The Limits Of Force-Iraq and Afghanistan Aren't Ours to Win or Lose-By Chuck Hagel

[kpete]

The Limits Of Force
Iraq and Afghanistan Aren't Ours to Win or Lose

By Chuck Hagel
Thursday, September 3, 2009

It all came tumbling back -- the tragedy, the innocent victims, the waste. Too often in Washington we tend to see foreign policy as an abstraction, with little understanding of what we are committing our country to: the complications and consequences of endeavors. It is easy to get into war, not so easy to get out. Vietnam lasted more than 10 years; soon, we will slip into our ninth year in Afghanistan. We have been in Iraq for almost seven years.

When I came to the Senate in 1997, the world was being redefined by forces no single country controlled or understood. The implosion of the Soviet Union and a historic diffusion of economic and geopolitical power created new influences and established new global power centers -- and new threats. The events of Sept. 11, 2001, shocked America into this reality. The Sept. 11 commission pointed out that the attacks were as much about failures of our intelligence and security systems as about the terrorists' success.

No country today has the power to impose its will and values on other nations. As the new world order takes shape, America must lead by building coalitions of common interests, as we did after World War II. Then, international organizations such as the United Nations, NATO, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and GATT (now the World Trade Organization) -- while flawed -- established boundaries for human and government conduct and expectations that helped keep the world from drifting into World War III and generally made life better for most people worldwide during the second half of the 20th century.

,,,,,,,,,,,,,

ogging down large armies in historically complex, dangerous areas ends in disaster. In Vietnam, we kept feeding more men, material and money into a corrupt Vietnamese government as our own leaders continued to deceive themselves and the American people. Today's wars are quite different from Vietnam. But the Obama administration, Congress and the Pentagon must get this right because it will frame the global architecture for the next generation. We must put forward fresh thinking. We can no longer hold ourselves to narrow "single issue" engagement when dealing with nations such as China, Russia, India, Brazil, Turkey or South Korea. The United States needs all these countries and many more if we are to engage the most dangerous challenges -- not one at a time but all together. Our relationships with these nations have matured since World War II, as these nations have matured. Does anyone believe we will get to a responsible resolution on Iran without Russia? There's a reason we are part of a Group of 20 rather than a G-8. Even the world's largest economies cannot handle today's problems alone.

more:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/02/AR2009090202856.html

[HamdenRice]

1. It's a pleasant surprise to read a THOUGHTFUL critique of the Afghanistan policy

as opposed to the "Obama is a militarist who wants to rule the world" stuff that has been appearing here lately.

[pscot]

2. I was sorry to see him leave the Senate

He may be the last sane Republican.

[Inuca]

6. There are a few others

but not many.

[malaise]

3. No country today has the power to impose its will and values on other nations.

That is all

[izquierdista]

4. Blah, blah,blah

It's hard to "get this right" when ASSHOLES like you vote for the Iraq War Resolution.

[Inuca]

7. In case you did not notice

the op-ed is about Afghanistan tha hardly anyone was against at the time.

[izquierdista]

8. Same thing

Projecting American military might around the globe. Now, after he's out of office, he begins to get a clue.

[Inuca]

9. Have a look at what he has said and done

for at least the last couple of years that he was in office (I don't know much about before that). He got a clue long before he was out of office, and said clue is most likely the reason he IS out of office.

[Mudoria]

5. We had the chance to make a difference in Afghanistan early on..

everyone hated the Taliban. But the geniuses in the WH at the time thought now would be a good time to start up an adventure in Iraq based on ginned up intelligence. Dollars and military power went to Iraq and Afghanistan went down the toilet. Too late now to do anything but find a way to bow out as gracefully and quickly as possible. Let the Afghani's deal with the Taliban. I do feel a lot of apprehension for the women of the country though if the Taliban get back in control.