Or any other country. But we did, and we are now committed to keeping our illegitimate solution in power.
We all know how we would feel if China inserted itself In US politics to keep some party in power to protect their national interest of preventing the default on our debt to them or adoption of expensive programs that made that default more likely. Yet somehow we cannot grasp that others look at our interventions in the same way. Hell, maybe China would indeed save us from our own foolishness, but even the best external program forced on some nation is worse than the worst internal program the adopt on their own.
There is no easy or sure answer to this, but there are smart fundamental parameters that we routinely violate, usually to our chagrin.
There are viable models out there that can guide our actions. A constitution in Lebanon that guarantees roles and percentages of seats by critical interest group. A US constitution that keeps any one branch of power from becoming to strong, and a bill of rights that protects the populace from the government, and ensures that the government stays in line for fear of an informed and armed populace.
COIN doctrine is rooted in Colonial and Cold War control of others. It needs updated to recognize a greater neutrality on the part of those who deign to intervene in the governance of others. Similarly the U.S. is grown too used to controlling others with various tools of statecraft, and is therefore frustrated by the ineffectiveness of those tools on controlling non-state entities. Another area that needs updating.
But the real bottom line is, what do we lose by attempting to reconcile the parties and forcing them to share governance within the constraints of a new constitution under the oversight of the coalition until they prove they can play nice? Isn't 10 years of spinning our wheels enough? At the end of the day the Taliban are not and never were an enemy of the U.S.; and it is the Pashtun people, not the governments of Afghanistan or Pakistan that grant sanctuary to AQ. We just need to refocus a bit.
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