Biden, Afghanistan, and the perils of "doing the right thing"
Biden, Afghanistan, and the perils of "doing the right thing"
You can’t take the politics out of politics
As you know if you’ve been reading my posts or tweets on Afghanistan, I think Joe Biden did the right thing by withdrawing U.S. forces from the country. And while I won’t warrant that every single tactical or operational decision made along the way has been flawless (it would be the first undertaking in military history to have that character), I do think the criticism of the operation has been overwhelmingly unfair. But if you’ve been reading this site for a while, you also know that I am not necessarily a big proponent of “doing the right thing” in politics.
The name of the blog comes from Max Weber’s essay “Politics as a Vocation,” which, among other things, counsels the virtues of prudence in political life. And I think the Afghanistan Affair does tend to illustrate the perils of taking a principled stand.
It also illustrates the limits of a related position I’ve often been associated with: popularism, or the idea that it’s smart for politicians to …
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