Like Yglesias, I guess one ought to have an official “What I Think About Obama’s Escalation in Afghanistan post”. And the truth is that I don’t know. Don’t know whether Obama’s new strategy will work, don’t know if it is wise or enough or too much or just about right. And I’m intensely suspicious of anyone who celebrates it and, most especially, those who immediately claim that it’s insufficient, reckless, half-hearted or whatever. Because (almost) none of us have a clue, really, and pretending that we do does no-one any good.
What may be said, with all due caution, is that the administration is doing its best to make the best of a bad situation. It seems quite possible to me, even probable, that there is no solution to the matrix of problems we face in Afghanistan. If there were someone might have found it by now.
If this were a poker game you’d say “fold and move on” but war isn’t a game of poker and the concept of sunk costs does not apply in war as neatly as it does in peace.
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