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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: skinowski who wrote (117743)	10/26/2003 10:58:13 AM
From: Sun Tzu	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

> The important priority was our own national interest. I have no problems with the ideology that says we must pursue our long term national interests. This is as it should be. But clearly we did not accomplish that. Or at least only marginally did so. The kicker is that achieving better (best?) results would not have even cost us more. All we had to do was to be a little less greedy and encourage Afghans to fight as a unified front for the best interest of their people. Not only would they have been more effective against Russians, but the process would have created a quasi government that later would have prevented the country to fall into chaos which in turn would have prevented the rise of the Taliban. But that was not good enough for the State Department. It wasn't enough to kick the Russians out. We also wanted to have whoever came to power in Afghanistan on leash while pleasing the Saudis and the Pakistanis. Unfortunately, the real world is too dynamic for such dreams to come out right. And I just don't see why nobody in Washington seems to get this. It is better to have a fair, democratic, and nationalistic regime that is stable and we can deal fairly with than to have a puppet regime that gives us whatever we want now at the cost of instable future. Buffet once said, "It is better to buy a great business at a fair price than to buy a fair business at a great price." What we need in Washington is the political equivalent of this value investing method than the current momentum players who populate the scene. ST