Why Trump couldn't quit Afghanistan

President Trump was booed when he gave a long, angry speech in Phoenix; he was cheered when he vowed to continue a long, futile war in Afghanistan.

These two facts say a great deal about our current political climate. They also explain why Trump's decision to stay in Afghanistan — come hell or Blackwater, says former Bush 41 defense official Jed Babbin — was the only one he was ever likely to make.

If there is a consistent theme to the wars the United States has fought over the last 16 years, it is this: non-nuclear-armed rogue regimes that find themselves in American crosshairs quickly come to an end, but all the president's horses and all the president's men cannot put Humpty back together again.

That is what happened after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in Iraq. It happened after we came, we saw and Moammar Gadhafi died in Libya. And it is what we are still struggling with 16 years after toppling the Taliban in Afghanistan.

This history is undoubtedly what Trump had in mind when he told the American people, "We are not nation-building again. We are killing terrorists."