By JOHN J. METZLER
PARIS — Sadly, we have seen this movie before. In the spring of 1975 the collapse of South Vietnam coming to a crescendo with the fall of Saigon indelibly marking a generation. Cities like Pleiku, Da Nang, and Hue in this contemporary saga are Kunduz, Kandahar, and Herat. Now with the Taliban’s stunning success over the beleaguered and ineffective Afghan Army, the same tragic fate awaits Afghanistan as the Taliban capture Kabul.
“Afghanistan is spinning out of control,” warned UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres. He added, “Humanitarian needs are growing by the hour.”
America’s frustrating twenty year military commitment in Afghanistan was coming to an end in any event. It was certainly time to go and both sides of the political aisle in Washington realized this.
Yet, it was the Biden administration’s original tone-deaf policy to plan completing the pullout on September 11, the twentieth anniversary of the most hideous Islamic terrorist attack on the USA. This timing signaled weakness and an almost comic understanding of the war we were fighting and where 2,200 American were killed and 20,000 injured.
The pullout of remaining U.S. troops and over 8,000 NATO forces from France, Italy, and Germany, created a gaping political power vacuum. Moreover the move psychologically demoralized the Afghan army almost immediately. The Taliban is now filling the void with lightning efficiency.
American political policy in Afghanistan has been a mix of muddled mediocrity, lubricated with billions of dollars in misspent largesse and good wishes which exceed the cost of the post-WWII Marshall Plan to rebuild devastated Europe!
Now the drama has turned full circle and has reached its crescendo with much of Washington’s politicians oblivious as to meaning of the final outcome. Significantly, this was not a rout of the American military but a tragic collapse of the Afghan proxy.
The U.S. military’s pullout from the strategic Bagram airbase some weeks ago allowed this strategic jewel, filled with so much new U.S. equipment, to fall first into the hands of looters then to an indifferent Afghan garrison. The move telegraphed frightful stupidity to the lurking Taliban militants.
Yet news of this chaos in Afghanistan has been tempered by the strategic sagacity of President Joe Biden who weeks ago expressed confidence in the Afghan military being able to defend the war-torn country. But as the Taliban reached the gates of Kabul, a shaken Secretary of State Antony Blinken conceded that the collapse “has happened more quickly than we anticipated.”
It’s not that the Taliban Islamic militants are really so tough; nor that the Afghan side lacks training or armaments, but sadly the motivation and willingness to fight. Taliban, harbingers of a medieval ideology and theocratic regime, have the momentum to victory. The return of an al-Qaeda terrorist presence is almost assured.
As this column was written on August 16, our task was to secure and evacuate personnel from the sprawling U.S. Embassy without evoking haunting scenes of Saigon 1975.
We never grasped the truism that Afghanistan remains a tribal and ethnic quilt of peoples who see sovereignty resting in their particular province or valley and bound often by warlords and fundamentalist Islam. Trying to create a secular and internationally respectable state promoting elections, tolerance, and women’s rights — while clearly a noble concept and probably embraced by a significant minority in urban centers such as Kabul — became Quixotic at best.
The French daily Le Figaro headlined, “Afghanistan; The Routing of the West.”
The current Afghan government in Kabul can at best be seen as largely incompetent and corrupt clowns not respected by their own people.
Clearly a Taliban victory signals a victory of Islamic extremism. It evokes the humiliation of the U.S. by forces which cannot logically be grasped by Washington think tanks or woke leftist media.
A few poignant issues:
U.S. military commitment prevented a serious al-Qaeda presence for 20 years.
Human Rights: Sadly, we already know the answer as we did back in South Vietnam.
Interpreters: So many decent and dedicated Afghan civilians worked with the American and European coalition forces as interpreters, guides, and more. Their fate in a Taliban takeover is painfully obvious.
The U.S. has given special refugee status to some of the interpreters and their immediate families. Germany has rescued them all. Italy has rescued 225 and awaits to save another 300.
Regional Powers: The Iranians, Turks, Russians, and the Chinese are all gauging their reactions.
Refugees: The expected outflow of refugees may be staggering and the human tide may be at the Gates of Europe.
The UN’s Guterres warned: “Seizing power through military force is a losing proposition. That can only lead to prolonged civil war or to the complete isolation of Afghanistan.”
The Fall of Kabul and the creation of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan present a starkly stunning setback and lingering talisman for the United States’ standing and global credibility.
(John J. Metzler is a United Nations correspondent covering diplomatic and defense issues. He is the author of Divided Dynamism: The Diplomacy of Separated Nations; Germany, Korea, China.)
Powered by WPtouch Mobile Suite for WordPress