http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/04/middle-east-foreign-policy-afghanistan-unwinnable-213778

Let’s End America’s Hopeless War for the Middle East

Our country’s longest war is unwinnable, and we have more important things to do.
By Andrew J. Bacevich
April 03, 2016
A hundred years ago, the armies of World War I fought to a bloody stalemate on the Western Front and desperately searched for ways to break it and gain an edge. They field-tested tanks and poison gas, rolling barrages and storm-trooper tactics. Today, the United States is stuck in an analogous stalemate in the Middle East and Islamic world in general. And we are field-testing all manner of novelties, much like the great armies of Europe mired in the trenches: the so-called Revolution in Military Affairs and counterinsurgency, precision-guided munitions and unmanned aerial vehicles, not to mention such passing fancies as “overwhelming force,” “shock and awe,” and “air occupation.”
Yet as was the case a century ago, the introduction of some new battlefield technique does not necessarily signify progress. On the contrary, it only deepens the stalemate. http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/04/middle-east-foreign-policy-afghanistan-unwinnable-213778