Pride: An American Sin

The United States has no idea how to escape the Afghan mire. With the withdrawal of a large portion of American troops at the end of the year, the contingent they are preparing to leave behind has just seen their mission become much greater than before. Continuing to combat the Taliban’s guerrilla fighters will be the final, supplementary task of the some 10,000 men and women initially charged with hunting down the final al-Qaida militants and providing advice to the local armed forces. The Afghan state installed by Washington 13 years ago is, however, still not strong enough to hold on.

How disappointing! In the days that followed the 9/11 attacks, nothing seemed to be able to stop the Americans from steamrolling their way into the Middle East. The United States, backed into a position where it had to defend itself, received the United Nations’ blessing to go to war, and exploited this in order to form a large coalition around it. Alongside this, it found a great deal of allies who were only too glad to finally have the chance to get rid of an oppressive, liberty-killing regime. Within a few weeks, Afghanistan had been invaded, and the Islamist militia had been put down.

But what has happened since then? The U.S. bit off more than it could chew. Not content with neutralizing al-Qaida, its attackers on that fateful day in 2001, it convinced itself that it had to eradicate the Taliban, accomplices in the attacks, forever. It’s one thing to win a few battles; winning a war, however, is completely different. Contrary to Osama bin Laden’s partisan fighters, the Taliban had a solid foothold in Afghanistan, and benefited greatly from support given by the Pakistani secret service. In its hour of victory, the American administration was advised to offer a helping hand to the enemy. This did not happen, and the enemy regained control.

This mistake reminds us of another. After having defeated Saddam Hussein, the Americans wanted to create a new puppet state in Iraq, and would not allow any aspect of the defunct regime to remain. In both cases, they underestimated their limits and became mere playthings of a deadly distraction which is as old at time itself: pride.