Illusions, delusions and naivete! A jaunt down the memory lane and it was a republican president who brought war, both to Afghanistan and Iraq... countless protested! Perhaps in a generation or longer...
In comes Obama, a nobel laureate for peace in waiting and a promise of hope and change, closing Guantanamo, calling back the troops stationed abroad and improving economy for the down trodden but instead starts new wars and doubles down on existing and only bails out the rich.
In comes Trump with a libertarian streak, again no new wars and making a do-over of America. Instead, he brings the existing conflicts to a simmer while plotting for the new... read Iran.
In comes Biden... Now when you talk Biden you have to understand that some of the things that continued under Trump were in fact pushed by Hillary and gang such as quad to counter China and propping up of India...
So, doubling down is an American pastime... throwing more money, resources and lives in hopes of achieving different results in every attempt. Afghanistan is going the same way partly because it remains a way to engineer Pakistan, to bring it to it's knees and to change Indian equation from India minus Pakistan against China to India versus China. When Pakistanis think about Afghanistan they think in contemporary terms, in post colonial terms... whereas it is one of the lingering issues of partition and Pakistani identity along of course with Kashmir. One that is at odds against an imperial construct called India. It is this unfinished business that keeps destabilizing the region. To understand Afghanistan after Brits left is to understand how they handled it and that is, as a defecto colony... for the longest time they controlled it's foreign policy and changed rulers at will. The separation from the raj was also political, a buffer zone with then Russian Empire.
Coming back, things are moving, though slowly, but in the same direction... Pakistanis if choose, can see the drift, coming conflicts and budding camps.
That, despite the change in administration.
