The autonomy of US failure in Afghanistan
[mks_button size=”medium” title=”By: Durdana Najam” style=”squared” url=”#” target=”_self” bg_color=”#1e73be” txt_color=”#FFFFFF” icon=”” icon_type=”” nofollow=”1″]
Will Afghanistan savour peace? The three-day truce between the insurgents and the Afghan security agencies, on the occasion of Eid, has been celebrated as proof that the estrangement between the Afghans has the potential to meltdown. However easy the meltdown of estrangement may seem, the reality is that for the Taliban, and all those fighting for an Afghanistan free from the clutches of the foreign force, the road to peace passes through tough terrain. A passage the US and its partner, both within and outside Afghanistan, are loath to travel. In retrospect, Afghanistan has been made a difficult country not only because the war against terrorism was a wrong attempt to ouster the Taliban, but also because the US policies after the invasion went terribly wrong. The US has pursued its vested interest rather than the interest of Afghanistan or the region. Below is the brief anatomy of what went wrong in Afghanistan and how.
1. The distraction of US interest
The US invaded Afghanistan on the assumption that it posed an existential threat to International security. The offshoot of this assumption was that if the west did not intervene the mad mullah would get hold of the nukes in Pakistan and destroy the world. None of the assumptions were true, and we saw that, as soon as, the Al-Qaeda was pushed out and the Taliban government was toppled Afghanistan became just one of those 20 countries that should have concerned the west. It so happened because the US neither had the power nor the knowledge or legitimacy to transform Afghanistan. The least the US could have done to justify its presence in the region was to maintain a light military presence and generous developmental projects. The matter was made worse when the Iraq war was started, and Afghanistan was left with the CIA that drowned the country in money to produce more thugs.