French writer Bernard-Henri Levy makes an absurd assertion on Kristallnacht anniversary– that just as Jews ignored the warning signs of the coming storm in 1938, they are ignoring signs now; “anti-Zionism and hatred of Israel” are “black stars which are above our heads, which are still under control for the moment but which could be the prelude to the worst.”

The U.S. foreign policy elite and some of the mainstream press are already trying to rewrite the history of Afghanistan War. But U.S. forces could never have defeated the resistance. Just consider the significance of IEDs, which killed and maimed more US and allied soldiers than any other weapon during the long war.

“How long would the Afghan people accept the presence of armed foreigners in their country? Even a message of help can be humiliating, more so when it is backed by a gun. The Americans underestimated the importance of dignity and the extent to which their very presence in Afghanistan was deeply offensive.” –Nir Rosen’s analysis in 2010 was prescient about the Taliban’s nationalist appeal.

You would think that the Afghanistan debacle is another blow to neoconservatives: That the school of foreign policy experts inside the Beltway who gave us the Iraq war would be further discredited by the fall of Afghanistan. And you would be wrong.