Invading Iraq Is Not The Reason America Failed in Afghanistan
On the 20th anniversary of the disastrous decision to invade Iraq, it's time to kill off one of the long-standing canards about the war's ultimate impact.
I’m Michael A. Cohen, and this is Truth and Consequences: A no-holds-barred look at the absurdities, hypocrisies, and surreality of American politics. If you were sent this email or are a free subscriber and would like to subscribe, you can sign up here.
So my birthday is tomorrow, and if you want to get me a birthday present … click the button below and get 20 percent off one year of Truth and Consequences!
It’s not often I write two posts in a day, but I couldn’t let the 20th anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq go by without some thoughts.
I’ve probably written hundreds of thousands of words about the Iraq War, so I’m taking a slightly different perspective with this post. Rather than focus on the decision to invade Iraq, I want to address an oft-heard criticism of the US war: that it took America’s eye off the ball in Afghanistan, which allowed the Taliban insurgency to re-emerge. Instead of wasting trillions in Iraq, “we could have deployed the full force of American power to hunt down and destroy Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda, the Taliban, and all of the terrorists responsible for 9/11 while supporting real security in Afghanistan” argued Barack Obama during the 2008 presidential campaign. In failing to focus on security and post-conflict reconstruction, the US created a political and military vacuum that sowed the seeds of the Taliban insurgency, or so the story goes. (Indeed, in a piece I wrote 12 years ago on the 8th anniversary of the war, I fell victim to this nugget of revisionist history, which has become conventional wisdom.)
But this hypothesis has a major problem: it lets the US off the hook. American failure in Afghanistan was not a crime of omission but rather commission. The US didn’t take its eye off the ball. We remained engaged militarily in Afghanistan and in late 2001 into 2002-3 took actions that directly contributed to the emergence of the Taliban insurgency.
It’s important and often difficult to remember that three months after 9/11, the US had scored an astounding and unexpected military victory in Afghanistan. With just a few hundred US troops and the devastating application of US air power, the insurgent North Alliance swept the Taliban from power. Al Qaeda’s leaders and foot soldiers were on the run, having fled across the border to Pakistan or been killed by US bombs (many of al Qaeda’s top lieutenants, including bin Laden, escaped from the Afghan redoubt of Tora Bora, in part because the US relied on Afghan fighters, rather than US troops to kill or capture the 9/11 mastermind). Its safe haven was no more. The war irretrievably reversed the group’s ability to launch a major terrorist attack on US soil.
The Taliban were effectively done as a fighting force. While many of al Qaeda’s Arab fighters had fought to the death, the Taliban forces largely evaporated, content to put down their weapons and return to their communities. Rather than regrouping and preparing for an insurgency against the US invaders, the Taliban leadership was shattered and unsure how to proceed. Most fled across the border to Pakistan. Some wanted to take up the mantle of jihad, while others preferred to work with the new Afghan government or give up fighting altogether. Mid-level Talibs had nothing but contempt for Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda, who they blamed for their exile and the loss of their country. There is also compelling evidence that in 2002, members of the Taliban leadership approached US officials to discuss a surrender that would allow them to return to their homeland.
Beyond the military setback, the Taliban lost popular support from the Afghan people, who were happy to see them gone, and political support from Pakistan, their key benefactor before 9/11. A new Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, was chosen in early December and, later that month, was inaugurated along with a 29-member cabinet that included two women. Though Afghanistan is often described as inherently hostile to foreign invaders, in the immediate aftermath of the Taliban’s defeat, the Afghan people openly welcomed American and NATO troops.
So what went wrong? Why, within two years, did the Taliban return as an insurgent fighting force, leading to a bloody, nearly two-decade civil war? It wasn’t because the Bush Administration stopped paying attention to Afghanistan. It’s because they paid the wrong kind of attention.
From the beginning of the US mission in Afghanistan, the Bush administration adopted the belief articulated by CIA Director George Tenet in the immediate aftermath of 9/11: "The Taliban and al Qaeda [are] really the same.” That view would underpin the 20-year US odyssey in Afghanistan, which focused almost exclusively on defeating the Taliban and depriving al Qaeda of a safe haven from which to operate. (After 2001, al Qaeda forces were hardly targeted in Afghanistan, mainly because they weren't there).
As the initial war concluded, the US attitude toward the Taliban remained the same. They were considered a close ally of al Qaeda and a fellow terrorist organization, despite pronounced cleavages between the two groups. While the Taliban focused on Afghanistan’s future, al Qaeda and bin Laden were concerned with waging international jihad against the United States. Though the Taliban leader, Mullah Omar, had given bin Laden sanctuary in Afghanistan, he remained suspicious of his intentions. He even kept al Qaeda’s Arab fighters segregated not only from the Taliban forces but also from Afghan civilians.
Rather than allow President Karzai to seek political reconciliation with the Taliban or reintegrate Taliban fighters into Afghan society and politics, the US prevented him from pursuing such a course of action. Infamously, at a Pentagon press conference on December 6, 2001, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld publicly rejected any possible political arrangement with the Taliban or role for the group in Afghanistan’s future. He also privately warned Karzai that such an agreement was counter to US interests.
Subsequently, the US military pursued a reckless and flagrant counterterrorism mission that treated the Taliban as an enemy. US special forces set out to kill or capture Taliban fighters. Many of them were sent to the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, even though Afghans played no role in the 9/11 attacks (and, from all accounts, were unaware of al Qaeda’s plans in advance).
Of greater damage, however, was direct US involvement in tribal and local disputes. Since the American presence also brought significant aid dollars, Afghan warlords and powerbrokers had every incentive to cooperate with the Americans and, when possible, unleash them on their political enemies. Afghan allies, like Gul Agha Sherzai in the Southern city of Kandahar, were key intelligence sources for the American military. Hardly by coincidence, the intelligence would point the finger at rivals for US largesse. American officials, ignorant of the granularities of Afghan politics, often followed their bidding. In the process, they created enemies where before there had been none.
Mistaken US attacks also frequently led to the killing of innocent civilians — and in some cases, pro-American leaders. The US counterterrorism mission in Afghanistan found few al Qaeda fighters but lots of Afghans — and in the process, enraged affected communities. When the Taliban reconstituted their fighting forces, US actions would help drive many communities into their arms, not only as protection from the US military but also out of frustration borne by the rapacious corruption that the US occupation and subsequent aid flows brought with it.
The US also made another crucial and ill-fated decision regarding security: they prevented non-American forces from providing it. In the wake of the Taliban’s defeat, an international security force was created (ISAF), but US officials prevented the troops from extending their presence outside of Kabul and its environs for fear that doing so would interfere with the US counterterrorism mission.
Three key dynamics would soon materialize. In the few places where ISAF was present, stability generally reigned because the international forces were not interested in local politics and weren’t waging a counterterrorism mission. In areas with no US or international presence — mainly in the North — there was also limited violence because Afghan leaders weren’t jockeying for US support and using American troops for their purposes. But in the South, replete with US forces, the war raged. That’s also where, eventually, the Taliban insurgency began to emerge.
Had the US followed a different course of action and allowed Karzai to pursue reconciliation efforts with the Taliban, including amnesty for the group’s foot soldiers, it’s not difficult to imagine a very different trajectory for Afghanistan’s future. Had the US allowed ISAF to extend its mission to other major population centers and focused militarily on al Qaeda and not the Taliban the grievances that drove popular support for the Taliban insurgency could have been avoided.
In short, the outcome in Afghanistan could have been very different, not if the US did more, but rather if it did less.
But that, of course, is not the way US policymakers think. Instead, there is an ingrained, often unchallenged, belief that the US can overcome any challenge, domestic or foreign, and that applying American political, diplomatic, financial, and military support can produce positive outcomes.
That was certainly the mindset underpinning the US war in Iraq and, in particular, the continuation of the US occupation there. American military leaders convinced themselves that the 2007 US troop surge in Iraq turned the tide against the insurgency there. Then, in 2009, they convinced President Obama that their “success” in Iraq could be replicated in Afghanistan. By putting the US eye back on the ball in Afghanistan, it would lead to stability and an end to the insurgency, or so the story went. In reality, the Iraq surge played a tangential role in undermining the Iraqi insurgency, and the Afghan surge, rather than ending the war, extended the US presence — and certainly didn’t lead to success, as demonstrated by the Taliban takeover of the country in 2021.
On its 20th anniversary, there are countless lessons from the US war in Iraq, but the belief that it guaranteed failure in Afghanistan is not one of them. The US screwed up in Afghanistan and snatched defeat from the jaws of victory — but we did that. It didn’t come from turning away.
Musical Interlude
I forgot to include this in my earlier post, but today is the 32nd anniversary of one of the best Grateful Dead shows that I attended: March 20, 1991 at the Capitol Center in Landover, Maryland. Just a great set list from top to bottom, especially the first set closer, “Might As Well.”
Lots of good analysis and commentary today, here and on twitter. Thank you.
And then there's the cost in people's lives. Every single death affects so many people for so long, such as that of my friend's son, a Marine, two weeks short of finishing his tour in Afghanistan in February 2012.
We are in accord about Afghanistan and the errors made in that country. Nonetheless, I swan the reason the United States successfully prosecuted a war against two different countries in 1942-45 was because in one theater the US Army/Air Force was dominant; whereas the other area of operations emphasized the US Navy.