William Pfaff: Afghanistan Is Obama's Gordian Knot!

Useful advice can be found in the past: Gordius, King of Phrygia, tied an intricate knot, ever since then called the Gordian knot. An oracle told Alexander the Great that whoever could untie it would master Asia. Alexander drew his sword and slashed the knot. He then conquered the lands between Persia and Afghanistan, pushing on as far as the Punjab. There, his exhausted troops rebelled, and his retreat from Asia began. The oracle should have known that the mastery of Asia ultimately belongs to Asians. Barack Obama has promised a withdrawal of many or most American troops from Afghanistan in the months to come. He has not promised the departure of the enormous State Department and mercenary force of "state-builders" and "democracy-creators" and defenders which are already there. This, at least, is the plan, a bad and dangerous one that can be relied upon to fail, because it refuses to face reality. The Gordian knot by which this American project is bound, is the simultaneous conflict and collaboration of the United States and nuclear Pakistan, certain to end in a wounded American withdrawal, if only because Pakistan lives, and has lived since antiquity, in this particular place in Central Asia, and the United States lives in a different world, geographically, psychically and morally, having arrived in Central Asia yesterday, and destined to leave tomorrow.