Afghan mission a costly failure
Before 2007, when “Charlie Wilson’s War” became a hit, few Americans were aware of Afghanistan, a Muslim land in Asia historically caught between the Russian and British empires. In 1934 Washington extended recognition but otherwise ignored it as an inhospitable patch in Moscow’s sphere. In 1979, when the Soviets occupied Afghanistan to bolster their unpopular puppet regime, America reacted with the Carter Doctrine, pledging to defend the oilrich Persian Gulf from outside aggression, boycotting the Moscow Olympics, withdrawing from the SALT II arms agreement, and providing assistance to Afghanistan’s neighbor, Pakistan. Expanding the Carter Doctrine, the Reagan administration gave weapons to the Mujahadeen, the Islamic guerrilla fighters who in 1989 succeeded in forcing the Soviets to withdraw from Afghanistan. In 1992 they overthrew the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul.
Sharply divided by ethnic, religious and linguistic differences and loyal to fiercely independent warlords, Afghanistan’s Mujahadeen plunged the country into civil war from which one faction, the Taliban, emerged dominant. The Taliban’s allies included Osama bin Laden, millionaire scion of a powerful Saudi family and head of Al-Qaeda, a terrorist organization with international reach. A fiercely religious eccentric who modeled himself after the prophet Mohammed, he had funded the war on the Soviets and become a hero of the Arab world. But he reserved most of his hatred for the “morally decadent” West and its leader, America, and was determined to remove its presence in the Middle East. On September 11, 2001, 17 of his followers hijacked four American commercial planes and carried out the worst terrorist attack in American history.
American intelligence had focused on Al-Qaeda long before September 2001. Since 1992, terrorist attacks attributed to it had included the bombing of the World Trade Center (1993), the destruction of the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania (1998), and the bombing of the warship USS Cole (2000). After the carnage and destruction of September 11, 2001, an outraged nation demanded swift retribution against the perpetrators, whose identity was not in doubt. When the Taliban government rejected Washington’s demands to extradite bin Laden and expel Al-Qaeda, American forces invaded Afghanistan in October 2001 and President George W. Bush declared “war on terrorism.” The immediate mission was to capture bin Laden and deliver him to justice, and secure Afghanistan from ever again serving as the base for terrorist attacks on America.
At first the mission appeared easy. In two weeks the Taliban army was defeated and dispersed, blending into the civilian population or fleeing into neighboring Pakistan. But when America went to war in Iraq in March 2003, the Taliban regrouped, cast themselves as nationalists and began an insurgency against the American “occupation.” Having avoided capture by escaping into Pakistan, bin Laden remained in hiding near a large Pakistani military installation, from which, surrounded by wives and children, he continued to direct Al-Qaeda. Finally he was tracked down and, to the surprise and chagrin of Pakistani authorities, was killed on May 2, 2011, in a daring SEAL commando raid.
Even before bin Laden’s death, the emboldened Taliban insurgency compelled Washington to energize its vague “war on terrorism” whose principal target had been, and remained, the overthrow of Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi regime. Although defeated in the Gulf War of 1990-91 and expelled from Kuwait, under Saddam Iraq remained defiant and an obstacle to ambitious American policies in the Middle East. As for Afghanistan, the mission was to make it a unified, pacified and self-governing democracy which, with generous Western assistance, could remain free of Islamist extremists and terrorist groups that might attack America and its allies. Despite corrupt practices and monumental misuse and pilfering of funds, some real progress was achieved, particularly in education, women’s roles, individual rights and freedoms, and social justice. But the pace was painfully slow and the performance of key institutions of government, including the new Afghan armed forces, was incompetent, corrupt and abusive. To many Afghans, the American-sponsored authorities were worse than the Taliban.
What doomed America’s intervention in Pakistan was the invasion of Iraq, in March 2003. Justified by false charges that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, the second invasion of Iraq was to prove a colossal military blunder. Saddam Hussein was quickly overthrown and American troops established control of the country, while military and civilian advisers assumed administrative authority and Western-oriented Iraqis received key government posts. At the same time, thousands of professionals in the military and state bureaucracy of Saddam’s regime were fired and banned from public service. Not surprisingly, most of the forcibly discharged and now jobless soon emerged as a highly motivated and popular insurgent force that would fight and bleed the Americans and their allies for years. The principal consequence of the Iraq war was that it deprived the mission in Afghanistan of the energy, resources and official focus needed to sustain it.
In Washington, succeeding administrations now debated when and how quickly to withdraw from Afghanistan. Finally, on February 29, 2020, during the national election campaign, the Doha (Qatar) agreement with the Taliban leaders – whom President Trump had hoped to host at Camp David – from which he excluded the Kabul government, ended the war in Afghanistan and American intervention. Under its terms, Taliban attacks on the Americans and their allies were to stop and foreign troops withdrawn by May 1, 2021; afterward the Taliban would have unconditional authority over the country, while 5,000 prisoners (mostly Taliban and Islamic State veteran fighters) were to be freed immediately. In reaction, Afghanistan’s president fled abroad with millions of state funds while army commands stopped fighting and sought to engage the Taliban in peace talks.
In Washington, the incoming president, Joe Biden, who had for years supported America’s withdrawal from Afghanistan and whose assumption of office was systematically obstructed by Trump officials until Inauguration Day, chose to implement the agreement and only extended the withdrawal deadline to August 31. Without adequate preparations for the orderly evacuation of civilians, especially the thousands of Afghans who had served the Americans for years and were now desperate to escape with their families the brutality of the triumphant Taliban, the evacuation became the chaotic spectacle at Kabul airport the world watched for days in horrified fascination.
With the end of the American intervention in Afghanistan barely over, its legacy may be impossible to foresee. Yet certain prognostications may already be justified.
The Taliban’s control of the country is complete and its military arm has inherited large stores of American weapons and equipment. Yet it remains to be seen whether it can establish and sustain a functioning civilian government over a large country and a resentful population with no national cohesion.
Diplomatic recognition by the international community, essential for vital political, legal, financial and commercial transactions, may be difficult to secure.
Without natural resources or industrial base and heavily dependent on international financing and humanitarian assistance, which may now be unavailable, Afghanistan under a Taliban regime faces economic collapse and famine.
With the Taliban’s stated intention to impose Islamic law and traditions, recently gained social and personal freedoms may be lost. Already, the replacement of the ministry of women’s affairs with one to enforce moral values and the banning of girls’ education beyond primary school give clues on what is to come.
The Taliban government’s ability to control or expel terrorist organizations such as Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State (ISIS) is highly doubtful.
American intervention as applied in Afghanistan (and Iraq) was a costly failure whose damage to America’s reputation and standing in the world is bound to be felt for many years. Moreover, the assault on January 6, 2021, on the Capitol, symbol of American democracy, by a wild assortment of enraged extremists, confirms official statements that the principal threat to the country’s security no longer comes from distant lands but from homegrown enemies. The principal target of the new war on terror is now domestic.
The assault on January 6, 2021, on the US Capitol by enraged extremists, confirms official statements that the principal threat to the country’s security no longer comes from distant lands but from homegrown enemies
* John O. Iatrides is a professor of international politics at Southern Connecticut State University. He served with the Greek National Defense General Staff during 1955-56 and with the Office of the Prime Minister of Greece from 1956 to 1958.