Why Is the Rest of The World Always Threatening America?
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…It’s an infuriating situation. You’d like to be able to say, “Fine: join the Taliban for all I care.” You’d like to tell Pakistan’s Gen. Ashfaq Kayani to get lost. But, as both leaders know, it’s not in the U.S. interest to call their bluff. So the White House instead dispatches Sen. John Kerry to talk one or both of them off the ledge. There’s really no good alternative: Even the Republican candidates for president, who uniformly scorn Barack Obama for failing to credibly threaten Iran with war if it doesn’t end its nuclear program, have very little to offer on Afghanistan or Pakistan.
The real reason the United States has been the target of these vexing ultimatums is that over the last decade it has meddled deeply with the sovereignty of brittle states, which in turn react with intense resentment. The solution is to stop provoking this form of asymmetric warfare. By accelerating the troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, Washington will put an end not only to the insoluble relationship with Karzai but also to its dependence on Pakistan, whose hinterland serves as a staging area for attacks on American troops in Afghanistan. The United States has already muted its neuralgic relationship with Iraq by withdrawing its troops there altogether. And one of the side-benefits of the White House’s planned pivot to Asia is that the United States will have less frictional relationships with allies like Japan and South Korea than with Afghanistan and Pakistan…