October will be the 10th anniversary of the war launched by the US against Afghanistan. It was on October 7th 2001 that the US with its allies launched operation enduring freedom invading the country in response to 9/11. The Afghan war has now lasted longer then World War 1 and World War 2 combined. Whilst the last decade has seen commentators focus more on Iraq we make the following remarks on the latest invasion in a long list of empires that invaded the country.
1. One of the reasons the US cited for invading Afghanistan was to liberate the Afghan people from the Taliban, promising to bring stability and security for the nation. However after a decade of war the security situation remains a complete failure. The US has gone to great lengths to lay the blame squarely on Taliban attacks. However with 130,000 troops at its peak it has been unable to bring anything in the way of promised security. This has been fundamentally due to the US working with corrupt politicians, former warlords and opportunists who fill the Afghan government, who have been busy settling old scores and enriching themselves. However the disaster on the lives of ordinary Muslim in Afghanistan is worse today then anytime in Afghan history as US private security firms run havoc with complete impunity.
2. By December 2001 on behalf of the US the United Nations hosted the Bonn Conference in Germany. The aim was the creation of a political process which would bring all the different tribes, warlords and factions into the US constructed political setup. Participants included representatives of four Afghan opposition groups – Pushtun, Hazara, Tajik and Uzbek – all anti-Taliban groups. By the time the US began its invasion of Iraq in March 2003 Hamid Karzai the American stooge had been appointed the head of the interim authority and in 2004 he became the official president of Afghanistan after an election fraught with widespread fraud. Hamid Karzai gave various posts to his supporters whilst removing the influence of the Northern Alliance. For the US all the various factions, who previously had used violence to achieve their interests were now to fight for their interests through the US inspired political process, a process which protects ethnic differences and interests – a recipe for disaster. This is what the US meant when it spoke of nation building.
3. With the US marred in an insurgency in Iraq the Taliban made a come back. Whilst the US was able to initially with considerable ease remove the Taliban from power, Stratfor outlined what really occurred: “It is important to remember that the Taliban was never really defeated on the battlefield. Once they realized that they were no match for U.S. air power in a conventional war, they declined battle and faded away to launch their insurgency.” It was here the US turned to regional surrogates. Iran brought stability in the North-West through building roads, power transmission lines, and border stations, among other infrastructure projects. Colonel Christopher Langton, who heads the defence analysis department at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, said Iran is an important country in the future reconstruction and development of Afghanistan, “They are being closely linked by efforts against the Taliban in the past, but also because of the influence that Iran can bring there with the Hazara population [who, like Iranians, are Shi’a Muslims]. And in the development sector, there are already projects which Iran is involved in — for instance, the road from Bandar Abbas on the Persian Gulf up through Afghanistan to Central Asia is a very, very important project for the future of Afghanistan…There is a whole list of political, economic, and security issues which connect Afghanistan and Iran.”
4. The US by July 2008 has begun using predator drones to target the areas on the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan and into Pakistani territory. After conducting thousands of sorties, no high profile target has ever been captured. In fact the US expanded its drone programme to include innocent villages and towns, in the hope that some high profile target may show up on America’s radar. Whilst on the surface the Pakistani government reacted angrily to such attacks this charade was exposed when Senator Dianne Feinstein chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, publicly commented on where the predator aircraft patrolling Pakistan take off and land. At the hearing in February 2009, Feinstein expressed surprise over Pakistani opposition to the campaign of Predator-launched CIA missile strikes against targets along Pakistan’s Northwestern border. She commented “As I understand it, these are flown out of a Pakistani base.”
5. As the US sunk in a quagmire the Western powers including Obama began preparing the ground for reconciliation with the Taliban. In a lengthy messageon the occasion of the of Eid al-Fitr, in 2011 the Taliban leader Mulla Muhammed Umar confirmed negotiations have been going with the US. This would indicate the US has accepted it can not defeat the Taliban and is negotiating with the enemy it was meant to remove.
6. When Obama came to power in 2009, many in the Muslim world hoped for some change in US foreign policy. However Obama continued with most of Bush’s policies, including the slaughter of Muslims, for Obama Bush pursued the wrong war, Afghanistan and Pakistan (AfPak) was the real war. A decade of war has however weakened America’s position in the world, whilst Guantanamo Bay, Abu Gharib and unilateral drone attacks have undermined the US brand forever. Today America’s standing in the world is at an all time low.
7. With the US caucuses’ starting in January 2012, which is the road map to the US presidential election scheduled for December 2012, all talk has been about the Afghan war has been about US troop reductions and eventually the US leaving Afghanistan. The US is however is in the process of expanding the Bagram, Kandahar and Mazar-E-Shairf air bases. The expansion of US military bases in Afghanistan is running counter to the commitment to begin withdrawing troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2011. This would in all likelihood be to consolidate America’s global military network and guard against possible future threats.
Conclusions
The US has been humbled by the Taliban after nearly a decade of war, which has lasted longer than both the world wars combined. As a result of America’s apparent weakness the challenges stemming from her competitors have grown in size and scope and today are much stronger. At the turn of the 21st century US policy makers spoke of nation building and exporting democracy to the Muslim world. This in reality meant corrupt politicians nurtured in Washington taking positions of power. If there is any lesson to learn after a decade of war that is the US looks to be the latest empire to fall victim in the graveyard of empires.