What Was the Objective in Afghanistan?

What was the U. S. objective in Afghanistan? In his New York Times column Bret Stephens, with something of a tone of desperation, asserts an objective I’ve never heard before:

There’s a rational argument to be made that the United States went into Afghanistan to serve our national interests, coldly considered, and not the needs of an impoverished country of nearly 40 million people. Foreign policy is ultimately about self-interest, not the interests of others.

But what was the American interest in staying in Afghanistan beyond the fall of the Taliban? It wasn’t, centrally, to kill Osama bin Laden, who was just one in a succession of terrorist masterminds. It was to prove Bin Laden wrong about America’s long-term commitments, especially overseas.

In August 1996, Bin Laden issued his notorious fatwa declaring a war on the United States that he hoped would be long and bloody. He observed that, in one conflict after another, the Americans always cut and run. “God has dishonored you when you withdrew,” Bin Laden wrote, “and it clearly showed your weaknesses and powerlessness.”

The attacks of Sept. 11 were a direct consequence of that observation. That’s why Barack Obama was right when, during his first campaign for the presidency, he called Afghanistan “a war that we have to win.” To lose would not just demonstrate our weaknesses and powerlessness. It would be a vindication of the strategy of jihad. How safe will America be when that strategy succeeds not only in Kabul but also in Islamabad?

I think he’s backing an objective out of a strategy rather than the other way around.

As I have been saying for 20 years now I think our response in Afghanistan was a political one and from one political decision a series of actions grew which led us to where we are now.

When the U. S. was attacked on September 11, 2001, President Bush immediately felt a political need to do something. Just as was the case on December 7, 1941 the American people were angry. Muslims in the U. S. became concerned that fear would be directed at them. Attacking Afghanistan focused the attention of the American people on the country from which the attack had ultimately emanated.

Afghanistan is not a target-rich country to say the least. Highly focused bombing, at least with conventional weapons, would accomplish little. And mobilizing a Desert Storm-style force over the period of months would neither have satisfied the American people’s thirst for revenge nor been logistically possible as a glance at a time will show you. The decision was made to use a small group of highly mobile U. S. soldiers to mobilize local forces against the Taliban.

But once the Taliban had been removed that meant the U. S. had become the “occupying power” under international law and leaving at that point would have been a war crime. So we began the thankless and impossible task of propping up an Afghan government. And that led to “nation-building”. Which led to the task of counter-insurgency. Which brought us to where we have been for the last decade.

At each and every stage in this process it has been advertised as a temporary measure rather than a permanent occupation.

Or, said another way, if Bret Stephens’s objective was to engage in a permanent occupation of Afghanistan to demonstrate American resolve, we started going about it in the wrong way for the wrong reasons 20 years ago.