Does Afghanistan represent the death knell for the U.S. spread of human rights and democracy in the Middle East? 10 pros and cons
By: John Mason / Arab America Contributing Writer
The ten responses to this important question about U.S. policy in nation state-building reflect how the U.S. has translated policy into action on the ground in this highly complex country, Afghanistan. 20 years of warfare and thousands of lives lost must be accounted for in American “after-action reports.” Here, we look at the many missteps the U.S. has taken, from beginning to end. Inadequate strategic planning and poor analysis along the way have led to a catastrophic end to the U.S. presence there. We also check out U.S chances for engaging the Arab World in democracy and human rights programs.
1. Afghanistan’s catastrophe highlights a changing role for the U.S. in the Middle East, including Arab countries like Tunisia, Iraq and Egypt
The sudden takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban following the U.S. military withdrawal has disappointed America’s allies since they had a stake in that war too. U.S. allies see the loss of their investments in that war as embarrassing. In response, according to the Washington Post, “Across the pond, a defiant White House has doubled down on its decision-making, showing little contrition for its role in the chaotic scenes unfolding in Kabul.” The failed experiment in Afghanistan has also seemed to lessen U.S. chances for further promoting governance and human rights in Arab countries it is already supporting, such as Tunisia, Iraq, and Egypt. Democracies in these countries have had mixed results in demonstrating its benefits when pitted against those of autocracies.
2. Washington’s miscalculation on Afghanistan has undermined the West’s political and moral credibility
Across Europe, foreign ministries are complaining that because of the U.S.’s early withdrawal, their countries are undergoing “fundamental damage to the political and moral credibility of the West.” They see the fall of the Afghan government and its coalition-trained military followed by the rapid Taliban takeover as an “epochal blow.” A Brit compared the fall of Kabul with the British failed attempt to take over Egypt’s Suez Canal in 1956. Its lawmakers blame both Prime Minister Johnson and U.S. President Joe Biden.
Another foreign relations failure occurred in Libya, when an opportunity to support the country in developing democratic governance was lost. It occurred after the assassination of Muammar Qadhafi in 2011, when the U.S. and its allies decided its aerial bombardment of Qadhafi’s army in order to save Benghazi from annihilation was sufficient. Neither the U.S. nor its allies followed up their aerial action with even the offer to help provide appropriate support on the ground, such as helping the Libyans with police and military reform.
3. As a result of the fall of Afghanistan, America may be moving to stage left rather than the center stage of world affairs
Some European countries are weighing the question of whether the U.S. is able to keep its international role at center stage, where President Biden insists the country is returning to, per The Post, “after the disruptive, petty nationalism of the Trump years.” But the allies wonder how America can say it is back to center stage when it was defeated by an insurgency armed with only low and mid-tech weapons. To have put its faith in political and diplomatic discussions with the Taliban, then to have removed American guns before removing its people and Afghan employees of the U.S. government was simply naïve and foolish on the part of the administration.
4. The U.S. nation-building effort in Afghanistan failed in creating either a stable Afghan government or military
While the U.S. continues to keep an expansive and mostly secret network of counterterrorism ventures from Central Asia to West Africa, that did not mean that the Biden team could not pull out from its longest presence in an interminable war. The Biden team felt that it was simply time to end its “nation-building effort in Afghanistan that yielded neither a stable Afghan government nor a cohesive Afghan military. Instead, as internal U.S. government documents show, the United States enabled a kleptocratic state rife with corruption.”
Similarly for Lebanon, where the U.S. may have lost a chance in that country, whose economy and political conditions define it for some as a failed state. Its government, stuck within a framework of confessionalism or a division of high offices among Christians and Moslems, both Sunni and Shia’, and underlain by the Hezbollah political and paramilitary group, is in such a state of disrepair that it might easily topple over towards an authoritarian form of rule.
5. The long-term sources of American weakness and decline are more domestic than international—according to scholar Francis Fukuyama
We are reminded that the U.S. announcement to withdraw troops from Afghanistan and a recognition that the Taliban would have to be accommodated one way or another was made while Trump was still president. Thus, the process was well along when Biden came into office. Political theorist Fukuyama believes that Afghanistan marks a moment of America’s turning away from the world. He notes pessimistically, that “The country will remain a great power for many years, but just how influential it will depend on its ability to fix its internal problems, rather than its foreign policy.”
6. Biden is counting on public support outside the Beltway to counter foreign and internal criticism and disappointment over the American failure in Afghanistan
A recent poll reported in The National Review shows that six in ten Americans believe the war in Afghanistan was not worth fighting. It also showed that most Americans are more worried about domestic extremist threats. Such public perceptions occur even in the face of the Taliban turning back years of progress for Afghan women and girls. On the contrary, the public feels more energy should be expended on dealing with an authoritarian China regime and healing the “deeply polarized society at home.”
7. U.S. failure in Afghanistan did not avoid the spectacle from a half-century ago of Vietnamese hanging from helicopters as America withdrew from another failed war
“If decades of counterinsurgency have taught us one thing, it’s that you never want to see a helicopter above an American embassy.” As reported by The National Review, this vivid image from Saigon depicted Vietnamese employees of the U.S. Embassy dangling from the landing gear, desperately trying to escape the war-torn country of Vietnam. Unhappily, this is exactly what happened at Hamed Karzai airport in Kabul, where desperate Afghans clung to an American transport plane, only to fall from high in the air to the tarmac and their death.
8. In lieu of the Taliban, the most plausible victory would have been a return to tribal patronage under a king or warlords
The U.S. did not realize from the beginning that most likely the only practical scenario for the return of authority in Afghanistan after the Soviets pulled out following their failed invasion of 1979 was a restored kingdom or an alliance of tribal warlords. As the National Review reported, “This approach would have required accepting uncomfortable truths about ethnic allegiance and the limits of liberal values. For the true believers in the national-security apparatus, it would have undermined U.S. legitimacy by conceding that American ideals cannot be readily universalized.” President George W. Bush opted for nation-state building.
9. Middle East desire for political freedom is offset by the demand for governments to deliver on basic human needs
A decade ago, Arabs were hailing the downfall of their despotic rulers. A Financial Times report declares that now Arabs are calling for the end of democracy. While exaggerated, the present state of mind of many Arabs is that democracy in their countries has not produced the improved lives they had expected. Tunisia, the one Arab country that from the time of the Arab Spring in 2011 till now has practiced a democratic form of government, including a partnership with an Islamist party, has now stalled. One cause of its stall is that while elective democracy worked in representing the people, it did not result in good governance by which their basic human needs were met.
10. Experience of Middle East governments with democracy has done no better than autocratic solutions—an hypothesis
Biden’s notion of pushback of democracy in the Middle East does not mean that political freedom is unimportant, but rather that the few examples of once or quasi-democratic governments like Lebanon and Iraq are now failing as states, unable to fulfill their peoples’ basic needs. As the Financial Times avers, “Democracy, while important, ranks lower in the hierarchy of needs than food, shelter, and security. If elected governments fail to deliver on these basic needs, then the temptation to embrace a strongman who promises stability becomes very strong.”
Conclusion These responses reflect the complexity of U.S. efforts to positively affect countries and help them achieve their potential. Afghanistan is only one example, but a painful one, due to the longevity of the American presence there and the lives lost. In that case, did the positive outweigh the negative? The answer is probably not going to be positive and as a mixed result, it will only begin to emerge once we see how “merciful” or how “merciless” the Taliban are. Their record does not lean toward the former.
For Arab countries, the U.S. record is mostly dismal in terms of promoting democracy, good governance, and human rights. However, the comparison with Afghanistan doesn’t stand up because the U.S. has put in much less time and funding into those countries. Besides, most of the effort in Afghanistan was to support a war, with some support for community development, including, significantly, highly successful programs for women and girls. But the U.S. gave Afghanistan very little help in reforming a corrupt government that might otherwise have continued such programs once the war was over.
A lesson learned is how dismally wrong U.S. strategic planning can be. An analysis of the history, culture, tribal and sociopolitical, and economic organization of Afghanistan points to the complexity of turning such a fractured society into a democracy. Separated by mountains, languages, tribes, ethnic groups, politics, and gender, the country was never a good candidate for “democratization” in the first place.
Sources
“Afghanistan’s crisis underscores the U.S.’s shifting place in the world,” Washington Post, 8/20/2021
“The Fall of Afghanistan Calls for a Return to Realism,” National Review, 8/20/2021
“The Discontents of Middle East Democracy,” Financial Times, 8/9/2021
John Mason, PhD., who focuses on Arab culture, society, and history, is the author of LEFT-HANDED IN AN ISLAMIC WORLD: An Anthropologist’s Journey into the Middle East, New Academia Publishing, 2017. He did fieldwork in an east Libyan Saharan oasis and has taught at the University of Libya-Benghazi, Rennselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York, and the American University in Cairo. John served with the United Nations as an advisor in Tripoli, Libya, and consulted extensively on socioeconomic and political development for USAID, the UN, and the World Bank in 65 countries.
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