The graveyard of empires?

Look what happened to the Soviets. Isn’t the lesson clear?

Option 1: Clear as crystal. Russ Feingold:

We also ignore the lessons of history by pursuing a drawn-out military mission in Afghanistan. The experiences of the Soviets and the British make it painfully clear just how elusive a military victory in Afghanistan can be. That alone should give us reason to rethink an open-ended military presence in Afghanistan.

Option 2: Beware of simplistic analogies. Bruce Riedel:

There’s a lot of talk about graveyard of empires, that Afghanistan is inevitably a place where everyone fails.

Well, first of all, it’s bad history. Alexander the Great didn’t fail in Afghanistan. He created Kandahar. The British didn’t fail in Afghanistan. They got a protectorate, which is what they wanted. The Soviets did fail, because they faced a nationalist uprising of virtually every Afghan.

We don’t face that. We face an uprising among a minority of Pashtuns. This is not a hopeless cause yet.