The Great Miscalculation in Afghanistan
There is no reason wasting time
tabulating the reasons given in the press by pundits, academics and government
leaders for the “situation” in Afghanistan. They are all wrong, wrong, wrong! Except for
one reference I found from Thomas Friedman in a New York Times Op-Ed piece
recently [April 17, 2021] *. The reason
for the costly twenty-year failure was simple.
It was what I call, the great miscalculation. Our leadership failed to realize the conflict
involved the taking of sides in a religious war within the religion of Islam—a
fierce and senseless internecine conflict that was and is, because of this
definition, unwinnable. This
conclusion can be best understood with a brief review of Islamic history.
Understanding the history of Islam is
the key to formulating foreign policy.
From the time of the prophet, in every century, there have risen reform
movements declaring that the failures of governance within Islam could only be
addressed by a return to the guiding principles of the founder**. The Taliban, or “student” revolt was nothing
more than history repeating itself—a movement that wanted to return to a
fundamentalist Islamic agenda. Ben Laden
had wrapped the cloak of the prophet upon the shoulders of blind Omar Mohamad
to lead the way. As Lapidus concludes,
“Islam has to be understood as a universal religion and in its numerous
particular (local) contacts, meaning tribal culture. Further a study of Islamic history tells us
that in most Islamic societies the state was conceived as a direct expression
of God’s will for the ordering of human affairs. In other words, no separation of church and
state” ***. There is no place for
democracy in such context. History
further reveals that from 1900, there were 23 constitutions adopted and put aside
leading up to the one that was written under our leadership after the early
defeat of the Taliban following our response to 911. The surprise came when the Afghan government
insisted on inserting a preamble which said that nothing in the new constitution
presented shall be contrary to Islamic law. Case closed! No army, however well
equipped or funded or trained was to exist outside Shari’a law. Why did we not recognize the clarity of this great
miscalculation? Let me throw out
some hints. As the State Department is short on Arabic speaking Islamic
scholars, the Pentagon has even less.
The American people read the bible, but never the Koran. Furthermore, the American people are so
obsessed with not offending anybody’s religion, that they do not want to even
discuss it. The result? We do not know the enemy. The great miscalculation is
complete and becomes a doomed national policy.
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* Friedman, Thomas. “Biden Could Still Be Proved Right in Afghanistan.
Op-Ed and Letters, NYT 17 Aug. 2021. Friedman had always questioned the Mission
that stated, “We are there to train the Afghan Army to fight for its own
government”. He notes that,” The Taliban had the stronger will as well as the
advantage of being seen as fighting for the tenets of Afghan nationalism:
independence from the foreigner and the preservation of fundamentalist Islam
as the basis of religion, culture, law and politics”.
**Lapidus, Ira M. A History
of Islamic Societies. Cambridge
University Press. 1988.
***There had been attempted separation
during the late Abbsid Caliphate, the Ottoman and Mughal empires.
