Vali Nasr - The Dispensable Nation: American Foreign Policy in Retreat

This book would not have been but for the generosity of many colleagues in Washington, Europe, China, the Middle East, Afghanistan, and Pakistan; senior and junior officials, journalists, and scholars. They shared their views of the past and the present, and provided essential information that helped my thinking and sharpened my arguments, and narrated telltale vignettes and backstories that have enriched this book.

No one was more instrumental in shaping the idea for this book than Richard Holbrooke. He was a source of inspiration and fount of ideas large and small about Americas place in the world and how it ought to conduct its foreign policy. I owe to him the core ideas of this book and the details of many of the events narrated within it. He exhorted me to focus on the challenges facing American foreign policy, especially in the Muslim world, and I hope the result is true to his vision and legacy.

Thanks also to Rina Amiri, Peter Bergen, Ashley Bommer, Stephen Bosworth, Nicholas Burns, Kent Calder, Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Shamila Chaudhry, Alexander Evans, Leila Fawaz, Leslie Gelb, Fiona Hill, Ibrahim Kalin, Bijan Khajepour, John Lipsky, Maleeha Lodhi, Kati Marton, Sean Misko, Afshin Molavi, Nader Mousavizadeh, Meghan OSullivan, Tom Pickering, Joel Rayburn, Barnett Rubin, Jamie Rubin, David Sanger, Arthur Sculley, Emma Sky, James Walsh, Frank Wisner, and Emirhan Yorulmazlar for their wisdom and insights. There are many others to whom I owe a debt of gratitude but who shall remain anonymous.

Liaqat Ahamed, Ray Takeyh, Randa Slim, and Bilal Baloch read all or parts of the early drafts of this book and made valuable comments that have improved the narrative in important ways. I am grateful to them. Philip Costopolous read all of what I wrote with his customary care and attention to detail, and spared no effort to hone my arguments.

My talented research assistants, Artin Afkhami, Maliheh Birjandi Feriz, and Tara Sepehrifar, were immensely helpful in locating sources and finding relevant facts large and small that have enriched the pages of this book.

Throughout the time I worked on this book I benefited from the support of colleagues at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy of Tufts University, where I taught when I first embarked on this endeavor, and the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies of Johns Hopkins University, where I served as dean when I finally finished the manuscript. I also benefited from the support of colleagues at Brookings Institution, where I was senior fellow in foreign policy through most of the time I worked on this book. I would like to thank in particular Brookingss president, Strobe Talbot, and the institutions vice president and director of its foreign policy program, Martin Indyk. They were generous with their support and also with their insight. I am grateful for their friendship and interest in my work.

My literary agent, Susan Rabiner, was instrumental in giving this book direction. She gave this project the full measure of her attention from our very first conversation about it to when the final draft went to press. Her insights and suggestions were invaluable, and the book owes much to her caring interest. My brilliant editor at Doubleday, Kris Puopolo, took a deep interest in this book, and read everything I wrote carefully, and then took her pen to the entire manuscript, time and again improving each chapter, page, and paragraph. I am deeply grateful for her work on this book. Thanks also to Kriss assistant editor, Daniel Meyer, my publicists, Alison Rich and Todd Doughty, and the entire team at Doubleday for their professionalism and wonderful work.

My deepest appreciation is reserved for my wife, Darya, sons, Amir and Hossein, and daughter, Donia. Without their love and encouragement, not to mention patience and good humor, this book would not have been possible. I hope they will find the book worthy of that indulgence.

Also by Vali Nasr

Forces of Fortune: The Rise of the New Muslim Middle Class and What It Will Mean for Our World

The Shia Revival: How Conflicts Within Islam Will Shape the Future

Democracy in Iran: History and the Quest for Liberty (with Ali Gheissari)

Islamic Leviathan: Islam and the Making of State Power

Mawdudi and the Making of Islamic Revivalism

The Vanguard of the Islamic Revolution: The Jamaat-i Islami of Pakistan

Vali Nasr is dean of the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University and the bestselling author of The Shia Revival and Forces of Fortune. From 2009 to 2011, he served as senior adviser to Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan. He is a nonresident fellow at the Brookings Institution and a contributor to Bloomberg View; he lives in Washington, D.C.

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And China had long and deep economic ties with Pakistan. So the administration asked a veteran diplomat, an old China hand, to reach out to the Chinese leadership. The diplomat made the rounds in Beijing, meeting with the Chinese president, premier, foreign minister, and a host of other political players. Their answer was clear and unequivocal: This is your problem. You made this mess. In Afghanistan more war has made things much worse, and in Pakistan things were not so bad before you started poking around. We have interests in this area, but they do not include pulling your chestnuts out of the fire. We will look after our own interests in our own way. In short, You made your own bed, now lie in it. Once they were done pushing back, they invariably asked, What is your strategy there, anyway?

Afghanistan is the good war. That was what Barack Obama said on the campaign trail. It was a war of necessity that we had to wage in order to defeat al-Qaeda and ensure that Afghanistan never harbored terrorists again.election-year tactic, to protect himself against perennial accusations that Democrats are soft on national security issues. Branding Afghanistan as a war of necessity gave him cover to denounce the Iraq war as a war of choice that must be brought to an end.

Obamas stance was widely understood at home and abroad to mean that America would do all it could in Afghanistancommit more money and send more troopsto finish off the Taliban and build a strong democratic state capable of standing up to terrorism.

Four years later, President Obama is no longer making the case for the good war. Instead, he is fast washing his hands of it. It is a popular position at home, where many Americans, including many who voted for Obama in 2008, want nothing more to do with war. They are disillusioned by the ongoing instability in Iraq and Afghanistan and tired of eleven years of fighting on two fronts. They do not believe that war was the right solution to terrorism and have stopped putting stock in the fear-mongering that the Bush administration used to fuel its foreign policy. There is a growing sense that America has no interests in Afghanistan vital enough to justify a major ground presence.

It was to court public opinion that Obama first embraced the war in Afghanistan. And when public opinion changed, he was quick to declare victory and call the troops back home. His actions from start to finish were guided by politics and they played well at home. But abroad, the stories we tell to justify our on-again, off-again approach to this war do not ring true to friend or foe. They know the truth: that we are leaving Afghanistan to its own fate. Leaving even as the demons of regional chaos that first beckoned us there are once again rising to threaten our security.