Perhaps Afghanistan was never meant to become a centralized country with a civil society based on democratic norms. But simply abandoning the nation-building effort altogether is fraught with danger. What the U.S. must do instead is change its course.
The city of Abbottabad where Osama bin Laden was killed is no innocuous backwater. It has a history shaped by terrorism, having been a hotspot of Al-Qaeda and Taliban activity for over a decade.
