BIDEN TURNS AMERICA'S BACK ON AFGHANISTAN, Trump served Biden a turd sandwich and he swallowed it whole
Afghanistan is going to go down in history as a case study in American failure. There are some who feel we should never have invaded to begin with. However, after the 9/11 attacks and the Taliban’s willingness to let Al-Qaeda operate freely in the country, I think it was entirely reasonable to hit back at the perpetrators of those attacks. Unfortunately, as is too often the case, we didn’t have a well-thought-out plan of what to do next. I’m sure at some point military planners brought up the subject of post war governing of Afghanistan. But that’s the complicated part of war — it’s easier to look past those issues and prioritize battlefield strategy.
There was never any question about who was going to win the military fight. Afghanistan is a weak country, always has been. Their history is a story of being dominated by outsiders or in the best of times, finding ways to play outside powers against each other to find periods of relative peace and stability. They are a landlocked country in south-central Asia, bordered by six other countries. In addition to their geographic neighbors, Russia (U.S.S.R), India, Great Britain, Saudi Arabia and the United States have all had their fingers in Afghanistan’s business in recent history. This combination of geography, international interests and internal weakness in the absence of American troops could result in a number of outcomes, none of them good for the Afghan people or regional stability.
When I originally planned this article about a week ago I thought I was going to write about how to prevent a disaster in Afghanistan. However the situation has deteriorated so quickly that this has turned into a postmortem. As I’m writing, this Taliban fighters have surrounded the capital of Kabul, the U.S. is conducting a panicked Vietnam-style evacuation and there are ongoing negotiations for a transfer of power. A transfer of power…gosh, that doesn’t sound so bad. Nice and orderly, much better than a violent bloodbath. Make no mistake about it, this is a disaster. “Transfer of power” is the nice way of saying a negotiated surrender.
In areas captured by the Taliban, they’ve forced women from their jobs, sent them home and told them not to leave the house without wearing a burqa and being escorted by a male relative. There have been reports of the Taliban demanding lists of unmarried women so they could give them to their soldiers as “wives.” There are also stories of captured Afghan soldiers being lined up and shot. Taliban leaders aren’t stupid. They’re trying to portray themselves as a reasonable alternative to the corrupt Afghan government. However, there is every reason to believe this is going to be a return of the bloody and oppressive regime of the 1990s.
The humanitarian catastrophe that’s about to unfold for the 38 million Afghan citizens is only part of this nightmare situation. If the Taliban’s reign of terror is confined to Afghanistan without affecting regional stability perhaps we can close our eyes and cover our ears and concern ourselves with if the White Sox will make it to the World Series. However, there are numerous ways this could spill over to other countries. Pakistan, Iran and China all have insurgent groups that are likely to see the new Afghanistan as a place they can use as a base of operations without much interference from the government. This could force them to launch missions into Afghanistan for their domestic security.
Pakistan and Iran both have internal political problems, and a tense relationship with each other. Pakistan has traditionally supported the Taliban, but it’s been a troubled relationship. The Taliban has allowed, maybe even encouraged, militant attacks across the border into Pakistan. Iran and the Taliban have had an antagonistic relationship in the past. Iran is probably happy to witness America’s humiliation, but aren’t likely to celebrate the Taliban’s return. It wouldn’t be a shock to see Saudi Arabia funnel money to anti-Iranian elements in Afghanistan. Pakistan and Iran largely tolerate each other despite a growing list of grievances. It’s not hard to imagine a proxy war breaking out in Afghanistan between the two countries, possibly influenced by China, Russia and/or Saudi Arabia trying to pull the strings from afar.
With so many would-be players in a post U.S. occupied Afghanistan, the number of potential eventualities are difficult to calculate, but few of them are good. I haven’t even mentioned Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, all of which have a border with Afghanistan and have their own motivations. Each country with an interest in Afghanistan has their own interests for a particular outcome. They also have a web of interconnected relationships with each other. I can’t pretend to understand all the entangled motivations of everyone involved, but then again I’m just an idiot blogger. Surely the State Department with all their experience and intelligence reports understand all the dynamics of the situation. That’s a joke, clearly they have no idea what they’re doing. Their mad dash to get out of the country before it’s overrun by the Taliban is evidence of that.
President Bush made the initial and most important blunder in Afghanistan when he diverted resources and America’s attention away from the country to focus on Iraq. Most people on both sides of the aisle now recognize the war in Iraq was a colossal screw up that let the problems in Afghanistan fester. President Obama tried to refocus our efforts in Afghanistan, but it soon became apparent his real concern was finding a politically expedient way to get our troops out of the country.
President Trump’s policy was essentially the same — find a way to get out. Trump is currently claiming he left a plan to get out of the country without the Taliban coming to power. This is a flat out lie as Trump is the architect of the current disaster. He negotiated a withdrawal of all American troops with the Taliban and didn’t even allow the Afghan government a seat at the table. When the Trump administration announced the withdrawal, many government-aligned militias saw the deal as an American surrender and switched their allegiance to be on the winning side. This began the unraveling of the Afghan government’s chances of holding the country together. Under this deal, Trump reduced U.S. troop levels ahead of a 1 May 2021 final withdrawal and the Taliban avoided American targets. This plan was a gift to the Taliban. It’s delusional to believe the same scenario wouldn’t play out if Trump was still president.
However, Trump isn’t the president, Joe Biden is. The fall of Afghanistan is happening on his watch. It’s true that Trump left him with a bad deal that amounted to abandoning the country. Biden didn’t have to follow that plan, he had options. However, it soon became apparent that Biden’s head was in the same place as Obama and Trump; just find a way to get out. Biden has tried to spin the failure of his policy in Afghanistan. He’s labelled Afghanistan a “forever war,” tried to argue that Trump’s deal with the Taliban left him no options, and claimed there’s nothing more American could do. It’s worth pointing out that blaming Trump while also stating there’s nothing America can do is a contradiction. There’s plenty of blame to be found in Afghanistan, but Biden is the guy driving the bus. He can’t blame Trump because he decided to drive it off a cliff.
Finding fault with American policy in Afghanistan isn’t exactly splitting the atom. There’s failure all over the place, but could we have avoided this end? Yeah, probably. The fundamental mistake made by every administration is the idea that America could come in, spread a little money around, have elections and that would fix Afghanistan. Democracy is a fragile thing that’s difficult to maintain even when you have well established democratic traditions. America just had a serious threat to our own peaceful transfer of power mere months ago. It took South Korea decades to firmly establish a functioning democracy even with a huge American presence. The belief they had America’s support was the glue holding everything together in Afghanistan. The constant rhetoric about leaving undercut our efforts.
It’s asking a lot for someone to potentially lay down their lives in war. Every natural human instinct is to do the exact opposite and run. The Afghan forces have fought effectively at times against the Taliban, but only when they believed they were part of a winning coalition with the western powers. That belief was tenuous at best between the long history of foreign powers coming in then leaving when it served their purposes and the continuous mixed signals from Washington. The combination of a corrupt government and America’s announcing we were leaving broke what was left of that belief. No one wants to be the last sucker to die in a doomed cause.
Establishing several permanent UN bases, staffed with maybe 20,000 troops, half of them Americans would have sent a strong signal to the country that we were there to stay. It would have also put us in a better position to lend logistical support to the Afghan military. We have a lot more troops than that in Korea, Japan and scattered across Europe. In fact, we probably have a lot more troops in Europe than the risk on that continent warrants. There’s no fundamental reason why Afghanistan can’t be a stable democracy, but it was always going to be a long-term mission.
The human suffering that is almost certain to happen in Afghanistan wasn’t inevitable. The Taliban are about to take control of the country not because of their military might, or even their persistence. Afghanistan has become politically inconvenient for American politicians. Rather than make the case for continued involvement to the American people, it was easier to walk away while whistling Dixie. Promoting stability, democracy and human rights around the world is a good investment in the long run. Unfortunately, we often allow short-term political motivations to sabotage our long-term interests. In less than a month we’re going to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks and Joe Biden will make a heartfelt speech. At the same time the Taliban will be celebrating in Kabul as they force women back under the burqa and eliminate anyone with the wrong beliefs.
Not a God-damned thing will have changed in twenty years.
Comments
Post a Comment