{"id":112982,"date":"2021-06-17T10:15:00","date_gmt":"2021-06-17T04:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=112982"},"modified":"2021-06-17T20:22:21","modified_gmt":"2021-06-17T14:52:21","slug":"mistakes-in-the-u-ss-afghan-policy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/mistakes-in-the-u-ss-afghan-policy\/","title":{"rendered":"Mistakes in the U.S&#8217;s Afghan Policy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Synopsis: \u00a0<\/strong>This article outlines the strategic mistakes in the U.S&#8217;s Afghan policy. It has now left America to compromise on its goals of ending \u2018<strong>terror in Afghanistan\u2019<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<h5><strong>Background<\/strong><\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li>The U.S invaded Afghanistan in October 2001 to target its enemy, al-Qaeda, after September 11 attacks. After the invasion, the U.S declared to destroy the Taliban too, which was supporting al-Qaeda.<\/li>\n<li>The Taliban is an indigenous militancy with deep roots in Afghanistan\u2019s Pashtun majority.<\/li>\n<li>After 20 years, the Biden administration has finally decided to withdraw the U.S troops from Afghanistan before the deadline of 11\/09\/2021.<\/li>\n<li>However, it has to be said that the American goals, to evict the Taliban from Afghanistan and to rebuild a centralised \u201cdemocratic\u201d state in Afghanistan, are not achieved.<\/li>\n<li>And now, the U.S. is leaving Afghanistan to the mercy of the Taliban, in return for assurances that they would not assist the terrorists such as al-Qaeda and the Islamic State.<\/li>\n<li>On the other hand, the Power and influence of the Taliban is strengthening day by day. They are now scattered across Asia and Africa, from eastern Afghanistan to the Sahel region.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h5><strong>What went wrong with the U.S&#8217;s Afghan policy?<\/strong><\/h5>\n<p>The U.S. made three fundamental mistakes, which led to the superpower\u2019s humiliating exit from this Afghanistan.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>One, the US, overlooked the History of Afghanistan<\/strong>.\n<ul>\n<li>For instance, Britain and the Soviet Union that invaded Afghanistan in the 19th and 20th centuries faced disastrous consequences.<\/li>\n<li>Both the countries, Britain due to the Afghan resistance, and Russia due to Mujahideen resistance were forced to pull back their troops.<\/li>\n<li>The U.S given the mistakes the British and the Soviets committed, could have had a strategically focused campaign, targeting its enemy, al-Qaeda.<\/li>\n<li>But the U.S., driven by <strong>neoconservative globalism<\/strong> wanted to topple the Taliban and rebuild a centralised \u201cdemocratic\u201d state in Afghanistan. This was their first mistake.<\/li>\n<li>Instead, the U.S should have attacked the terrorists, destroyed their networks, and then withdrawn.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Two, the Iraq invasion by the U.S before getting their job done in Afghanistan was their second mistake.<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>After the U.S gained control over the Taliban and al-Qaeda, the U.S. had a chance to stabilize the country with help from its different factions and leave.<\/li>\n<li>But the U.S decided to stay back to defeat the Taliban. After vowing to defeat them, the U.S. launched the Iraq invasion to topple Saddam Hussein.<\/li>\n<li>The U.S relied on Pakistan\u2019s tactical support for its war on terror, overlooking the fact that Pakistan had deep strategic ties with the Taliban.<\/li>\n<li>But Pakistan played a double game by supporting the U.S. campaign in Afghanistan while at the same time offering refuge and support to the Taliban.<\/li>\n<li>When the U.S. declared victory in Afghanistan prematurely and went on to invade Iraq in 2003, it became easier for Pakistan to assist the Taliban\u2019s regrouping. The Taliban made a steady comeback in Afghanistan\u2019s hinterlands.<\/li>\n<li>By the time the U.S. shifted its focus back to Afghanistan, after defeating the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria the Afghan war had already been lost.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Three, the U.S conceding to the Taliban\u2019s terms to pull back its troops was their third mistake.<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>The presence of U.S troops ensured that the conflict between the Afghan Government and the Taliban was in a stalemate.<\/li>\n<li>The U.S. should have used this stalemate, coupled with mounting pressure on Pakistan, to extract concessions from the Taliban.<\/li>\n<li>Instead, the Trump administration went for talks with the Taliban on their terms while the Afghan government was kept out of the whole process.<\/li>\n<li>And the U.S. struck a direct deal with the Taliban, without addressing any of the Afghan concerns. The American exit would decisively shift the balance of power in favour of the Taliban.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/epaper.thehindu.com\/Home\/ShareArticle?OrgId=G318M0Q3K.1&amp;imageview=0\">The Hindu<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Read Also :-<a class=\"seoquake-params-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/afghan-peace-process-and-india-explained-pointwise\/\" rel=\"a4cbc47d x_url\">Afghan Peace Process and India<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Synopsis: \u00a0This article outlines the strategic mistakes in the U.S&#8217;s Afghan policy. It has now left America to compromise on its goals of ending \u2018terror in Afghanistan\u2019. Background The U.S invaded Afghanistan in October 2001 to target its enemy, al-Qaeda, after September 11 attacks. After the invasion, the U.S declared to destroy the Taliban too,&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/mistakes-in-the-u-ss-afghan-policy\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Mistakes in the U.S&#8217;s Afghan Policy<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1230,9],"tags":[1333],"class_list":["post-112982","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","category-public","tag-ir_0","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1704947765},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112982","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112982"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112982\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112982"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112982"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112982"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}