By M K Bhadrakumar
The stunning occupation of the
Iraqi cities of Fallujah and Ramadi in Anbar province by the
al-Qaeda-affiliated Islamic State of Iraq and Lebanon over the weekend carries
grim warnings for Afghanistan. Yet, it is important that the lessons learnt
should be the correct ones.
Unfortunately,
despite the vehement opposition in the US public opinion to continued US troop
presence in Afghanistan beyond 2014, a body of dissent is surfacing that the
Iraq developments underscore the importance of the US and NATO sticking it out
in the Hindu Kush.
Unsurprisingly,
this outlandish opinion dovetails with the no-holds-barred campaign against US
president Barack Obama by the Republican Right who would like to caricature the
White House as having ‘lost’ Iraq. Prima facie, this opinion, also seems a
logical conclusion.
As the
editorial comment in Britain’s conservative newspaper Telegraph argues, here, it may seem
that the western troop presence is what actually stands between Afghanistan and
the deluge. In India, too, there are many votaries to this thesis.
However,
if one were to dig deeper, the real comparison between Iraq and Afghanistan is
the US’ comprehensive failure in what can be called ‘nation-building’. On the
one hand, the political elites whom the US sponsored after the ‘regime change’
in both countries failed to deliver, while on the other hand, the western
occupation in the two Muslim countries generated alienation among the people
and created pockets of resistance that incrementally expanded over time into
full-blown insurgencies. In sum, the
failure is both political and military.
Fallujah,
paradoxically, underscores the futility of western military involvement. Iron
entered into that old city’s soul following those brutal campaigns by the US
forces in 2004. What else could one expect when white phosphorous bombs,
cluster bombs and nuclear-tipped artillery shells were used against unarmed
civilians? Put differently, the answer to Iraq’s fragmentation does not lie in
permanent western occupation.
Clearly,
in Afghanistan too, Obama should consider taking the same approach that he
seems to be inclined to take over the situation in Fallujah. Secretary of State
John Kerry put it nicely, “We are not, obviously, contemplating returning.
We’re not contemplating putting boots on the ground. This is their [Iraqi]
fight, but we’re going to help them in their fight.” [CNN]
There are
any number of regional powers who’d dearly wish to see in their self-interests
that the US troops are back again in Iraq — beginning with Saudi Arabia. In the
case of Afghanistan, too, Russia and the Central Asian states keep an
ambivalent stance toward US-NATO involvement. But objectively speaking,
Kerry’s stance is the wisest under the circumstances.
If the US
troops go into Fallujah now, they might as well prepare themselves for the long
haul. Afghanistan cannot be any different, either. A continued western
presence in that Muslim country, which is in an advanced stage of fragmentation
on ethnic lines, will generate popular resistance and a new insurgency will
take shape. And at some late stage, as the western forces are finally forced to
cut and run, leaving things in such royal mess as in Fallujah today, we might
get to see the black flags of the al-Qeda getting unfurled in Jalalabad or
Kandahar.
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