Casting about in late 2001 for someone or something to replace the vanquished Taliban, President George W. Bush helped select Hamid Karzai, an Afghan exile, as the nation's new, moderate, pro-West leader. Bush introduced him to his new partner nation at the State of the Union address in January 2002, pledged U.S. support in rebuilding Afghanistan as a modern state with a strong central government in Kabul in control.
Eight years later, a furious argument is raging within the U.S. military establishment about whether that idea still makes sense, or is slowly dragging America down to defeat.
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