As President Trump and his advisers consider whether to begin withdrawing troops from Afghanistan, Clifford May urges them to see the war there as America’s enemies do: a single theater in a much larger war that began with the fall of the Ottoman empire, if not even earlier:

In 1998, [Osama bin Laden] signed a fatwa on behalf of the “World Islamic Front for Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders,” proclaiming that killing “Americans and their allies—civilians and military—is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it.” [But] scant attention was paid until a few months later when two American embassies in Africa were bombed. . . .

If our troops are to remain in Afghanistan, they should have a mission that is both clear and achievable, one that strengthens American national security. Transforming Afghanistan into a liberal democracy seems unlikely. Definitively defeating the Taliban may require more resources that can be made available at a time when we have other battles to fight and other adversaries to keep in check.

A third option [would entail] gradually and painstakingly strengthening the ability of the Afghan government to defend itself, and ensure that the country never again is used as a safe haven, training ground, and command center for large-scale international terrorist attacks. . . . If what I’m describing is a mission impossible, the only sensible alternative is to retreat from the battlefield. But in that case we should be honest with ourselves about this slow-motion failure, and learn from it. We should imagine the benefits that will accrue to our enemies globally and plan accordingly. . . .

Afghanistan is a battle in a war that began in the distant past; a war that we’re not yet winning; a war that is likely to go on for years to come. Many Americans and Europeans find the prospect of such an “endless war” intolerable. Our enemies, by contrast, are patient and determined. The advantage this gives them should not be underestimated.

While roughly a third of Saudis are willing to cooperate with the Jewish state in matters of technology and commerce, far fewer are willing to allow Israeli teams to compete within the kingdom—let alone support diplomatic normalization. These are just a few results of a recent, detailed, and professional opinion survey—a rarity in Saudi Arabia—that has much bearing on current negotiations involving Washington, Jerusalem, and Riyadh. David Pollock notes some others:

When asked about possible factors “in considering whether or not Saudi Arabia should establish official relations with Israel,” the Saudi public opts first for an Islamic—rather than a specifically Saudi—agenda: almost half (46 percent) say it would be “important” to obtain “new Israeli guarantees of Muslim rights at al-Aqsa Mosque and al-Haram al-Sharif [i.e., the Temple Mount] in Jerusalem.” Prioritizing this issue is significantly more popular than any other option offered. . . .

This popular focus on religion is in line with responses to other controversial questions in the survey. Exactly the same percentage, for example, feel “strongly” that “our country should cut off all relations with any other country where anybody hurts the Quran.”

By comparison, Palestinian aspirations come in second place in Saudi popular perceptions of a deal with Israel. Thirty-six percent of the Saudi public say it would be “important” to obtain “new steps toward political rights and better economic opportunities for the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.” Far behind these drivers in popular attitudes, surprisingly, are hypothetical American contributions to a Saudi-Israel deal—even though these have reportedly been under heavy discussion at the official level in recent months.

Therefore, based on this analysis of these new survey findings, all three governments involved in a possible trilateral U.S.-Saudi-Israel deal would be well advised to pay at least as much attention to its religious dimension as to its political, security, and economic ones.