Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice completed her visit to Central Asia and Afghanistan last week. This is a tough neighborhood, which plays a key role in the forthcoming global game between the West and the rest.
The U.S. has growing geopolitical competition in the region from Russia, China and the global Islamist movement. Ms. Rice is now playing the 21st Century version of the “Great Game” in which, 100 years ago, the British Empire and Czarist Russia competed over the heartland of Eurasia.
What a phrase can evoke – “The Great Game” – recalling the not always glorious days of Kipling and Victoria:
When you’re wounded and left on Afghanistan’s plains,
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains
An’ go to your Gawd like a soldier.
Go, go, go like a soldier…So-oldier of the Queen!
The more things change, the more they stay the same.