Friedman Says Get Out

Tom Friedman of the NYT votes for getting out of Afghanistan:

It is crunch time on Afghanistan, so here’s my vote: We need to be thinking
about how to reduce our footprint and our goals there in a responsible way, not
dig in deeper. We simply do not have the Afghan partners, the NATO allies, the
domestic support, the financial resources or the national interests to justify
an enlarged and prolonged nation-building effort in Afghanistan....

The U.S. military has given its assessment. It said that stabilizing
Afghanistan and removing it as a threat requires rebuilding that whole country.
Unfortunately, that is a 20-year project at best, and we can’t afford it. So our
political leadership needs to insist on a strategy that will get the most
security for less money and less presence. We simply don’t have the surplus we
had when we started the war on terrorism after 9/11 — and we desperately need
nation-building at home. We have to be smarter. Let’s finish Iraq, because a
decent outcome there really could positively impact the whole Arab-Muslim world,
and limit our exposure elsewhere. Iraq matters.