It's the only way to be sure.

I'm reading reports about the afgani's days of rage because
a few books were burned and I find that I've lost the entire
feeling of give a fuck about that region. Since we've already
given a date for withdrawal, we should just pull out now.

I thought the small footprint approach in afganistan was correct.
(Don't fight a land war in asia seems like a good rule of thumb) and
I supported the war in Iraq because it seemed like creating a stable
democratic country in the place where it seemed possible could have
worked to gradually free the entire region from it's medieval mentality.
I never thought a large scale war in Afganistan could be successful, you
can't convert a country full of illiterate tribesman into taxpayers,
and the Russians proved combat doesn't work either.

Iraq might have worked, but in reality President Bush never made the right
case or pushed back against the constant stream of lies and mistruths,
so that the results of the whole operation was 'Bush lied people died'.
The narrative that was written by his political enemies and the media
is the one that has survived and is repeated over and over.

Iraq has instead inspired the Arab spring, which looks to me more like
the Iranian revolution than the American revolution. The US government
has returned to a policy of weakness and apologies, so now it appears
the cycle of 1980 to 2008 is going to repeat, probably with much worse
outcomes for everyone. Weakness will lead to attacks, the attacks will
probably be worse because they will be nukes. We'll respond with the
only thing we have left, which will be nukes.

I'd say it doesn't matter who is in charge next year, but apologies and
weakness is the worst thing to do right now. It will inspire another
generation of people to think they can win. If they are going to hate
us anyway, it's better to be feared and hated than just hated. If it
looks like a weak horse, and quacks like a weak horse, it is probably
a weak horse.