Remember the old lines about America and the Second World War?
Some people wanted in only if Germany lost.
Some people wanted in only if Russia lost.
Some people wanted in only if Roosevelt lost.
That’s about the sum of what Talleyrand has read in the Western press about events in Afghanistan.
The neocons, happy at feeling rehabilitated (bravo Biden!), blame it on the isolationists (‘restrainers’): this was bound to happen after a withdrawal that was so hasty, foolish, and ill timed.
The restrainers, chafing at being called isolationists, blame it on interventionists (neocons): this was bound to happen after an adventure that was so incompetent, corrupt, and ill conceived.
The rest of us ask what it will mean for the Afghan people and the rest of the world for intervention, non-intervention, and their euphemisms to have become such dirty words.
We have a few more questions:
Who else may we self-righteously blame besides the neocons and anti-neocons throwing spit balls?
Does a nasty withdrawal justify, demand, mitigate, or worsen a nasty intervention?
Does prudence now mean abnegation or reinforcement?
Does responsibility now mean amelioration or sauve-qui-peut?
Does everyone now live in a faraway country of which we know nothing?
Or do we just owe them nothing?