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.