@mike_kraft we're just going to disagree. i think abandoning Afghanistan in the way we did was a catastrophe. it is our role, as a matter of happenstance and history, to hold contemporary arrangements together until we can negotiate some other credible architecture. leaving and letting the chips fall where they may would be both catastrophic, on both moral and self-interested terms. it's like a bad marriage with kids. you may want to go, but you can't just walk away. arrangements must be made.