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Opinion | Let’s Not Pretend That the Way We Withdrew From Afghanistan Was the Problem

Our ignominious exit reflects the failure of America’s foreign policy establishment at both prediction and policymaking.

Click to view the original at nytimes.com

Hasnain says:

Powerful stuff.

“There were many lessons to be learned from the Iraq war, but this, for me, was the most central: We don’t know what we don’t know, and, even worse, we don’t always know what we think we know. Policymakers are easily fooled by people with seemingly relevant experience or credentials who will tell them what they want to hear or what they already believe. The flow of money, interests, enmities and factions is opaque to outsiders and even to insiders. We do not understand other countries well enough to remake them according to our ideals. We don’t even understand our own country well enough to achieve our ideals.”

Posted on 2021-08-30T06:48:13+0000