Genuine advocates of a more restrained and realistic foreign policy are now in a difficult position. The president has every incentive to find a scapegoat for the all-too-probable failure of his new Afghanistan policy, and no scapegoat would do better than domestic opposition — particularly if it comes from the left. But war opponents on the left and right appear less likely than ever to cooperate in today’s almost completely polarized climate. And in the absence of concerted opposition from outside, both elected officials and increasingly influential military leaders have every reason to prioritize keeping failure from happening on their watch, whatever the long term cost to the country.
It is all the more vital, then, for prominent opponents on the right to reach across the ideological divide and demand the rationalization of our foreign policy that is perpetually promised and never delivered. Stephen Bannon ended his tenure in the White House with a call to left-wing journalist Robert Kuttner to ham-handedly make common cause on trade policy. If he was serious about his lonely opposition to the administration’s Afghanistan policy, it is time for him to place similar calls to everyone from Fred Kaplan to Tom Ricks to Michael Kazin, to try to build similar bridges on foreign policy.
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