American Withdrawal from Afghanistan: Historical Lessons--William O. Beeman

9/26/21, 10:46 AM American Withdrawal from Afghanistan: Historical Lessons | ICDT
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William O. Beeman

21 September 2021

The result of the war on Afghanistan was ineffective because the United States was not prepared to do anything that would really foster social change. Rather than actually working to understand Afghan culture and society, the United States under Republican administrations installed “plumbers” (Afghan “leaders” like Karzai and American contractors) to do the work for it , backed up by a U.S. military presence with soldiers who never learned the language, never understood the culture, and who were ineffective. The trillions of dollars spent in Afghanistan were siphoned off to contractors such as Haliburton who made billions of dollars. Afghan politicians were also corrupt and stole enormous amounts of money. In the end it was a botched effort. President Biden was right to end it .

Afghanistan is in effect a federation of tribal and ethnic groups. If the United States had started with that premise, it might have been effective, but American efforts in Afghanistan were always top-down. They never penetrated to the local level where the real power lay.

In addition, American decision-makers are blamed for invading Afghanistan and Iraq, especially Iraq which posed no direct threat to U.S. national interests and the war was waged based on false claims. The invasion of Iraq was a pretext that was concocted by the neoconservatives who wanted to completely remake the Middle East, toppling existing rulers and creating regime change where the new rulers would be friendly toward Israel and the United States. One can recognize this as a continuation of Cold War mentality where nations are either on the side of the U.S. and its allies (like Israel) or against them. The 9/11 events fed into this narrative.

The invasion of Afghanistan and the 20 year war was really a war against Islamic forces. To be sure the Taliban and Al-Qaeda (as well as ISIS/ISIL/DAESH) are extremist Islamic groups rejected by mainstream Islam, but in the naive American view, they are “all just Muslims.” President Biden has courageously withdrawn the United States from this ineffective “war on Islam.” It is not clear what will happen in the future. If another Republican becomes President and Republicans dominate in Congress, the United States could return to this ineffective policy. The justifications they will use are “protection of Israel,” and “nuclear weapons danger ”–the same themes they have used to justify U.S. military action in the past 70 years.

The Afghan army had no one to be loyal to. They certainly were not loyal to the Afghan central government , which was massively corrupt and made no attempt to reach out to, or support anyone on the local level. The United States was a source of huge financial resources, much of which was stolen through corruption. When the United States withdrew the Army naturally saw that the only effective power that was left was the Taliban, and they, quite logically, surrendered.

President Donald J. Trump is absolutely responsible for the debacle that was the American withdrawal from Afghanistan. He capitulated to the Taliban, made weak and vague agreements with them with no guarantees. He bragged that no one would be able to stop the withdrawal.

The faults of thewithdrawal are completely attributable to Trump. If he had continued as president, the same events would have occurred as took place under Biden.

The United States is indeed an unreliable partner, and has been since World War II. Alliances with the United States never last in the face of American domestic interests, and they change with eachpresidential administration. The nations of the world would be wise not to rely on the UnitedStates for anything. Most nations already know this, so they make no long-term plans with the United States.

However, I believe the Taliban will fail at governing Afghanistan through some kind of central control. As I mentioned above, Afghanistan is a federation of conflicting tribal and ethnic groups. It always has been. The Taliban are Pushtun–a minority ethnic group in their own country. A minority ruling a majority is a formula for failure of any government, and Afghanistan is no exception.

The federated governing principle of the Loya Jirga (council of regional powers) as the only effective body of national agreement shows this. The Taliban are naive and inexperienced at governing, and their extreme brand of Islam will not be an adequate basis for government. In the short term they are going to fail, and the country for a period will devolve into semi-independent regions.

Additionally, the one thing that has emerged from the American occupation is the empowerment ofwomen. The Taliban are already having difficulty dealing with this reality, which will continue–aided by international pressure. As long as women are repressed in Afghanistan the Taliban will have extreme difficulty forming any kind of effective government.