Afghanistan Has Done What It Was Predicted to Do, Only Faster

 

Proliferation of guns, greed, corruption at levels seldom seen anywhere, the American proclivity to impose Western visions of “democracy” without the slightest comprehension of a local ability (read: education and familiarity) to self-govern, abysmal knowledge of the culture or internal factions of a conquered nation, and a naïve belief tknowledge of every nook and cranny of a rugged landscape with superior military technologhat we can tame well-armed zealots (especially those seeking martyrdom) who have a detailed y only designed to counter comparable modern armies. 

Why should a recruited-for-pay army fight for a nation led by what Transparency International has determined to be one of the most corrupt governments on earth? Love of country? Respect for its system of government? A hastily conceived government structure imposed on their nation by a distant superpower as an afterthought to an invasion predicated on punishment and revenge? Trusting a religious political militancy that believes it is following the will of God, that believes that all things Western are evil? Believing the promises and pledges of a brutal theocracy that have never kept its word before, since the pledge to God supersedes any mere promise to an evil Western power?

As the Taliban rose from the seeming ashes following their ouster, as the war lords continued to play all sides against each other to rule their slices of Afghanistan as they have for decades, and as anti-war sentiment and budget-busting costs turn U.S. sentiment against the war? This was their land. They knew where to hide, where to lie in wait, how to use simple weapons, from AK-47s and RPGs to improvised explosive devices of increasing sophistication… until they conquered tanks, Humvees and artillery from their invaders.

The mistake began with believing that boots and on the ground and overthrow of the local government was a necessary step to retaliate for the Taliban’s harboring of the al Qaeda terrorists who took down the World Trade Center twin towers and blasted the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. The notion that we had to take and maintain a sustaining hold on a land we thoroughly failed to understand, the same land that was a major precursor to the collapse of the Soviet Union decades before (they too fought a long losing war there), was clearly wrong-headed. We picked interim (who somehow became “elected”) leaders who had lived in the U.S., people who were not remotely trusted by anyone in Afghanistan… who slorped at the trough of mega-corruption from the get-go. We could never take the moral high ground, because we started with this piggish leadership, empowered by our vision of governance.

We could never maintain our vision of Afghanistan without a permanent presence. The hope we delivered, primarily in Kabul and the surrounding land (the only area we ever consistently held), to Afghans seeking education and modernity, particularly girls and women seeking freedom and learning, was at best illusory. So let’s take this horrific situation and add some “time’s up” variables. 

What do you think happens to a well-armed army of religious zealots, fighters who already hold vast regions of the country, when you tell them you are going to withdraw your military on a date certain? That they just have to negotiate with you to prevent their harboring religious affiliates (who have the same anti-Western commitment) who might use Afghanistan as a base of operations? When two immediately adjacent U.S. presidents set “absolute” exit dates? When you start removing the only troops who have ever really threatened that zealot army, without any further need to fight to push out those foreigners? Given time to plan how to complete a total takeover without remotely having to consider a power sharing arrangement with the U.S. backed crumbling government? Facing only an army that is terrified to take on the Taliban without U.S. forces in tow?

Announcing a drop-dead pullout date, and letting the Taliban know that you are leaving “no matter what” made Taliban conquest inevitable. We thought it would just take longer. We gave them time to plan, time to prepare and pulled out the only forces that might have made them think otherwise. The mere fixed date withdrawal announcement, accompanied by a complete failure of intelligence by both the Trump and Biden administrations, sealed Afghanistan’s fate. It was clearly over as Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and senior leadership fled the country. The Taliban were inside the Presidential Palace almost immediately thereafter.

Biden did not have to follow the Trump pledge, the latter’s early and accelerating withdrawal of U.S. forces, but he did. And that made the fall of Afghanistan Biden’s Saigon moment. The loss of Afghanistan may have been inevitable, but simply effecting a slow but not-date-specified withdrawal, using international pressure (particularly from other Islamic nations) to urge negotiations, and transferring military regional responsibility to Afghan forces over a longer stretch of time might have eliminated that incredible loss of face as helicopters lifted U.S. diplomats from the embassy, leaving behind those who helped us to be executed by the Taliban…  a clear panic of unprepared Americans leaving hell behind.

And yes, the Taliban will claim they defeated the United States of America. And yes, while they may be more circumspect in fomenting future terrorism and supporting sympathetic terrorist groups in attacking Western, particularly U.S. targets, their commitment to their vision of God says otherwise. But most of all, our domestic focus will all but render this foreign policy debacle, misjudgment from presidents on both sides of the aisle, an insignificant blip in our going forward national elections. It’s one of those tragic flaws the defines the short-term foreign policy memory of the American electorate. Our shame will be reported in history books (maybe not school textbooks if banning “critical race theory” prevails) and remain in the minds of international leaders and their constituencies, but it just won’t matter to most American voters. We just wash our hands and move on. But the dirt still clings.

I’m Peter Dekom, and it is hard to learn the most obvious lessons of our failed foreign military interventions when we forget those lessons so easily.