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Welcome to the Atlantic interview.

I'm Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor-in-chief of the Atlantic, and today I'm

talking with one of the world's leading experts on the seemingly endless wars in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

So, naturally, I'd like to begin with Moby Dick, and you'll see there's a reason for this.

In the opening chapter of Moby Dick, which is this wonderfully modern interior novel. Ishmael, the protagonist,

wonders how God, or Providence, sees his whaling voyage. Doubtless, my going on this whaling

voyage formed part of the grand program of Providence that was drawn up a long time ago.

It came in as a sort of brief interlude and solo between more extensive performances.

I take it that this part of the bill must have run something like this.

Grand contested election for the presidency of the United States, wailing voyage by one

Ishmael, bloody battle in Afghanistan. So this is Herman Melville, writing roughly 168 years ago, and talking about the fact that

there is this enduring bloody conflict in Afghanistan.

And this passage has always struck me as a rejoinder in a way to those who argue that

Afghanistan is a solvable problem.

So to understand why Americans have been fighting and dying in Afghanistan for 17 years and why the whole region seems unfixable,

I needed to talk to Steve Kahl. Steve became famous on this subject for his book, Ghost Wars,

...