Trump’s Afghan Pivot

Published in El País
(Spain) on 24 August 2017
by Editorial (link to originallink to original)
Translated from by Jamie Agnew. Edited by Rachel Pott.
The U.S. announces that it will ratchet up troop numbers and operations in Afghanistan.

Before becoming president, Donald Trump insisted that the first thing he would do upon his arrival in the White House would be to withdraw American troops from Afghanistan. However, in another of those 180-degree U-turns that we have grown used to, he has now announced that, far from withdrawing the 8,400 troops deployed in the country, he will increase the number of both troops and the scale of operations.

The motives driving this decision are easy to understand. After nearly 16 years of conflict – the longest in U.S. military history – with 2,403 American soldiers killed and billions of dollars spent, Trump’s main military advisers, with the backing of the Pentagon, have managed to convince him that a full American withdrawal would leave Afghanistan in the same precarious situation as Iraq in 2011, paving the way for the Taliban to take control and for the country to be converted into a sanctuary for terrorists from which – as occurred with 9/11 – attacks will be planned against the U.S.

As happened with Obama during his time in office, and with George W. Bush before him, another U.S. president has opted for the least-worst option – prolonging the war in the knowledge that there will be no trace of a military victory, nor an Afghan state capable of looking after its own affairs, nor a truly credible date of withdrawal on the horizon.

Afghanistan has been a disaster for every world power that has tried to dominate it, be it the British Empire, the USSR or the U.S. It has shown beyond a shadow of a doubt that it is impossible to control without the participation of the Pashtun people and active collaboration with Pakistan – the two elements the Taliban relies on. Given this, Trump’s statement that he is not aiming to nation-build but simply to “kill terrorists” is both bravado and proof that the U.S. continues to commit the same errors time and time again.


El giro afgano de Trump

EE UU anuncia ahora que incrementará sus efectivos y sus operaciones en Afganistán

Antes de su llegada al poder, Donald Trump sostuvo de forma reiterada e insistente que lo primero que haría al llegar a la presidencia sería retirar a las tropas estadounidenses de Afganistán. Ahora, en otro de esos giros de 180 grados a los que nos tiene acostumbrados, ha anunciado que lejos de retirar los 8.400 soldados desplegados en ese país, incrementará sus efectivos y sus operaciones.

Los motivos de dicha decisión son fáciles de comprender. Después de casi 16 años de conflicto —el más largo en el que se ha visto involucrado el Ejército estadounidense—, 2.403 soldados americanos caídos en combate y miles de millones de dólares gastados, los principales asesores militares de Trump, con el concurso del Pentágono, le han convencido de que una retirada estadounidense dejaría a Afganistán en la misma situación de vulnerabilidad en la que quedó Irak en 2011, abriendo el paso a una toma del poder por parte de los talibanes y la eventual conversión del país en un santuario terrorista desde el que —como ocurrió en el fatídico 11-S— atentar nuevamente contra EE UU.

Como Obama en su momento y George W. Bush antes que él, otro presidente estadounidense ha optado por el mal menor: continuar con la guerra a sabiendas de que en el horizonte no hay atisbo de una victoria militar, un Estado afgano capaz de ocuparse de sí mismo o una fecha de retirada verdaderamente creíble.

Afganistán ha sido la tumba de todas las potencias que han intentado dominarlo, fueran el Imperio Británico, la Unión Soviética o EE UU. Ha demostrado con creces ser imposible de controlar sin el concurso de los pastunes y la colaboración activa de Pakistán, los dos elementos en los que se apoyan los talibanes. Por ello, la afirmación de Trump de que no pretende construir una nación sino solamente “matar terroristas” no solo es una bravuconería sino la prueba de que EE UU persiste en cometer los mismos errores una y otra vez.
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