From the Left: Conservatism And Afghanistan

You may recall a time when conservatives believed in a strong defense, but also opposed using the military for open-ended nation-building efforts against amorphous enemies in failed states. The argument was that you cannot impose order and civilization on alien societies with foreign forces, that the occupying troops will become part of the problem after a while, that culture matters and not every country is ready for democracy or even a functioning central government. Intervention should be brief, and only undertaken under duress. This is George Will's classical conservative take on the utopian beliefs of the neocons in Afghanistan. As a general principle, it is solid. But in this case, the argument is almost comically persuasive. I mean: if you were to come up with a country least likely to be amenable to imperial improvement and edification, it would be hard to come up (outside much of Africa) with any place less propitious than Afghanistan, a tribal alien place with almost no record of central governance whatsoever. We also have historical precedent for imperial and neo-imperial failure: the British failed in Afghanistan over many decades; the Russian empire was defeated in Afghanistan in one. Does anyone believe that Russia would be stronger today by remaining in Afghanistan? Yes, the Taliban hosted al Qaeda, and we were right to evict them. But al Qaeda can move to many failed states, and we cannot occupy or civilize all of them. Moreover, the war is showing signs of becoming a self-licking ice-cream: the insurgency is now only united by opposition to foreign troops, we have pushed it into Pakistan thereby actually increasing the odds of an Islamist state that already has nukes getting even more unstable. And yet the calls for repeating what cannot work - because the war is too big to fail - remain.

Continue reading: http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/09...