By Sikander Hayat
1. United States forgot the important war of Afghanistan and invaded Iraq to fight an enemy (Al Qaida) which was not there. George Bush Junior had a personal vendetta against Saddam Hussian who fought in the first Gulf war against George Bush Senior & survived. Bush Junior wanted to finish Saddam off & made use of some dodgy intelligence about weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) to invade Iraq. America took her eyes off the ball which was Afghanistan for many years and is now paying the price in life & money.
2. Important resources were diverted from Afghanistan to Iraq leaving Afghan war not properly funded for many years. Both in terms of man power & hardware, Afghanistan was under resourced to point that many in America almost forgot that they were engaged in an active conflict in another country with the name of Afghanistan.
3. When America neglected Afghanistan, space was created for the Taliban to return and convince the local population that foreign forces were not in for the long haul.
4. Indian involvement in Afghanistan to the extent that Indians have consulates all along the Pakistan Afghanistan border which threatened Pakistan’s security and made Pakistan chose former mujahidin leaders like Gulbadin Hikmatyar & Jalal Ud Din Haqqani to counter this influence.
5. Failure of America to win the people of Afghanistan over because of indiscriminate killing of the Afghan civilians all over the country in the counter insurgency operations. Lately Hamid Karzai has been making some public statements about this issue but as a puppet of America he cannot go too far in criticizing American/NATO military operations. His own survival depends on America winning in Afghanistan and the moment US leaves Afghanistan, he might end up like Najib Ullah. Najib Ullah was the puppet left by the Soviets in Kabul when they left Afghanistan in 1989.
6. Lack of any real developmental work on the ground which could show people that their lives were changing for the better. A lot of funds earmarked for Afghanistan end up back in the pockets of Western contractors & NGOs in the form of salaries. Ordinary Afghans do not see any tangible difference in the security levels and economic output of their country.
7. Supporting a regime which has absolutely no legitimacy in the eyes of people it is supposed to represent. There was massive fraud in the last presidential election through intimidation & bribing of election officials. In some areas there were more votes cast then the actual number of people living in there. Hamid Karzai is the mayor of Kabul, propped up by the outsiders with the help of warlords who arguably have more blood on their hands than Taliban. Karzai’s younger brother Ahmad Wali Karzai ( a former informant of CIA) is running a personal fief in Kandahar ans is involved in drug smuggling. It is very plausible that very low prices of heroin on the streets of Europe have a helping hand from Ahmad Wali Karzai.
8. Giving India (which is not a neighbour of Afghanistan) too much influence in that country to the extreme dislike of Afghanistan’s neighbours. Pakistan has been & still is the biggest refuge for Afghans running away from the war in Afghanistan. Pakistanis have suffered for Afghans for decades as the whole of Pakistani social fabric was destroyed by hosting more than 30 million Afghans in Pakistan. Pakistan has a natural interest in keeping Afghans on their side. Compared to 30 million refugees in Pakistan, how many did India host?
Unless all the above issues are resolved, there will be no respectable withdrawal for the mighty NATO alliance & United States of America from Afghanistan which is after all the graveyard of countless empires.
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