9/11 and the 9-Year War: Stratfor
Best fact/quote from the article:
"The single most important result of 9/11 was that it shifted the United States from a global stance to a regional one, allowing other powers to take advantage of this focus to create significant potential challenges to the United States"
My Thoughts:
I think Freidman comes out and says what most realists would be thinking. As far as Afghanistan is concerned, it is a wasted endeavor. The country is literally a 3'rd World, corrupt, no-mans land. Terrorists came from Afghanistan, successfully attacked the US, and now the US has obliterated those terrorists. We have no strategic region to be in Afghanistan except to possibly (and I stress possibly) place a check on Pakistan. If they know we are in the region they won't try anything funny with India.
Another major point Freidman makes is that we are staying in Iraq to check the balance of power on Iran. I completely agree with this and bad things will happen if we leave without some sort of force to uphold itself. The only problem with this is that whatever force is created, and whatever real government emerges, a lot of Iraqi's will perish. For instance, the Kurds would be target number 1. What if the Iranians played on this and just started supporting the Kurds...bad news bears for Iraq.
As far as focusing on terrorism is concerned, without knowing the actual numbers and strategies our government and military are using, I can't make any comment. If everyone just knows what journalists are telling them than we live in hell and I'm either going to be shot, stabbed, robbed, or drink heavily and drive tonight.
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