Without the Pax Americana, there is no pax

[Valin]

Washington Examiner

Dan Hannan, Contributor

August 23, 2021

Sometimes, in politics, there are no good outcomes. Sometimes, the only choice is between bad alternatives. If you do X, ugly things will happen, and if you do Y, ugly things will happen. Whichever option you pick, commentators, affecting not to grasp the concept of the lesser evil, will point to those ugly things as evidence that you should have picked the other.

After the terrorist abominations in New York 20 years ago, there were no good outcomes. We can all see that invading Afghanistan and Iraq carried huge costs — civilian lives were lost, blood and treasure were dissipated, and American prestige suffered. We cannot say for sure what the costs would have been had the Bush administration sat tight, but let’s not pretend that they would have been zero.

Most people, of course, don’t like to admit this. The median voter switched from mildly deploring the continuing presence in Afghanistan to being shocked at the consequences of ending it. Perhaps, as Ralph Waldo Emerson said, a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.

Yet, at every stage, the West had to choose between unappetizing alternatives. Going into Afghanistan in the first place was one of a series of bad options. So was prolonging the mission there once al Qaeda had been removed. So was extending it to cover nation-building, education, female emancipation, and the rest. So was leaving.

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