Frank Rich as a model 21st century columnist

I'm linking to Frank Rich's most recent Op-Ed piece on the dangers of escalating the war in Afghanistan ("Two Wrongs Make Another Fiasco"). But before going into the content, I wanted to highlight that Mr. Rich, perhaps better than any other Op-Ed contributor at a print publication, makes liberal use of embedded links. I find this an incredibly useful tool to those of us who read the NYTimes online.


It's not that we can't google an item of interest on our own - we can, and do, depending on the limits of time and intellectual laziness. But it's handy to have links.

There's another reason - it provides information on where the author is getting his or her information. It is ironic that it is in my post-academic career that I am appreciating the role and value of references, those obscure notes tucked at the bottom of a page or in the back of a text. With the web, they are front and center, and offer insight into whether or not the author draws from overly convenient and familiar sources. (Note: I accept the criticism that I draw almost all of my news from the NYTimes. I'm trying to get into the Washington Post more, but time and energy are limited.)

Now, on to the substance. I reported on Stephen Biddle's comments in August 2008 that Iraq remained the key front. To appropriate Rich's appropriation of McCain's comments, the US could "muddle through" Afghanistan for years, while a deterioration in Iraq could lead to disaster in a matter of weeks.

Granted, these comments were made at a particular stage in Iraq's history, and definitely prior to what has been a year of progress toward a stable, secure state. But I conjecture that it has as much to do with the understanding that Afghanistan's history of weak or nonexistent central government and graveyard of empires sets the reference point of expectations for Afghan citizens.

In other words, Afghanistan won't collapse because institutions, economies, and relationships are built upon the structure of what we in nation-states might regard as stateless anarchy.

Note that both Rich and Biddle highlight the Anbar Awakening as a necessary ingredient to make the "surge" work - and Biddle notes that it might not have happened had Al-Qaeda in Iraq not damaged the existing economic and political patronage systems used by local leaders.

It might not be politically wise to explicitly state that America has to settle for something less than a Jeffersonian democracy in Afghanistan before it leaves. But it is strategically necessary to define, or redefine, what victory in Afghanistan would look like. And once that's done, I think everyone might make a better judgment on whether it's worth the price.