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“This is a bad time for our country… I don’t know what you call it-military failure or psychological failure,” former US President Donald Trump accepted Fox on August 17. The TV station said in an interview. He was referring to his successor, President Joe Biden, who decided to withdraw troops from Afghanistan.
A few hours ago, it was reported that the Republican National Committee had deleted a 2020 webpage praising Trump for “reaching a historic peace agreement with the Taliban”.
Although Republicans are trying to conceal their support for the withdrawal of Afghanistan in the aftermath of the chaotic withdrawal of the United States, they, like the Democrats, know very well that this is inevitable and must be done. Media reports show that many U.S. government officials knew from the beginning that there was a problem with the war and that it could not be won—if the goal was that there was no political solution to the Taliban.
As the world watches the Taliban rebuild the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan 20 years after being overthrown by the US-led invasion, people cannot help asking, how did Washington achieve such a huge failure? Forty years after the Vietnam War, how could it repeat the same mistakes-without a clear goal or exit strategy? After so many American officials expressed doubts about the war, why didn’t they have the courage to plan and execute it correctly?
Many people regard international politics as a game. In this case, the game is obvious-Jenga. In Jenga, the player takes the fragments from the tower and places them on top until the tower collapses. No one wins in Jenga; one loses.
Three consecutive administrations have known that the tower will collapse and no one will win. Nonetheless, they pretended that victory was possible before the American public and delayed defeat by injecting trillions of dollars and sacrificing thousands of civilian and military lives.
They did not prepare for the moment the tower collapsed, nor did they take measures to help their successors cope with the eventual collapse. In the context of commitments related to nation-building, the rule of law, women’s rights and education, cultural change, and “dialogue” with the Taliban, failures have become even greater. In the end, Afghanistan lost more than 100,000 lives (at least this is recognized), while the United States lost 2,400 lives.
Our history is full of foreign policy fiascos that are also doomed to failure, in which short-term biases that support coercion preempt consistent contacts and the long-term benefits of foreign policy.
Afghanistan and Iraq are the most recent examples, Vietnam is the classic example, but there are also military occupations in Haiti (1915-34), the Dominican Republic (1916-24), Cuba (1906-09), and Nicaragua (1912)-33). None of these professions produced democracy, development or peace. They all reflect the imperialist arrogance of America’s belief in total victory, and its refusal to accept compromises or partial accomplishments (for example, killing Osama bin Laden is enough).
The low-level politics of shirking responsibility — the mentality of “the tower will collapse, but not under my watch” — ignores the call for more time and reflection on the 9/11 attacks like Congresswoman Barbara Lee. people. Nevertheless, we play the game over and over again, knowing that no one can win.
It is worth asking what other building block dilemmas are plagued by US foreign policy? As everyone knows, what other strategies will fail, but no president is willing to take responsibility for the collapse of the tower?
One place to start is a large number of problematic US unilateral sanctions. These sanctions have caused great pain and confusion, but have never led to the expected results of regime change. On the contrary, sanctions can cause suffering to large numbers of people, and they are often counterproductive, providing a nationalist impetus to the shaky regime.
In the current pandemic situation, sanctions are not only futile; they are cruel, and they further consume American power. To make matters worse, when a unilateral comprehensive embargo does not work, Washington’s typical response is not to question its reasons, but to extend it to third countries through secondary sanctions.
The most shocking example is the sanctions against Cuba. Most rational observers believe that the embargo is invalid. Except for the United States and Israel, almost every country in the world will vote in the United Nations to condemn them every year. Nonetheless, no president wants to be the one who reversed the embargo through extraterritorial secondary sanctions, which have been in force for 60 years.
One might even argue that it helped the Cuban government unite its people and brought Washington into conflict with almost all major allies in the world. It did not move away from Beijing and Moscow, but pushed Havana towards them. As a result, the United States continued its blockade, causing unnecessary suffering to the Cuban people, and failed to bring about change, turning the United States (not Cuba) into an international pariah in conflict with its allies.
There is only one way to win in the political stack-don’t play. The arrogance of the empire led us to build towers that were doomed to collapse. Every government is piling up new resources and deaths, hoping to at least postpone the inevitable until they leave office. It is time to recognize an unwinnable game as soon as possible-the United States should not be an imperialist power, should not occupy other countries, and should have the courage to end an obviously unsuccessful strategy.
Diplomacy, trade and engagement, multilateralism and peace, not war or sanctions, should be our default foreign policy tools.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
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