Madhu ...
"Anyway, the problems all started with this bit of conventional wisdom: 'we abandoned Afghanistan and look what happened.' Uh, no. We were there on and off. I can see why people don't like to talk about it, though."
I don't believe that "being there on and off" quite constitutes a viable response. Nor do I proscribe to conventional wisdom very often. It is not that we abandon Afghanistan. It is that we helped to create a power vacuum and then did nothing to help fill it with a government that would be friendly to us. I would argue we did the exact same thing in the early days after the Iraqi invasion for very similar reasons. We believe that the population of the country should govern itself. We provided them the opportunity. They fell on their face. I am not sure we have learned anything. In Libya we helped topple a dictator and are pretty much leaving the people to work this out on their own. My gut reaction is that it will not end up much better than Iraq, France First Republic, Yugoslavia or maybe even Egypt. Countries that have had a strong government who have suppressed internal issues for years who suddenly find themselves controlling their own destinies do not have the values or the cultural systems to be able to deal with that.
A strong military can mediate that although most Westerners see that as a bad thing. Thailand has been working thought this for years, coup after coup, but they are getting closer to a functioning democracy every time.
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