With US set to leave Afghanistan, echoes of 1989
The young president who ascended to office as a change agent decides to end the costly and unpopular war in Afghanistan. He seeks an exit with honor by pledging long-term financial support to allies in Kabul, while urging reconciliation with the insurgency. But some senior advisers lobby for a deliberately slow withdrawal, and propose leaving thousands of troops behind to train and support Afghan security forces.
This is a nearly exact description of the endgame conundrum facing President Barack Obama as he prepares for a critical visit by Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, planned for early January.
But the account is actually drawn from declassified Soviet archives describing Mikhail S. Gorbachev's closed-door struggles with his Politburo and army chiefs to end the Kremlin's intervention in Afghanistan - one that began with a commando raid, coup and modest goals during Christmas week of 1979 but became, after a decade, what Gorbachev derided as "a bleeding wound."
