Analysis: US fiasco in Afghanistan exposes dilemma over terrorism

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A term introduced in the Western lexicon in 1794 to denounce the excesses of the French Revolution, terrorism has been a longtime companion of world politics, with practices seen since Classical Antiquity, passing through Jewish revolts against Romans that brought context to Christianity.

Its perenniality and adaptive capacity are no secret, and that was on Joe Biden’s mind when the American president left Afghanistan on its own last year. Fulfilling an agreement stitched together by Donald Trump, the Democrat simply packed 20 years of occupation and military presence and fled.

It was an embarrassing defeat, with scenes of Afghan civilians falling from large C-17 freighters taking off. About 120,000 Westerners were evacuated, but very few of their local auxiliaries managed to get out.

Speaking of them, then exposed to the vengeance of the Taliban, the fundamentalist group that regained control of the country in a fulminating two-week campaign that culminated in the fall of Kabul a year ago, the US military chief then in charge of the region says he is “haunted to this day” by failure.

“We haven’t been able to get everyone out that we’d like, in particular a number of Afghans who helped us through the years we were partners, often in combat,” said the now-retired General Frank McKenzie, in a revealing interview with US public radio NPR earlier this month. .

That said, Biden went ahead with his plan. The US would no longer try to impose its form of government, democracy, on that lost corner of the Hindu Kush. Terrorist threats would be treated as such, with one-off military action in the form of drone or plane bombings.

Under pressure from the crisis of the Ukraine War and the Chinese reaction to the disastrous visit of US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan, the Democrat tried to present proof that his decision in Afghanistan was correct by announcing the death of the Al chief. Qaeda, Ayam al-Zawahiri, the former right-hand man of Osama bin Laden.

The death was embarrassing for the Taliban. Al-Zawahiri lived in an affluent, by local standards, neighborhood of Kabul. Whether he was under protection or under house arrest, the fact is that his presence proved what McKenzie said in the interview: the Taliban broke the agreement made with the Americans, which provided for expelling any terrorist elements from their domains.

From the chaotic days of the American withdrawal, when the Afghan branch of the Islamic State came face to face with a horrific bombing, it became evident that the Taliban would either face rivals or have to compromise with them. But the eradication of groups based on the obliteration of Western values ​​was only an illusion — as, in a broader context, the attack on writer Salman Rushdie exemplifies.

Proof of this is in neighboring Pakistan, which in August 2021 saw its then prime minister, Imran Khan, celebrate the “breaking of the chains” of the Afghan people. A year later, in addition to the neighbor having fallen into a modernized version of the medieval regime that marked its first passage to power, Islamabad finds itself harassed.

The TTP (Tehreek-e-Taliban, or Pakistani Taliban), which printed a reign of terror in the late 2000s, being the main suspect in the death of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in 2007, had been dismantled with government help. pro-US government in Kabul, which arrested several of its leaders who were in Afghanistan.

The groups, by the way, were never close allies and have different origins. As the fundamentalists returned to power, some 4,000 jihadists were released from Afghan prisons and flourished in tribal areas again, according to a July report from the United Nations Security Council.

Not by chance, the number of attacks in Pakistan in 2021 rose by 42% compared to 2020, and this year’s trend was so sharp that Islamabad proposed a truce to the TTP. The ceasefire has been in place since June, but shows the spread of post-withdrawal instability.

Pakistan was the father of the first incarnation of the Taliban, fomented in the border tribal areas between the two countries. From 1996 to 2001, he commanded an aberration of government, but guaranteed guarantors alliance and strategic depth in case of war with rival India.

The Taliban sheltered Osama’s Al Qaeda, came the 9/11 attacks and the American invasion. At that point, the American abandonment to the mujahideen, “holy warriors” who fought against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan (1979-89) was pointed out as one of the breeding grounds of jihadist radicalism.

Did Biden make the same mistake? Too early to say, but the strategy now employed only guarantees that holes in the dike will be plugged — with missiles. But the reservoir can only increase in volume, and then the risk of a new wave of equities at a time when the West finds itself in multiple crises mounts.

That would be disastrous for the American, not to mention the tragedy that is already befalling ordinary Afghans, with the return of restrictions on the insertion of women in society and the brutality of everyday life. Summarized General McKenzie: “I regret what happened last summer. And I fear things will get much, much worse before they get any better.”

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