Quote:
Originally posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy
My thoughts: the contrast between relative success in Afghanistan and relative failure in Iraq is very revealing.
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The comparison between Afghanistan and Iraq is going to be misleading because the country's governments were so different previously. Notwithstanding the Taliban's success at imposing order on much of the country, Afghanistan has had very weak central governments in recent years. Kabul's writ has not had much force in the provinces, which are ruled by local strongmen. Until we prevented Hussein from exercising power in the north and south of his country, the opposite was true in Iraq. I would suggest that our nation-building in Afghanistan has appeared successful if you look at Kabul, but that it's not clear that Karzai presides over a government that can rule very much of the country. The men with guns in most of the country answer to other people.
