Yea, after 16 years we wouldn’t want to be hasty or anything.
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Well we surely wouldn’t want to leave it like we did Iraq. And we certainly wouldn’t want to leave a void like the Soviet withdrawal of Afghanistan did that allowed for the planning of 9-11.
We could have left by now if obama had done things the right way and let us go ahead and win the war.
It may sound counter intuitive, but the best hope for Afghanistan is something like a tamed Taliban.
As it is now, Afghanistan is still tribalistic. If some organization like the Taliban took over, then it could become a nation that was ruled by a government felt to be legitimate by the majority of Afghanis.
As it is you have a few cosmopolitan elites in Kabul who support the government there, that pretty much all other Afghanis oppose.
Of course if Afghanistan became a nation ruled by a Jihadist government like Iran, then it would be quite problematic and there is no guarantee that even if we could influence the Taliban leaders to moderate their views, that at some future time the radical Jihadists wouldn't take over like they did in Iran.
So we're screwed three ways: leave now and create a vacuum for Jihadis, stay there forever playing whack-a-mole, or help to create a moderate Islamic state that at any point could become another Iran.
“We could have left by now if obama had done things the right way and let us go ahead and win the war.”
New rule of engagement: If you are in front of me and you have a weapon, I will kill you and leave your corpse for the buzzards to dispose of and I don’t care if you are 6 or 60.