I've noted many times that the American-led war on terror is basically a holding action against Islamist terrorists. The holding action protects the West from the collateral damage of an Islamic civil war that is raging. The main combatants are the Islamist jihadi nutballs who want to kill on one side and normal people who prefer to get along with other people on the other.
Resentment is a deep problem that creates and drives the murderous nuts:
This is a known, and major, flaw with Islam which is the only major religion whose scripture mandates continuous violence against infidels (non-believers). The Islamic scriptures make it clear that the mere existence of infidels is a threat to Islam and must be attacked, no matter what the cost. Most Moslems ignore this aspect of their religion, at the risk of being declared a heretic if conservative Moslems near them who decide to get violent and go jihad (war on) against any Infidels within reach. Many Moslems, including Gulf oil state Arab governments are openly seeking a way to reform Islam and eliminate this flaw which has been crippling Islam and killing Moslems for over a thousand years. This is a serious effort and one reason for making peace with Israel.
So the war on terror is a supporting role. Luckily, the normals are making progress. So in the long run that is good news.
And in the short run, America doesn't need to wage the major military campaigns to contain the nutballs. Now it is nutball maintenance while the civil war is waged within Islam:
We have the "war on terror" which for a while in the Afghanistan and Iraq theaters was a real war.
But once the direct threats were defeated on the battlefield and whittled down to a size allies can handle with our help, it is something other than a war despite continued American military roles. ...
So the fight goes on. And the real fight is a civil war within the the Islamic world where we are potential collateral damage in the fight over who defines Islam--jihadis or normal people who would rather just get along with non-Moslems or even just Moslems who aren't Islamist fanatics of the proper sect.
We'll see if we can avoid having Afghanistan become a terror haven again after we bug out. Which will make it harder to contain the damage to the West of the Islamic civil war.
The bright side is that Afghanistan is a backwater in the civil war.
It's called the Long War for a reason. Just be grateful that our role is declining in intensity.
