There are about 13,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Now that number is coming down to about 8,600. Yet from the growls n’ howls emitted by unrepentant neocons like Thomas Joscelyn of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, writing in the anti-Trump Dispatch—“No Deal Is Better Than a Bad Deal”—and Iranian-born Shay Khatiri, writing in the anti-Trump Bulwark—“Trump’s Afghanistan Deal: Surrender with Reparations”—as well as the Stimson Center’s Elizabeth Threlkeld, writing for Lawfare—"Reading Between the Lines of Afghan Agreements”—not to mention the editors of the National Review—"A Bad Taliban Deal” or the indefatigable Eli Lake at Bloomberg—"Why the Taliban Is Celebrating Trump’s Peace Plan”, one might think that those 13,000 troops were all that stood between us and the swarming hordes of Genghis Khan.1 Do you want another 9/11? Is that the plan?
Over at Slate, quasi-neocon Fred Kaplan writes more in sorrow than in anger, “The U.S.-Taliban Agreement Is Not a Peace Deal”:
Really, this is a deal allowing the United States to get out of Afghanistan. This is what President Donald Trump has wanted all along. Early in his term, then–Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis and then–National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster convinced Trump to give war another chance, arguing that their “new strategy” could produce “victory.” But the strategy wasn’t new; the terms of victory weren’t defined. And now, with a more pliant team of advisers, Trump is getting his way—and not without reason.
Not without reason indeed. As Fred pointed out earlier, the generals’ “new” strategy required Trump to increase the troop level left by Obama of, yes, about 8,600, to about 16,000. Yet under Obama a troop level of fully 100,000 failed to turn the trick. So how is a force 80% smaller supposed do the job?
The unrepentant neocons never wanted to “win” in Afghanistan any more than they wanted to win the Cold War. They only wanted “the struggle”, which they believed was an unbeatable vote-getter, that would keep them in power forever. They are groaning now because the withdrawal of troops of U.S. troops from around the world, occurring in uncertain, compulsive dribs and drabs, depending on Trump’s moods, but generally drifting downwards, carries with it the dangerous suggestion that we aren’t, in fact, in danger! Dangerous waters indeed for our neocons, who have lived on danger for decades, and now know no other food!
Afterwords
After championing the Afghan “War” (“Folly” is a much more appropriate term) for almost two decades, the Washington Post finally noticed the error of its ways late last year, running a “Pentagon Papers” style exposé of the horrible record of false promises, corruption, and lies that comprise the history of our longest war, without acknowledging that up until this point they had been among the leading aiders and abettors of this bloody folly, for which hypocrisy I lambasted them lustily.
Are we “abandoning” the Afghanis? Yes, we are. We are reneging on promises that never should have been made and never could be kept. In fact, we abandoned them long before, when the Obama administration reduced our troop commitment from 100,000 to less than 9,000.2 It is deeply unfortunate that President Obama agreed to a major effort in Afghanistan in the first place, and that, though he eventually lost his enthusiasm for that effort, he continued to push for similar interventions in other countries throughout his two terms—Syria being the last instance. Our modern, secular values are certainly “better” than the obscurantist, reactionary Islam that prevails in Afghanistan and many other parts of the Muslim world. But there is frequently nothing so irrelevant as foreign wisdom, however valid it may be.
UPDATE
Meanwhile, in Iraq, the U.S. is fighting terrorism by killing innocent civilians. The Iraqis want us to leave, but the entire American military intellectual complex would lose its raison d’être if we did so, and we can’t have that. The American Conservative’s Daniel Larison tells the shameful story:
U.S. forces have been bombing and killing Iraqis for most of my lifetime. It is insane that the U.S. is still engaged in hostilities in the same country almost thirty years after Desert Storm. The official reasons for these attacks change, but the results are the same: more dead Americans and Iraqis. These strikes serve no discernible American interest. Our military presence in Iraq is unwanted, but it is also unnecessary for U.S. security. Keeping troops there just makes them targets for no good reason. The U.S. has no vital interests there and nothing that warrants a continued military presence. The U.S. has been waging a forever war in Iraq for decades, and it needs to end before any more lives are lost.
1. Threlkeld, can, from the limited evidence available, perhaps be best described as a passive-aggressive neocon—pointing out all the things that could go wrong. She’s not saying they will, mind you. Only that they could.
2. To his credit, Obama planned to make a full withdrawal in 2014, when the rise of ISIS made any display of “weakness” unacceptable.
