A Moment for Soul-Searching

My Afghanistan war lasted almost exactly two years, from the beginning of 2007 to the end of the Bush administration in January 2009. As counselor of the State Department, my job was to take on whatever portfolio Secretary Condoleezza Rice wanted an extra set of senior eyes on. From the first—in fact, before I was formally sworn in—Afghanistan was on her mind. And so, even before entering government service, I canceled my classes for one of the very few times in my career and hopped on a plane to Afghanistan.

In the ensuing two years I visited the country often, usually as part of a small delegation led by Lieutenant General Douglas Lute, the deputy national security adviser, and accompanied by several other senior State and Defense officials. In between trips was the grind of interagency meetings (the so-called deputies committee) and bureaucratic follow-up at Foggy Bottom. Watching the fall of Kabul brought back a collage of memories