Iran is a tough question for me. There was a commentary in the Washington Post yesterday that made the point if we ignore them now, what will we do when they actualy get nukes and start throwing their weight around?
As for Afghanistan, I have to think the only reason Obama is doing what he is doing there is to protect himself against republican attacks. Obviously, trying to turn the country into Switzerland is a fool's errand that will cost us billions of dollars and thousands of soldiers' lives. The overriding problem we face is not that people support the taliban. It's that as bad as they know the taliban is, the Karzai government is worse. Kind of like the argument for voting republican in this country.
And has anyone asked the question how we were able to kick the taliban out when they controlled the entire country, using a handful of special ops guys, but now 100,000 troops are not enough? The answer is we collaborated with local tribes and militias and empowered them. Now, instead of doing theobvious thing and continuing that policy, we are engaged in this unending task of trying to creat and prop up a central government. Our State Department thinks using local militias will lead to warlords and undermine the government. Who gives a f*ck? We are already sending our troops out to get killed to support one of the most corrupt governments in the area, one that has zero popular support, all in the name of nation-building.
