To the Editor:

In “What Trump Needs to Learn From Vietnam” (Sunday Review, Sept. 17), David Elliott draws lessons for Afghanistan from America’s experience in Vietnam. But these are two different countries in two different eras, influenced by different geopolitics.

In Vietnam, the United States sought to protect its remote interests against the expansion of an ideological threat from Communism. By contrast, in Afghanistan, the United States seeks to avert the spillover effects of terrorism, radicalism and criminality that directly threaten America’s homeland security. 9/11 is a tragic reminder!

In this fight, the Afghan people remain a strategic asset, unlike the Vietnamese.

And while the American administrations, Congress and the public were divided on Vietnam, Afghanistan has enjoyed bipartisan support over the last 16 years for its transformation from a pariah state under the Taliban that targeted Americans to a country where our achievements, including the institutionalization of democracy and human rights, remain a shared work in progress.

The United States is on the right path in Afghanistan. Americans should be patient and not allow politics to get in the way of Mr. Trump’s strategy for shared success against our common enemy.