"No other country in the world symbolizes the decline of the American empire as much as Afghanistan."

"There is virtually no possibility of a military victory over the Taliban and little chance of leaving behind a self-sustaining democracy — facts that Washington’s policy community has mostly been unable to accept.... The heavily Pashtun Taliban, an accessory to the Sept. 11 hijackings, continues to make battlefield gains and, if there are actual peace negotiations, is poised to share power with the American-backed government of President Ashraf Ghani, if not eventually replace it. The United States’ special adviser to Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, is trying to broker a diplomatic solution that allows the United States to draw down its forces without the political foundation in Kabul disintegrating immediately.... An enterprising American diplomat, backed by a coherent administration, could try to organize an international peace conference involving Afghanistan and its neighbors, one focused on denying terrorist groups a base in South-Central Asia. It is the kind of project that Henry Kissinger, Richard Holbrooke, James Baker III or George Shultz would have taken up in their day. But it is not something anyone can reasonably expect this administration, as chaotic, understaffed and incompetent as it is, to undertake, especially with the departure of Mr. Mattis...."

Writes Robert D. Kaplan in "Time to Get Out of Afghanistan/The United States is spending beyond its means on a mission that might only be helping its strategic rivals" (NYT)(I put in the boldface).