Middle East & North Africa

If one contemplates necessary steps of the parties to the conflict, the nature of this war must be kept in mind. It started as a UN supported intervention by a Saudi-led coalition against the Iran-supported Houthi rebellion opposing the Hadi government. The domestic struggle for supremacy is inextricably linked to its international ramifications: Given the potentially enormous geopolitical consequences the prevention of an Iranian foothold on the Southern tip of the Arabian peninsula is by no means a goal of only Saudi Arabia. 

Since 11 September 2001 the United States has been able to drive the global counterterrorism agenda as it saw necessary. Those days are over. The global environment has permanently shifted. The open rivalry with Moscow and growing competition with China are going to increase the potential costs on U.S. counterterrorism activity and outright restrain it in others.

It is ironic that when President Trump finally made his first major foreign policy decision, he ran with the advice of his “cooler heads” — the Generals he admires — over his own instincts to cut U.S. losses and get out of this jungle. In extending U.S. involvement in Afghanistan for the narrower purpose of battling the Taliban, Al-Qaeda, ISIS and associated groups, every U.S. soldier killed and wounded in Afghanistan from this day forward becomes in effect a casualty of the scourge of terrorism the president is determined to thwart.