Not Confused…
By “I worry that for many Europeans the missions in Iraq and Afghanistan are confused,” Mr. Gates said as he flew here to deliver an address at an international security conference.
“I think that they combine the two,” he added. “Many of them, I think, have a problem with our involvement in Iraq and project that to Afghanistan, and do not understand the very different — for them — the very different kind of threat.”
It’s not that they’re confused, or that they don’t understand, Bob; it’s that Iraq casts a shadow over the legitimacy of everything the United States does. It’s that support for the United States in Afghanistan inevitably means support for the US in Iraq; Europeans worry that any resources they devote to Afghanistan will be responded to by an increased US commitment to Iraq.
On some level I sympathize with Gates, and I do think that some European countries could and should do more in Afghanistan. But the problem isn’t primarily that Europeans are stupid and confused. Rather, it’s Iraq, and that’s entirely a problem of our own making.