Why should the US withdraw?
Photo: AFP
On May 1, the US President Barack Obama made a sudden fly to Afghan palace and signed a long-term strategic treaty. This mid-night visit made a clear date for withdrawing the US troops from Afghanistan. However, this is not the only declaration of withdrawal program. Previously a number of speeches and declaration were made with a view to ending the Afghan war. The purpose of this write up is to raise the justifications why the US should withdraw from Afghanistan in order to comply with its incessant declarations in this regard. Prior to analyzing the necessity of the US withdrawal, it is very important to have a short idea about the background of US intervention in Afghanistan. The United States of America, the lonely superpower of today's world, commenced its intervention in Afghanistan in 2001 just after the 9/11 terrorist attack. Under Bush administration the USA declared her National Security Strategy 2002 and 2006 which proclaimed that weak states like Afghanistan can be used as incubators of terrorism and transnational organized crime. Against this backdrop, Washington intervened in Afghanistan with two specific purposes: first, exiling the Taliban from power and second, obliterating the terrorist networks led by Al Qaeda. Before the 2008 presidential election of the USA, current US President Barack Obama promised to withdraw US soldiers from Afghanistan. After being elected, in December, 2009, Obama asserted that the last American troops would depart from Afghanistan by the end of 2014. This proclamation is followed by Obama's sudden visit to Afghanistan on the first day of May. This gave birth to a prominent debate whether the US would withdraw its troops from Afghanistan. For rational justifications, the US should withdraw from Afghanistan. Firstly, The US commenced its intervention in Afghanistan with a view to ousting the Taliban regime and demolishing the networks of al-Qaeda. The US have swiftly fulfilled both objectives, inspired the USA for endeavor the nation-building process in Afghanistan. Critics argue that the western style of nation-building process might not work in a country like Afghanistan. The Afghans have their own tradition, custom, values. Their rich culture has built well renowned civilization, giving their own ways of life. Arguably, the US should accelerate its withdrawal and leave the nation-building process of Afghanistan to the hand of Afghans. However, the US can oversee the Afghanistan's nation-building process without being physically present in that country. Secondly, the famous Chinese military general Sun Tzu said in his 'Art of War' that no country can be benefited from a prolonged warfare. The US has been fighting the war in Afghanistan for more than a decade which made it the second longest in American history behind Vietnam. The financial and strategic costs of such a war are usually very high. A conservative estimate shows that withdrawing all US troops from Iraq within this year and from Afghanistan by the end of 2014 would save $200 billion federal budget from 2012-2021. As the US has succumbed to failure in the Vietnam War due to the prolonged nature of war, it should learn many lessons from previous while operating the present Afghan war. Thirdly, the US has been losing her support, at home and abroad, in favour of long-lasting war in Afghanistan. People want an end to the Afghan war. A latest CBS poll indicates that nearly two-thirds of Americans support ending the war in Afghanistan within the next two years. Moreover, following the massacre of sixteen Afghan villagers in Kandahar by a US soldier and the Quran-burning incident, America is grandly losing its credibility among the Afghan people, as well as the Karzai administration, let alone the Taliban. Fourthly, the United States claims that its troops are supporting Afghan National Security Force (ANSF) by providing training to make them able to take over the responsibility of their own security. In recent days, Washington currently has deployed almost 90,000 troops in Afghanistan. It is assumed that such a huge number of troops are redundant to train-up ANSF. At the same time, the US is supporting intra-Afghan negotiations with diverse stakeholders, including but not limited to President Hamid Karzai and Afghan insurgents. Thus USA has been assisting the Afghans to prepare for next presidential election to be held in 2014. Such activities require a synchronization of political and diplomatic endeavor rather than overt military presence. The US should realize that the current American interest in Afghanistan can be afforded best through incredibly limited presence or no presence of the US military troops. Undoubtedly, an indirect presence through an effective role in nation-building process of Afghanistan should be the better policy option for the US. It is time for the US to recognise the reality and depart from Afghanistan. President Obama should not use the withdrawal announcements as the strategy for winning in the next US Presidential election. The US withdrawal is a must for bringing back normalcy in the domestic politics of Afghanistan and restoring the global security. The US withdrawal is also necessary for both regional and international security.
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