America’s Afghan defeat gives radical Islam boost
After the Taliban takeover, the final withdrawal of the United States from Afghanistan — with its last soldier and aircraft leaving Kabul airport shortly before midnight on August 30, a day before the deadline announced by President Joe Biden — is likely to be remembered with bitterness in America, much as the Vietnam campaign was. In spite of the widespread fear that the return of the Taliban has caused in Afghanistan among ordinary people, leading thousands to flee through the airlift process organised by 13 countries, and some half a million so far to rush out of the country as refugees to neighbouring Pakistan and Iran, there can be little doubt that the US pullout ending with a whimper is likely to be seen in terms of the defeat of empire. Especially in the Islamic world, America’s defeat is likely to be seen in glory terms. The likely boost the constituencies of radical Islam may now receive is what makes the US ignominy different from that of Britain and the Soviet Union in the past. In the final analysis, the world’s mightiest military, technology and financial machine was humbled by a rag-tag force both militarily and diplomatically after a 20-year struggle. The US withdrew without a fuss and without ceremony, leaving behind 85 billion dollars worth of military hardware, although it disabled some of that stuff before departing.
It also left behind memories of political ineptness, shoddy handling of the military campaign within Afghanistan which mostly involved killing ordinary village folk without touching the massed camps of insurgents sheltered inside Pakistan across the boundary from Afghanistan. And not to put too fine a point on it, American presence in Afghanistan bred corruption on a staggering scale. Its principal beneficiaries were not the Afghan political elite, though they were insistently made the fall guys in persistent Western propaganda, but the Western aid givers, the military contractors, and even elements of the foreign militaries that secretly became beneficiaries of the massive opium trade in cahoots with insurgent and criminal gangs. Reports of America’s own Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction (SIGAR), which asked many questions and raised important audit issues, were disregarded in Washington. But they do tell the story of irregularity involved in the expenditure of around one trillion dollars in a span of two decades.
The US invasion and semi-colonisation of Afghanistan, no doubt, had an obvious beneficiary side too. Millions of women and young girls, especially outside of rural communities, could secure their human rights through literacy, education, and health projects, and escape the clutches of servitude.
The US period also gave the people of Afghanistan a faint kiss of democracy. Will it matter in the changed milieu after the return of the Taliban? This can only be judged in the light of experience with the passage of time. It is in this broad spectrum of things that India’s role will be remembered for across-the-board developmental and infrastructure aid that helped transform lives.
America’s humiliation in Afghanistan was brought about in a historical phase dominated by the world politics of multi-polarity, in contrast with its defeat in Vietnam. This brings about a quartet of China-Russia-Pakistan-Turkey as dominant regional powers. India will need to re-imagine its image and its moves to stay in the game. This is best done by remaining in solidarity with the people of Afghanistan.
There can be little doubt that the US pullout is likely to be seen in terms of the defeat of empire. Especially in the Islamic world, America’s defeat is likely to be seen in glory terms.