happen so what's keeping us leaders from ending this forever war joining me to figure this out is stephen walt professor of international relations at harvard university and one of america's leading political scientists he coauthored the israel lobby with john mearsheimer in 2007 and most recently wrote the hell of good intentions america's foreign policy elite and the decline of u.s. primacy dr weil is terrific to have you on with us today talking about this let me just start for this is there ever going to be a time where america's generals america's strategic class think the conditions have been met to depart afghanistan you and i have been talking about this red decade and a half and it just feels like we've gone the full loop. i think that's right given the way they have defined the objectives no we're never going to reach that point because they've defined the objectives quite an realistically suggesting that afghanistan not only has to be no longer a possible safe haven for terrorism but also that it has to have not the export of narcotics any more not facing any problem of refugees lea