Does Afghanistan mark the end of the American empire? | Taliban

After the Taliban took over Kabul, Afghanistan continued to be the focus of the international media, and the usual suspects were repeating familiar metaphors. “Imperial Cemetery”-Is there a more used and abused Orientalist metaphor? -It is the favorite reference in analysis and commentary. Like Afghanistan and other places, there has not been countless times in history that it has been conquered and ruled by foreign powers.

Are the Afghans “suitable” for civilized society costumes, it seems that these costumes are reserved only for Western countries, or whether they are “noble savages” out of good intentions, but too weak or naive to fight for them and keep what they are given .

However, because Western narratives focus on the Afghans and their so-called “failures,” few people reflect on the Afghan incidents’ views on the United States, the retreating superpower, and its increasingly inability to determine global affairs.

When I watched Kabul fall into the Taliban, I remembered the words of former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger-“Being an enemy of the United States may be dangerous, but becoming a friend of the United States is fatal.”

Since the invasion in 2001, the world’s richest and most powerful country has spent US$2 trillion and deployed up to 775,000 military personnel for 20 years of training, equipment, and nation-building. When it decided to withdraw, its Afghan allies surrendered within a week.

Does Afghanistan mark the end of the American century, or is it just a fleeting moment for its world dominance?

In fact, there have been other similar moments in history when the United States showed weakness. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 destroyed the US Pacific Fleet, and the Philippines was subsequently invaded by Japan. But then the United States rebuilt the navy and brought Japan to its knees within three years.

There was also the 1973 war. With the support of the Soviet Union, the Egyptian and Syrian forces launched a surprise attack on the territories occupied by Israel. When the United States began airlifting weapons to its allies, Arab oil producers responded by imposing an oil embargo, which severely hit the US economy. But ten years later, it minimized the Soviet influence in the region and separated Egypt from the Arab nationalist bloc.

It may be too early to announce the decline of the United States, but the global geopolitical dynamics have undergone major changes in the past two decades. As the Indian-American political commentator Fareed Zakaria pointed out in his book “Post-American World” published in 2008, “The fact that the new forces are more strongly defending their interests is The reality of the post-American world.”

However, he did not convincingly argue that “the rise of other countries” is the result of other great powers adopting US policy principles and ideas.

Looking back, the United States’ first appearance on the world stage was dramatic and epoch-making. By 1913, it had become a major economic power, although it had little interest in global affairs. This will change as it intervenes in World War I on the side of the Allies, ensuring their victory. After the end of World War II, it was clear that the United States was replacing the British Empire as the dominant force in most parts of the world. Less than 50 years later, with the dissolution of the Eastern Bloc and the Soviet Union, Washington won.

As the United States begins to dominate the world, its order is morally supported by its belief in “destiny determined by nature” and economically supported by the U.S. dollar as a reserve currency, maintaining the huge gap between its economic strength and its closest competitor, and controlling it. To control its control of the world. Airway and oil supply pipeline.

The collapse of this global order is mainly in the hands of the United States itself. When the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, its moral dimension began to fall apart, not only ignoring the United Nations, but also spreading lies about the Saddam Hussein regime possessing weapons of mass destruction. The Great Recession of 2008 in turn damaged the credibility of the economic order, when major financial institutions in the United States closed down one after another.

All of this coincides with the revival of Russia and the rise of China as a global economic power. In the 2010s, signs of the internal socio-political crisis that the United States was experiencing also began to appear, reflected in the rise of Trumpism, the increasing racial injustice that triggered the black life problem movement, and the nearly collapse of the health system during the epidemic. The COVID-19 pandemic.

In this larger context, the humiliating withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan can be said to be the end of the century of American rule.

Of course, this does not mean that the United States has become irrelevant. Historically, declining empires—such as the Ottoman Empire in the 19th century and Russia in the late 19th and early 20th centuries—continued to exercise imperial power and dominate world events.

The United States remains the largest military power in the world. The scale and influence of its economy remain strong. What has changed, however, is its desire for direct and indirect conflict to maintain its power. Its allies—in Afghanistan and elsewhere—are the first to feel America’s growing aversion to global dominance.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.