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Even according to the usual American standards, the collapse of the American-built and generously sponsored Afghan army in the face of the Taliban’s sweeping victory into Kabul was a huge fiasco. The habitual post-event analysis (who “lost” Afghanistan, how and why?) hardly touched the surface of what actually happened.
When a tattered movement that was allegedly crushed, blown up, and blown to pieces by the most powerful military alliance on the planet rose from the ashes and walked into the presidential palace built by the “Terminator”—— By the way, they are still nearby, as if looking in a daze-in order to manage its eventual absence, we should not discuss Afghanistan here. It should be the United States itself and what remains of it as a world power.
So far, the standard answers provided include: “Afghanistan’s belligerence” (unlike, God bless, the bad war in Iraq!) how it has also become worse; how better logistics and timing can help, how strategies are different, etc. Wait.
This concern is mainly about technical issues, such as NATO’s internal command issues, weak planning, corruption and incompetence of the Afghan leadership, President Obama’s failure to increase troops in 2009, and missed opportunities for peacemaking. It is more distraction than insightfulness. Analysis.
Even the continued accusations of Pakistan’s support for the Taliban are irrelevant; even if these are true, its participation cannot be compared with the more than 40 other advanced countries that support the United States, nor with the tribal national forces that initially engaged in most of the ground fighting. .
Here, we have the most powerful ultra-modern war machine in the world, and we have suffered a crushing defeat in a war with almost heterogeneous military and political forces on the fringe of one of the world’s poorest countries. This dream alliance was generously funded (over one trillion dollars) and supported by the leadership and guidance of the United Nations in the field of civil affairs. It took two decades to accumulate “victory” and “achievement.” Then it stared blankly at the barefoot villagers coming in, or riding in on a motorcycle, and wiped out all these “achievements” within a few weeks.
This is not a technical or logistical accident. This is a serious injury, a failure, and a complete failure. Even after the fiercest colonial liberation war, we have never seen a profession that must rush home all its “human achievements,” including translators. As the routing progresses, this is epic!
Some critics have raised the basic question of whether the idea of war itself is reasonable, reminding us of the reason for the problem, because none of the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks came from Afghanistan, and the United States has taken in more people than Afghanistan. Al-Qaeda chose Afghanistan. It is because it has no nationality, not because it has a country that “supports terrorism.” Therefore, the war did not solve the root cause of the conflict.
Afghanistan’s resistance to foreign invaders has always been excellent — and very effective in keeping them out, unlike Iraq’s formative colonial experience. Therefore, the invasion is neither helpful nor wise. Many people think this is unjust and illegal.
However, with the exception of a small number of skeptics, Western support for this “good” and just war remains strong overall. In October 2019, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs asked a group of “authorities with deep expertise” about the Afghanistan case whether the war was a mistake. Even after all this has happened or become known, only a few people question its legitimacy.
In the trauma after 9/11, American leaders felt that they must do something violent, and soon. This is not so much a rational response as it is an act of seeking catharsis. Like Osama bin Laden, George W. Bush also chose Afghanistan, the apparently weakest link, as the location for his spectacle of revenge.
Nevertheless, the consequences of this indiscretion are not difficult to predict. The question is: Why is it so difficult to foresee this disaster in this “advanced” country with countless authorities, scholars, experts, and senior decision-makers?
The collapse of Afghanistan was not the only major event that caught “experts” off guard. The Arab Spring, the Berlin Wall, the Iranian Revolution, the rise of Islamism-everything. Always the last “expert” to know has some questions.
Some scholars believe that historical development is inherently unpredictable, even among the participants; many of the latter engage in “preference forgery” (deliberately concealing intentions). However, this is not the whole story. “Experts” usually don’t want to see the obvious.
For the past few decades, I have been responding to wishful thinking about the “end of Islamism.” In the late 1990s, an American friend sent me a letter asking me to check the chapter in her book that predicted the end of Islamism. I sent her an article that I published ten years ago criticizing the method of similar conclusions reached by State Department analysts.
Their conclusion is based on the results of “elections” in five countries, all of which are autocratic! In that article, I warned that the continued repression of the US-backed regime will intensify Islamists, rather than destroy them as some people desire. I think we all now know how things have evolved since then.
Edward Said’s profound critique of “Orientalism” shows us that these errors are part of a wider distorted model. Ironically, Said’s work has met with strong opposition, triggering the “sectarian” polarization of American Middle East studies. Opponents of his views, including the alliance of neocons and pro-Israel lobby groups, have launched multiple crusades against impartial scholars, including slander campaigns and lobbying to cut official funding for universities deemed anti-Israel and even anti-American.
These companies include the American Trustees and Alumni Council, founded by Lynn Cheney and Senator Joe Lieberman in 1995. Critics describe it as a form of neo-McCarthyism because it systematically promotes progress. Scholars see it as “the enemy of American civilization.”
In 2002, pro-Israel lobbyists launched Campus Watch, specifically targeting academics who were considered hostile to the Israeli agenda. The organization published a “blacklist” of “offending” scholars and urged students to report their professors!
Given the “professional knowledge” issues already mentioned in foreign policy analysis, these activists’ suggestions look like prescriptions for people with poor eyesight to wear blindfolds. Since then, Trumpism and its hostility to anything rational has reinforced this practice, threatening the entire American society, not just academia and rationality.
The issue of Afghanistan needs to be viewed in this broader framework. Wrong analysis (or obvious prejudice/bias) usually leads to disastrous policies, which in turn leads to more misleading analyses. There are issues with Israel’s background, as well as Washington’s irrational decision to condone any absurd and dangerous policies proposed by the Israelis, even regardless of the consequences, even for Israel itself. Therefore, it is not Israel that poses the most serious threat to the stability of the region, but the United States.
But the direct root cause of the current crisis can be traced back to 1990, when President Bush Sr. decided to use Iraq to invade Kuwait to maintain the hegemony of the United States in the post-Cold War era. Instead of using diplomacy to resolve the crisis, he took this opportunity to show off American firepower, support friendly tyrants, ensure oil supplies, and show everyone who is the boss.
Senior officials in Britain and the United States dismissed warnings of serious consequences, boasting how correct they were after the war: nothing happened. Then, of course, 9/11 happened, and the same people were asking: Where did this come from?
What happened in the Middle East in 1990 is similar to what happened in Afghanistan in 2001. In both cases, conservative societies are traumatized by the destructive presence of foreign countries (more violent in the case of Afghanistan), tearing it apart and triggering a fierce defensive response to spread to the United States.
The invasion of Saudi Arabia in 1990 was the original sin and created Al Qaeda; the invasion of Iraq in 2003 produced ISIS; and the invasion of Afghanistan created a more dynamic Islamic emirate.
At the same time, the regional balance has also been chaotic. Ironically, the so-called enemy Iran has won many victories. The United States eliminated its Iraq (and later Afghanistan) enemies and actually gave Iraq to it. At the same time, Iran’s rival, Saudi Arabia, was shaken by the destructive presence of US forces on its territory.
As I have pointed out elsewhere, the followers of Iran’s late Supreme Leader Ruhola Khomeini are forgiven for thinking this is a sacred intervention: Heaven sends Iran’s arch enemies to subdue local opponents and take the spoils of war. Give it to the Iranian. The US’s behavior is actually like one of the pro-Iranian militias in the region, bidding from a distance, and it’s free.
Similarly, the United States and NATO did not take serious action to prevent Bashar al-Assad’s genocide against the Syrian people. Instead, they made the United States and NATO a supplement to the Syrian regime and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard’s Qassim Soleimani. air force. Putin and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Turkey, the most reliable ally of the United States, has become a hostage of the Russia-Iran alliance with canned food on its back. Even the ancient Machiavellianism seems elusive. Morality is not the only victim here, so is pragmatism. Through capriciousness and infidelity, continuing to disappoint allies, and inability to help the enemy prosper, the next time the United States decides to face China or Russia, it will have no allies.
Just ten years ago, the question people asked was: How long can extremists survive in the unipolar era in the United States? I think the question now is: How long can the United States last in the Taliban era?
At this point, the so-called “experts” are as guilty as those politicians who fail to make decisions.
A few years ago, a taxi driver drove me to the Sky News Studio in London for an interview and asked me what I wanted to talk about. When he learned that this was the Iraq war, he said sarcastically: “I think intelligence agencies should be prosecuted under the Trade Descriptions Act.”
Maybe they are not the only ones.
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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