Pulling out some 3,500 troops and heavy equipment from Afghanistan, the U.S. has thrown in the towel, unable to accomplish its goal of stopping a Taliban insurgency, now showing signs of overtaking the U.S.-backed Kabul government. Pentagon planners would like contingencies in the event of a Taliban takeover but the days of worrying about what happens when U.S. troop leave are all but gone. Whatever diplomatic relations the U.S. has with Central Asian countries, especially the Cacusus states in Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, all of which were former Soviet satellites. Just like the brutal Soviet-Afghanistan War, where the Soviet Union lost 14,453 troops, the 10-year-long war ended badly with a withdrawal Feb. 15, 1989. Russian President Vladimir Putin remembers well how the U.S. used terrorists like Osama bin Laden to battle Soviet occupation.
Russia has zero sympathy for the 20-year U.S. Afghan War where the U.S. lost 2,420 troops, attesting to the low intensity conflict, far less casualties than the Soviet Union over a 10-year period. “I would emphasize that the redeployment of the American permanent military presence to the countries neighboring Afghanistan is unacceptable,” said Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, something 78-year-old President Joe Biden was told at the June 18 Geneva summit. “We told the America in a direct and straightforward way that it would change a lot of things not only our perceptions of what’s going on in that important region, but also our relations with the United States,” warning Washington that there would be consequences to staging military operation in any country near Afghanistan. Russia has also warned its former Soviet satellites not to permit American military bases.
With Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan host Russian military bases, the Kremlin won’t accept more U.S. bases in the region. Up until 2014, the U.S. paid Kyrgyzstan to station U.S. military operations for the Afghan theater. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov pointed out that Russia is part of Collective Security Treaty Organization with Kazakhstan, Kyrgzstan and Tajikistan, all of which do not allow any U.S. military bases in the signatories’ countries. Once former President Donald Trump put an end to the Afghan War, though delayed from May 31 to Aug. 30 by Biden, the Pentagon fully understood the consequences, including the probable Taliban takeover of Afghanistan. Spending 20 years since the Oct. 7, 2001 start of Operation Enduring Freedom, the Afghan War has been the longest in U.S. history, though a low intensity, guerrilla conflict that kept the Taliban at bay.
Whatever reason Biden and the Pentagon have for pulling out of Afghanistan, it obviously comes with consequences. Russia has no sympathy for the U.S. because they prosecuted the war in Afghanistan between Dec. 24, 1989 and Feb. 15, 1991, with the U.S. battling Russia all the way. Former President Jimmy Carter once said that U.S. was neutral on the outcome of the Soviet war in Afghanistan. Giving Osama bin Laden’s mujahedeen fighters billions of dollars was hardly neutral, something remembered by Putin, Lavrov and others at the Kremlin. “I don’t think that the emergence of new American military facilities in Central Asia would promote security in the region,” Lavrov said, not admitting the real reason the Kremlin opposes the presence of any American forces. Putin and Lavrov recall when Carter and President Ronald Reagan funded Osama bin Laden’s mujahedeen fighters in Afghanistan.
Let there be no mistake, choosing to leave Afghanistan, the U.S. forfeits its interest in the outcome of the country. While Biden denies that the U.S. has been nation-building in Afghanistan, the amount of blood-and-treasure spent says otherwise. Twenty years supporting successive U.S.-backed governments proves that former Bush administration wanted to establish a democratic state in Afghanistan, just like they did prosecuting the Iraq War. Whether democracy works in the Middle East is anyone’s guess. Only Israel operates a workable democracy, the rest are authoritarian regimes and monarchies. Russia has no interest in preserving the U.S.-backed government of Ashraf Ghani, whose government will likely fall after the U.S. exit is completed. Leaving Afghanistan, the Pentagon surrenders the outcome to whatever happens with the Taliban’s relentless march to Kabul.
When the U.S. examines the costs-and-benefits of the Afghan War, they need to look at the original intent of finding and neutralizing Sept. 11 mastermind Osama bin Laden. How ironic that Bin Laden was a U.S. ally for several years while the Pentagon worked feverishly with surrogates to end Soviet occupation. Soviet’s Afghan conflict would have kept going except for the fact that the Soviet Union disbanded Dec. 26, 1991. Pentagon officials toppled the Taliban Nov. 14, 2001, only five weeks after launching Operation Enduring Freedom. Former President George W. Bush would have let the Taliban stay in power if they turned over Bin Laden. Bush was out of office three years when the U.S. military finally terminated Bin Laden May 2, 2011, something credited to former President Barack Obama. Whether or not the Taliban harbors the next Bin Laden is anyone’s guess.
