Opportunity Cost

is the cost of what you couldn't do because of what you chose to do.

A few weeks ago, I heard the following exchange on Meet the Press:

MR. RUSSERT: There has been much discussion in the United States that the U.S. took its eye off of Afghanistan, and distracted by Iraq. Could the $300 billion that we have spent in Iraq have been better spent stabilizing Afghanistan and rebuilding Afghanistan?

PRES. KARZAI: Three hundred billion dollars? You give that to Afghanistan, and we’ll be heaven in less than a year.

The normally unflappable Karzai sounded like a desert dweller seeing a lake for the first time.

We have greatly increased hatred for the US by creating a hell in Iraq. What if we had created "heaven" in Afghanistan instead?

We will never know.