The 1990s are remembered as a decade of peace and prosperity—the Clinton years, the dot-com boom, the “end of history.” But they were not a decade of peace. They were a decade of intervention: the Gulf War, Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo, ongoing strikes against Iraq. More importantly, they were the decade when the architecture of permanent intervention was constructed.

The Afghan operation was the largest CIA covert action since Vietnam. It succeeded brilliantly in its immediate objective: the Soviets withdrew, humiliated, their empire weakened. But covert operations have consequences beyond their immediate objectives. The enemy of our enemy is not our friend—he is merely our enemy’s enemy. Arming religious extremists to fight secular communists does not produce moderates; it produces empowered extremists.