Afghanistan, like Iraq, could descend into chaos

Afghanistan had an election a few weeks ago. Iraq had one on Thursday. But that is about all that these two countries, both invaded by the United States in the last decade, have in common right now. Afghanistan is moving forward just as rapidly as Iraq is moving backward. It is a telling contrast, and one that should inform the looming decision about a US troop presence in Afghanistan after 2014.

Iraq is being plunged deeper into the abyss of all-out civil war that it barely avoided in 2007, thanks to President George W. Bush’s troop “surge.” Today, violence is back up to 2008 levels as al-Qaeda in Iraq, now known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, has returned from its near-death experience.