“In both Vietnam and Afghanistan, tens of millions of innocent people were subjugated to brutal regimes they had no plausible chance to remove,” via latimesopinion.
. By the time the U.S. forces withdrew, few Vietnamese had much regard for the regime, and it quickly fell.
In both countries, we also were myopic. We placed all our faith in the regimes we had installed without strong efforts to develop offsetting power centers and the robust civil society necessary for liberal democracy to survive. We acted in Vietnam as if only communists could oppress their people. Similarly in Afghanistan, we obsessed about radical Islam as the only enemy worthy of consideration, ignoring the corruption and strife that gave rise to the Taliban’s sway in the first place.
Sadly, we are repeating these mistakes on a much grander scale in the Middle East. Obsessed alternatively with fighting Sunni Muslim extremists and countering Shiite Muslim Iran, we act as if corrupt authoritarian regimes like that of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Sisi are the only alternative.
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