Now that the long and monstrous war in Afghanistan is finally coming to an end, supporters of the occupation have a problem. Do they claim that if the United States had only stayed in the country for a little while longer, the Taliban could have been decisively defeated, and the troops could have left without the US-installed regime immediately crumbling? Or do they admit that the anti-war movement was right all along, and a “forever war” is exactly what the hawks wanted?

A long series of pundits have settled on the same response to this dilemma: keeping some American troops in Afghanistan long-term would be fine and nothing like a “forever war,” since the United States has permanent military bases all over the world.

Here’s Eli Lake — a columnist for Bloomberg and a “National Security Journalism Fellow” at the Clements Center: