US hawks make a misleading comparison between Ukraine and Afghanistan.

Judged against what was at stake in the Cold War — people today often forget what a tyranny the Soviet Union was, and how it kept other countries under a harsh empire — Brzezinski's clever plan was not obviously foolish. We can't blame people in 1979 for not envisioning that Islamic tyranny could return on a 12th-century model, or that Afghanistan would devolve into a state of permanent civil war lasting long after the Soviet Union ceased to exist.