Ground Truth

Tale of Two War Zones

As global attention shifts from Iraq to Afghanistan, from Bush's war to Obama's war, Foreign Policy reconsiders the inevitable—but deeply flawed—comparisons between these two misunderstood countries. We consulted with war correspondents, do-gooders, and public officials who told us to forget the surface similarities in the daily blood-and-guts news. Iraq and Afghanistan may have roughly the same population, but, from the price of a kabob to the explosives that will blow your legs off, they couldn't be more different: a warning to those who would seek to import Big Ideas from one war zone to the other.

BY ANNIE LOWREY | JULY/AUG 2009