Writing in this week’s Spectator, internationally renowned expert John. C. Hulsman argues that America is too economically imperilled to commit to expensive foreign adventures that yield nothing. Hulsman urges Obama to learn from the foreign policy mistakes made by Britain, the last western imperial power. He gives a whistle-stop tour of humiliations, from Amritsar, Ireland and Suez, and sketches how obvious decline forced Britain to re-imagine its foreign policy objectives.
Despite pressure from neo-conservative opposition, Obama must pursue a new modus operandi, as British imperialists were forced to do. The key is to recognise Afghanistan’s political complexity and seek stability through compromise and realism, starting with the Afghan constitution. Hulsman writes:
‘It is common knowledge that Afghanistan is one of the most disparate polities in the world (read Kipling). A series of tribes form the local unit of politics, rather than some Jeffersonian ideal.
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