Shedding Blood For Pakistan?

by Chris Bodenner

Joshua Foust offers another reason to stay the course in Afghanistan:

[L]est anyone think it is appropriate to write off the India-Pakistan conflict as somebody else’s problem, it is never somebody else’s problem when nuclear weapons are involved. As Jari Lindholm reminded, India and Pakistan have come a hair’s breadth from nuclear conflict twice over Kashmir. And like it or not, it is a compelling and vital American interest to prevent nuclear conflict in South Asiawhich makes “fixing” Afghanistan in some way also a vital American interest.

Michael Cohen counters:

Now I certainly share the view that preventing nuclear conflict in South Asia is a vital American interest, less clear to me is why we need to fix Afghanistan to achieve that goal. Is the fear that if we leave, Afghanistan will become a proxy war for India and Pakistan that could turn into a full-fledged nuclear conflict? [...] I do wonder how much of the "Indian influence" is being hyped by the Pakistani government. [...] Why would the United States willingly hold itself and its soldiers hostage to an unresolved regional conflict? And are there really no other options - for example, diplomatic - for preventing such a war than "fixing" Afghanistan?