Rubin on the war

The dean of Afghanistan studies, Barnett Rubin, has a longish piece in the Boston Review. It's very wide-ranging and interesting, full of historical context, etc. His thoughts on the war effort:

Most of the solutions they propose, such as increasing troop levels, might have worked several years ago, but my sense of the society—the same sense that led to my previous skepticism—now makes me suspect that it is too late to save the enterprise we began after 9/11. But that does not mean Afghanistan will go back to what it was under the Taliban. If I have learned anything from experience, it is that Afghanistan defies expectations... (link)