This is mostly true; the September 11, 2001 attacks came at a time when neo-conservative policy makers were looking for a way to justify regime change in the Middle East and Central Asia, and it was fortuitous that the attacks were so visible and devastating that no one really stopped to consider the implications of invading Afghanistan or Iraq from a historical context nor to read the text of the “Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001”, a.k.a. the PATRIOT Act.
And the thing is, encouraging regime change in nations led by autocratic or theocratic regimes is not even wrong (unless you subscribe to a strict interpretation of Westphalian soverignty, which neither the United States clearly nor any major world power has in the last century). Encouraging the rejection of autocracy and despotism in favor of a liberal governance with democracy underpinnings is actually the avowed policy of the United States (even when the US has often supported non-liberal and non-democratic regimes in opposition to the expansion of communist-based goverments), and the judicious use of military force in opposing brutal dictatorships or havens for international discord is a valid means to that end, and in fact, is arguably the entire reason that we have the world’s largest military force with global reach. Supporting American financial and strategic interests is perhaps a somewhat less lofty goal but from a standpoint of national interest is no less valid provided it actually benefits the American people and allies.
The problem comes in when we do not have clear objectives, an endgame strategy, or an understanding of the geopolitics of the region beyond wanting to displace the current regime. Condoleeza Rice’s attempt to “appeal to the Iraqness” of Iraqis is emblematic of that short-sightedness, which any student of the history of the region can elucidate insofar is Iraq was a set of borders drawn by the British crossing ethnic lines and lumping together peoples with historical animus for one another. Similarly, Afghanistan is a collection of peoples who hold tribal affiliations above any concept of nationhood and over which even a functioning government of the mid-20th Century barely had control. What we’ve accomplished in over a decade and a half of attempted occupation in Afghanistan and Iraq is the physical and psychological injury of veterans, exacerbation of anger and resentment across the Muslim world, power vacuums that have allowed radical fundamentalist movements to undermine previously stable regimes across North Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia, and the loss of more than two trillion dollars of money better spent on various ways of improving the security and quality of life for US citizens, with no real exit strategy or goal at this point.
Although the US only currently provides about half of the military personnel in Afghanistan, it also provides the bulk of the funds and a large amount of non-military infrastructure and service contractors for whom the military and private military contractors (PMC) provide security. If the US pulls out of Afghanistan, the allied forces will as well simply because there will not be a structure in place to support them.
Other nations do not need “‘on the job’ training” that consists of operating in a hostile nation with no clearly identified combatants under constant threat of attack. The lessons learned from Afghanistan (and Iraq) can be applied to future planning and training, but frankly the next major conflict is not going to be boots on the ground against insurgents; it is going to be cyberspace attacks against infrastructure and financial institutions and attacks against space surveillance systems. Terrorist organizations are going to rely less on trying to infiltrate Western nations with fanatics trained in camps using the prior to 2002 easy-to-obtain student visas and more on self-radicalized naturalized or native citizens and commercially available remote control drones. Focusing on control of Afghanistan to run out al-Queda in the hope of reducing terrorism is a strategy for fighting the previous wars, not planning for conflicts in the future.
The objective with Afghanistan at this point should be to provide humanitarian support when possible, encourage internal movements for more liberal (in the classical sense of individual rights, not the Western political metric of social progressivism) governance, and to contain terrorism and opium trade, while preparing for the next real threat against Western democratic institutions, which is not and has never been fundamentalist Islamic terrorism, which can destroy buildings and kill thousands of people but has never stood a chance of undermining Western liberal society the way that destroying confidence in legitimate news organizations, spreading baseless conspiracy theories, and promoting demogogic leaders does and already has.
Stranger