The notion that Afghanistan could become Obama’s Vietnam has been picking up supporters lately—see this Newsweek cover, plus more airings here and here and here. In this month’s Washington Monthly, terrorism analyst and MoJo contributor Peter Bergen argues forcefully that there’s nothing to see here, folks: “Afghanistan will not be Obama’s Vietnam, nor will it be his Iraq. Rather, the renewed and better resourced American effort in Afghanistan will, in time, produce a relatively stable and prosperous Central Asian state.”
Bergen is no wide-eyed optimist: In the July/August 2007 issue of Mother Jones, he took stock of the many avoidable mistakes made by the Bush administration in Afghanistan that led to the “Iraqization” of the conflict there. So it’s notable that the Obama administration’s increased investment in Afghanistan has him feeling more upbeat about the country’s prospects. Check out the whole thing here.