Pakistan, Jan. 17 -- The Trump administration recently announced the withdrawal of a few thousand American soldiers from Syria; same is being said about Afghanistan. Will the US quit Afghanistan ever? The following addresses it empirically and conceptually.
Before I move to Afghanistan, let it be clear, from the very outset, the announcement of withdrawal of American troops from Syria has its own particular and peculiar context, and it has little comparative value for the South Asian case of Afghanistan. In the Syrian case, based on the divergent set of data emerging from the White House and Pentagon, one gets the impression that President Trump acted in his own authoritarian style, thus, bypassing cumulative input of the US security estab...