Caren, did you see the Chris Wallace interview of Mitch McConnell on Afghanistan? Not a huge fan of the guy but he was consistent and sincere in his argument. He had a complete break from Donald Trump buffoonery back before that awful meeting with the Taliban in Doha.

(As an aside McConnell here is assisting the moderate Republicans and trying to distance the party from Trump).

We Americans love absolutes and total solutions that are extremely difficult in reality and when they fall short we just turn the other way and go home. We kept on talking about Afghanistan as a "war" when at least for Americans the combat part was over. Over time (and it would take some time) we could have continued to downgrade the violence all the way from occupation to involvement, interest and trading partner. Those messures and continuances would help to keep America safe from the likes of ISIS (as they did). Now as we have uncertainty -- along with new creations of hunger, refugee and the additional unforeseen problems that could have been avoided.

Many thanks