What we should have done in Afghanistan

I have not addressed the larger question raised by my criticisms of our policy in Afghanistan. If Afghani liberal democracy, namely a political system that does not kill apostates, is not possible without our forcing such a system on the Afghans, which is out of the question, then what, beyond invading the country and driving out the Taliban, which we had to do, should we have done? The answer is that we needed to facilitate the setting up of a new government, as we in fact did, but without illusions. We should have been clear to ourselves that this would not be a liberal democracy, that any Islamic society and state is going to remain alien and repulsive to our standards of civilization; and that we are not in Afghanistan out of idealism over the Afghans’ having “common values” with us, but solely to remove the Taliban from power and to keep them from returning. Alternatively, we could have adopted the strategy I’ve called for elsewhere: kill as many of the Taliban as possible (or, better, let our Afghani allies kill them); help set up a new regime that would have the strength to hold power; and then withdraw our forces, with the solemn promise that if the new regime became dangerous to us, or if the Taliban came into power again, we would invade the country again and utterly destroy the regime, killing everyone connected with it. It seems to me that a three-week war every few years would be a lot less costly than permanent occupation. Does anyone have a better solution?

Posted by Lawrence Auster at March 25, 2006 02:10 AM | Send