- Afghanistan and empire
Posted by Keith-264
on November 9, 2021, 9:33 pm
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https://isj.org.uk/afghanistan-empire/ Issue: 172 18th October 2021 Joseph Choonara As United States personnel scrabbled from their embassy in the Afghan capital of Kabul in August, it marked the climax of a vile 20 year saga.1 The outcome vindicates those on the left who opposed George Bush’s “War on Terrorism”, launched in 2001. The aims of the US-led invasion of Afghanistan that year were ostensibly to eradicate Al Qaeda, who launched the 9/11 attacks, and topple the Taliban government harbouring them. However, the deeper strategy informing the neoconservatives surrounding Bush was to use the US’s unrivalled military might to shore up its global hegemony. War on Afghanistan, and Iraq in 2003, was seen as part of a broader process to refashion the global order and undermine potential rivals such as China.2 At both levels, the project failed catastrophically. In Afghanistan the Taliban are back in power. Iraq has a sectarian Shia government, allowing Iran to extend its influence and helping to fuel the emergence of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. A chain of instability has been created from Pakistan through to the Maghreb. As for US imperial ambitions, grinding defeats in Afghanistan and Iraq have weakened its capacity to impose its interests abroad. History’s crucible Much of the mainstream debate on Afghanistan sets “embittered liberals”, who believe the US should have remained to “keep the Taliban at bay”, against Joe Biden and the US security establishment, who accepted the hopelessness of the situation.3 This debate rests on the same warped premise as 20 years ago: should we leave the people of Afghanistan, in particular women, to suffer under the Taliban or rain down bombs on the country to impose our version of freedom? It neglects two fundamental dimensions: the agency of the Afghan people and role of imperialist interventions in creating the conditions for the Taliban’s rise.4 Ctd.... |
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