Charlie Pierce on Afghanistan

Charlie Pierce with the clearest diagnosis of Afghanistan I have seen yet:

"I am admittedly not an expert on the culture and politics of what we all used to call the Near East. I am particularly not expert on the politics and culture of Afghanistan--which, come to think of it, puts me in roughly the same boat as Alexander The Great, several Caesars, a handful of British PM's, and Leonid Brezhnev, all of whom down through the centuries paid far more dearly for their ignorance than I ever will. But I do know that there is in this country a seriously building sense that the war there has spiraled beyond any rational attempt to control it. Correct me if I'm wrong but what I see now is a vicious and expanding tribal conflict the roots of which go back beyond the invention of movable type, and one that's now energized by a thoroughly modern war between several thoroughly modern drug cartels, all of which is taking place right on top of the least stable member of the Nuclear Bomb Club. And we're the referees. How this is possibly a coherent foreign policy moving forward is, I confess, beyond me, but it's going to be what finally blows up the Obama Administration politically. Of that, I am certain."