What is the issue?
The bombing by IS Khorasan Province outside Kabul airport that killed around 13 Americans at a time when the U.S. was scrambling to evacuate its citizens from Afghanistan was a tragic testimony to everything that went wrong with America’s war on terror.
What is the role of the U.S. in changing regimes around the world?
- Afghanistan - After the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, the U.S. went to Afghanistan to defeat al-Qaeda and topple the Taliban regime.
- Iraq - The invasion of Iraq based on false intelligence that President Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction created conditions inside Iraq for al-Qaeda to establish a new branch.
- Libya - In 2011, NATO launched another regime change war in Libya that led to different militias and governments fighting each other for control spreading terror to spread to other parts of Africa.
- Syria - The U.S. indirectly backed the armed rebels against the regime of President Bashar al-Assad that led to the rise of Islamic State.
What was the impact of the regime changing wars?
- Helped terrorist outfits proliferate in many countries
- Strengthened both Islamist and Islamophobic politics across the world
- Repeated attacks on Muslim-majority countries strengthen the jihadist narrative referring all westerners as “crusaders”
- Led to the emergence of Anti-Americanism as a dominant political theme across Muslim-majority countries
- Triggered a massive outflow of refugees from the affected countries to neighbouring nations
- Geopolitical setback to the U.S. with the rise of China when U.S. was busy with regime changing wars
- U.S. lost the war in Afghanistan and has withdrawn its troops
Does this mean that the global hegemony of the U.S. is over?
- The U.S. has suffered setbacks in the past as it had to withdraw from Vietnam in 1975, allowing the communists to win but it has bounced back.
- The U.S. which seeks to return to realism from neoconservatism, might wait for its rivals, especially China to commit blunders or it might grab other strategic opportunities.
- Afghanistan might not be the end of American power, it might be the beginning of the new U.S.-China cold war.
Source: The Hind
