but the The Taliban were defeated in 2002.Someone then took a nap.
such a beautiful lady i have to say middle eastern women are probably the prettest ones in the world
when i saw the lady.. i said wow, she is beautiful. I hope she is ok