What US analysts say after the US withdrawal from Afghanistan
Biden's new doctrine does not provide for the construction of states, nor for everyone to be united to defend the free world, but only the defense of the American interest. It's an America First Light. The intervention of Daniela Coli
After the rapid takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban, there are many declinist and isolationist narratives of the United States. Benjamin Haddad, director of the European Center at the Atlantic Council, expert and supporter of the transatlantic relationship, says on Twitter that he does not believe declinist and isolationist narratives about America, but adds that the United States has changing priorities and interests and this will have consequences for the allies, who are well aware that things have changed. Haddad is the author of Paradise Lost: Europe in the World of Trump , where he argues for the need for greater European unity in a world of new challenges and threats. And also a Europe more attentive to strategic autonomy, because we will be able to face challenges and threats alone without the American umbrella, as it was called in the 70s and 80s.
Haddad recalls how after Vietnam there was Reagan, German reunification, the end of the Soviet occupation in Eastern Europe and the collapse of the USSR. Haddad forgets Carter, however, and the Iranian revolution of 1979, which not only humiliated the US with hostages, but revived Islam in a big way: neither with capitalism nor with communism was Khomeini's motto, supported by the Persian BBC which transmitted in Iran all his speeches from exile in Iraq and Paris, and from Giscard d'Estaing who offered the plane aboard which Khomeini triumphantly returned to Tehran. The Iranian revolution was mainly against the United States, supporters of the Shah. For the Iranians, oil was independence, sovereignty, and for this reason the hatred for the Shah and the United States was particularly strong. We will never realize how much the Iranian Islamic revolution has influenced Muslim countries.
It is difficult to predict the future of the United States (and European allies should think about it), because after Vietnam the Americans were politically divided, but the only rival was the USSR, already in economic crisis. Now the United States has various rivals: China, Russia, the European Union itself, and perhaps even Turkey, increasingly autonomous, which buys defense systems from Russia.
Biden's new doctrine does not provide for the construction of states, nor for everyone to be united to defend the free world , but only the defense of the American interest. It's an America First Light.
Biden began with "America is Back", talked about a league of democracies against China, then asked the UK not to send ships to the Indo-Pacific, but to take care of Europe. Various US analysts such as Barry Posen write long essays on the uselessness of NATO for the US, given that Russia would never attack Europe given its good trade relations (think only of NS2) and to use NATO's human and economic resources. for Asia.
The Taliban blitzkrieg and the catastrophic evacuation has provoked much criticism of Biden from the European allies, but this depends above all on the European fear of being faced with another Trump who closes NATO. Biden has not even consulted NATO on the withdrawal and it would be the case that a continent like Europe that has dominated the world, stopped being treated as a poodle and built a European defense. For Benjaminin Haddad, failure is all American: the Afghan army (ANA) did not fight because the soldiers and police did not get the money from the United States. It is an intelligence failure that has not monitored the billions invested in Afghanistan. However, it should be taken into account that 2.5% of Afghans voted for Ghani and the majority of Afghans earn less than two dollars a day, as Patrick Cockburn observes. A great connoisseur of Afghanistan, Cockburn has repeatedly told how hostility towards Americans was strong in the countryside and in the mountains. On the other hand, the Afghans were the victims of bombings and drones. Homeland itself shows us how to kill a Taliban leader by killing 160 innocent civilians with a drone. For Cockburn, the United States created a kleptocratic elite in Kabul and did not bother to watch the fate of their dollars.
The US will continue to be a great power, but it has important rivals such as China, Russia, the EU, Turkey itself, and they will have to act intelligently. As Benjamin Haddad says in Le Point , Washington is shocked by the Taliban blitzkrieg. For Haddad it is not necessary for America to wage war on China. The US for Haddad can even collaborate with China in Afghanistan: it was the Ghani government that gave China the contract for the Wakhan corridor, which is essential for expanding the BRI in Central Asia. For Edward Luce of the Financial Times after Kabul, the new Saigon, Americans will hardly have the courage to throw themselves into a war against China. Draghi is right to seek China and Russia to discuss Afghanistan and it would not hurt to discuss with Pakistan either.
You have taken into account that the lightning-fast victory of the Taliban had a huge impact on the Muslim world. It should not be forgotten that the Taliban government from 1996-2001 was supported by Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the Emirates. Perhaps it is no coincidence that Ghani went to Abu Dhabi and his brother swore allegiance to the Taliban. With an America that abandons its allies and makes an agreement with the Taliban, doubts and uncertainties are also increasing in the Gulf States. In addition, Biden has promised Iraqi Prime Minister Kadhimi to withdraw troops within the year, and as we know the Americans fear Iranian drones they are unable to intercept. In Baghdad there will be a summit in late August with Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, Syria, Iran, Turkey and Macron. As is well known, Baghdad has favored talks between Iran and Saudi Arabia for months, then continued in Oman, and relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia, despite the acid rhetoric, have significantly improved.
After twenty years of feeding on Huntington and his Clash of Civilization , Bernard Lewis, Leo Strauss and the neocons, perhaps it is the case for European countries to mend relations with the Middle East, also because Europe it is not defended by two oceans like the USA and it is impossible not to have economic, cultural and political relations with Arab and African countries.
For the rest, as Richard Haas warned a few months ago, we now live in a multipolar world, the United States is a great power, and it is better not to fall into Thucydides' trap and make war on China, because they could end worse than in the UK. The 900 is truly over, and we certainly would not have expected to see the strongest military power in the world ask for help in evacuating the worst airlines in the world to get out of the longest war in the world. But this too is history. We will also have to remember that the Taliban hosted bin Laden, but the billionaire bin Laden was Saudi and the 9/11 bombing was prepared by his lieutenants in Hamburg in Europe and the hijackers of the planes on the WTC and the Pentagon had trained in a school of flight to Florida and before 9/11 they had spent the week in Boston and Newark.
None of them were Afghans. They were mostly Saudis, an Egyptian and a Moroccan. For this reason, as Graham Allison wrote, describing Afghanistan as a country of international terrorists is excessive and is part of the many stereotypes attached to the Taliban in these 20 years. Moreover, it was the United States that made the Agreement for peace in Afghanistan with the Taliban, asking that it be signed in 2020 by Mullah Baradar released from prison in 2018. Niall Ferguson fiercely criticized Biden in the Daily Mail accusing him of following the idiot Trump, but Trump was his idol like Brexit. Perhaps he should re-read Kissinger's 2018 interview with Edward Luce in the Financial Times , where Kissinger claims that Trump was not an accident of history, but one of those figures who appear at the end of an era. And the 900 is definitely over.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/joe-biden-america-first-afghanistan/ on Tue, 24 Aug 2021 08:52:35 +0000.