Originally Posted by
NutLoose
I have to ask: what does winning look like? Getting the Taliban out of being the ruling business was a success, but that's only half of the political issue/objective. The second half is the long game, and I guess I'll have to read the papers to see what they have to say. In the mid 00's my own frustration with how we turned a blind eye to Pakistan providing not just sanctuary to Tban, but also material support, has been coming out in various published material as operatives retirea and decide to tell their story.
Had the decision not been made to go into Iraq, I wonder at how the efforts would have been affected there.
Perhaps not that much. Counterfactuals are a mess, but given how the Pakistani efforts (heck, understandable I suppose, that is their neighborhood) rarely aligned with our objectives there was only going to be so much progress. .