I have my doubts on that. One thing you have to understand is that Boomers and GenXers were very much brought up with the massive success of the post-WW2 nation building front and center. Remember, West Germany and Japan went from bombed out broken countries at the end of WW2 to first world nations with first world technology, infrastructure, and engagement with the world in barely twenty years. The Philippines were also seen as a major success of America being able to take a third world former Spanish colony and uplift it pretty successfully too. Sure, Vietnam was a bit of a sore spot, but we hadn't been engaged in Nation Building there, we'd lost a war for complex reasons.
As such, for Boomer politicians and GenXers the idea that the US could rebuild ANY NATION was actually a THING. They REALLY BELIEVED they could uplift Afghanistan from a third world Islamic tribal state to a modern representative democracy with a functioning society and culture. After all, the US had a great track record at the time of doing so, and with less technology and knowledge.
Of course, what was ignored was more than a few things. Both Japan and Germany had long, long traditions of Rule of Law and low civil and governmental corruption. They ignored the fact that before we rebuilt Germany and Japan we BROKE them with Total War. Something nobody really seemed to remember was that the US has not actually fought using Total War tactics SINCE World War 2, always fighting these strange wars where the politicians are setting the goals and holding the armed forces back. But that lack of Total War and the Total Domination and Breaking of the enemy's spirit it brings meant that we never had the same scope and capability to rebuild as we did with them. We also were unwilling to do the hard work of purging corruption out of concern for keeping out local allies in line, when what should have been done is any whiff of civil or governmental corruption should have been purged and if that caused a village to declare for the Taliban, that village should have been completely leveled with an airstrike. But the modern US and modern American civilians do not have the stomach for what it actually takes to reform a society as messed up as Afghanistan, and everyone realized that, and so took half measures, made things look good for the press, and hope that somehow going through the motions would eventually stick.
As the old saying goes, never attribute to malice which can be better attributed to stupidity.