The Enemy of My Enemy

Now that we have the SOFA agreement in Iraq, virtually assuring a pull out of all combat troops, it is time to turn our attention to Afghanistan. In the words of Congressman Elijah Cummings, "This is a mess." When the average citizen views the elected officials as being worse than the Taliban, you know there will not be any quick or easy fixes. Of course everybody can point out the problems in Afghanistan because at this point they are staring us in the face. What is quite troubling to me personally is that I haven't heard a lot of viable solutions. The problem with "Spreading Democracy" is that sometimes you get a result that you don't like. And because the U.S. has basically legitimized any and all democratically elected regimes it makes it a LOT harder to oppose them just based on the fact that we aren't happy that the people of a soverign nation elected them. But in this case when we are already there and there is already chaos (largely from our doing) do we have a moral obligation to continue a fight that truly might be unwinnable just because we picked it in the first place? And what about our obligation to ensure that there is stability in a region where you have two rival countries who both have nuclear weapons stockpiles? With an economic crisis in this country that is unrivaled in the last 40 or 50 years I think its time we started asking some tough questions and perhaps start making some even tougher decisions.

What say you?