1. Engage with Afghanistan, maintain dialogue, keep lines sport and cultural exchanges open, provide refuge for those seeking to leave, and educate and encourage the next generation of leaders. Progress may well be slow, and many will suffer in the interim, but the hope is for a better future.
2. Turn Afghanistan into an international pariah, cut it off from world trade, culture, and communication. The nation will continue to stagnate and people will continue to suffer with no hope of a better future.
There is a third choice; invasion. But we tried that with both, and that was the cause of the current malaise in both nations.
If there’s one thing we should have learned over several thousand years of recorded human history, it’s that invading Afghanistan is never the answer. Unless the question is “how can we give ourselves even more problems?”
As I see it, we have two choices.
1. Engage with Afghanistan, maintain dialogue, keep lines sport and cultural exchanges open, provide refuge for those seeking to leave, and educate and encourage the next generation of leaders. Progress may well be slow, and many will suffer in the interim, but the hope is for a better future.
2. Turn Afghanistan into an international pariah, cut it off from world trade, culture, and communication. The nation will continue to stagnate and people will continue to suffer with no hope of a better future.
There is a third choice; invasion. But we tried that with both, and that was the cause of the current malaise in both nations.
If there’s one thing we should have learned over several thousand years of recorded human history, it’s that invading Afghanistan is never the answer. Unless the question is “how can we give ourselves even more problems?”