Commenting on the US President Donald Trump’s decision to pull out of Syria and half of 14,000 US troops in Afghanistan, veteran American commentator and author Patrick Buchanan raises some pertinent questions. Effectively demolishing the various Republican and Neocon ‘theories’ or excuses to invade Afghanistan and Iraq and ‘intervene’ in Libya and other hotspots, the Republican politician who has served in three US administrations, asks:
“The price of all these interventions for the United States? Some 7,000 dead, 40,000 wounded and trillions of dollars.
“For the Arab and Muslim world, the cost has been far greater. Hundreds of thousands of dead in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and Libya, civilian and soldier alike, pogroms against Christians, massacres, and millions uprooted and driven from their homes. How has all this invading, bombing and killing made the Middle East a better place or Americans more secure?”
After bombing Afghanistan and Iraq back to the Stone Age, in the words of the then Secretary of State Colin Powell, and a more than a million casualties in the Levant, the US still cannot explain why, and more to the point, what it has managed to achieve at the end of the day.
Washington has been in earnest negotiations with the Taliban, the former rulers of Afghanistan long condemned as the source of all evil, to hand back power or at least persuade them to share power with Washington’s friends and allies. The UAE has hosted several rounds of negotiations between the US and Taliban, with the blessings of Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.
This after years of demonising and abusing Pakistan for allegedly supporting and being ‘soft’ on the Taliban. Only months ago, a frustrated Trump scrapped the US military aid to Islamabad complaining that Pakistan does not ‘do a damn thing for us’. Remember the endless lectures to Pakistan’s perpetually cheeky and insolent Generals to “do more” in America’s endless ‘war on terror.’
However, after 17 years in the country long feared as the graveyard of empires, Uncle Sam seems to have finally come to his senses and appears in unseemly hurry to “cut and run,” leaving his friends and allies in a tizzy.
In Iraq, after totally obliterating a country celebrated as the cradle of civilization and the birthplace of patriarch Abraham, revered by the Jews, Christians and Muslims as the progenitor of their Prophets, under various pretexts, the coalition of the willing appears keen to declare ‘mission accomplished’ and get out.
By the way, by eliminating Saddam Hussain, the US has wittingly or unwittingly managed to empower the folks who report to ayatollahs next door in Iran, the very people the successive US administrations have painted as the ‘clear and present danger’ to the region.
Of course, the fate of the voiceless Sunni minority is hardly on anyone’s mind or ever crops up in discussions about the future of Iraq. Incidentally, it was the persecution and dispossession of Iraq’s Sunnis that actually gave birth to the group called Daesh or the so-called Islamic State.
In Syria, the situation is even more bizarre and confusing. The swift departure of the US from the Syrian swamp hands a resounding victory to Bashar Al Assad and his loyal and steadfast friends, the Russians and Iranians who have stuck with Dr Death through the thick and thin of one of history’s bloodiest conflicts.
In any case, except for some pockets here and there, much of the popular resistance against the Syrian regime has exhausted itself, thanks to the indifference and apathy of the world community and murderous crackdown by the regime, including repeated use of toxic gas and barrel bombing against a helpless, defenceless civilian population. In any case, the US and other world powers had never been serious and sincere in their support to the Syrian people when they rose in revolt against the tyrant in 2011 in unprecedented protests.
All energies and resources had been focused on helping the Kurds who were seen as advancing their own strategic interests in the name of fighting the ISIS. If the West had indeed genuinely supported the resistance, this conflict would have ended long ago, along with the brutal regime.
Today, if Assad has the last laugh celebrating his ‘victory’ standing atop the mountain of half a million dead Syrians, the credit should go to both the Russians and Iranians on the one hand and the West on the other. Half a million people dead and half of the country’s population homeless, not to mention the total devastation of Syria, including its great ancient cities such as Aleppo.
As in Iraq, Syria boasts one of the oldest civilisations with Damascus being the oldest, continually inhabited city and capital in the world. All that has been lost and squandered forever. For what?
Who is to be held accountable for this epic tragedy and what have they managed to achieve? Do the self-anointed champions of civilisation and democracy have any answers? It is as if one great Muslim country and civilization after another is being annihilated according to a design. I am not a fan of conspiracy theories but I do see a clear method in the madness.
So it is just as well that President Trump has decided to put an end to the nightmarish farce in Syria and Afghanistan. Indeed, this is perhaps the sanest decision taken as yet by the man seen by much of the US establishment as a mercurial ‘mad king.’
Even Washington’s allies in the region seem to have realised the futility of this conflict and have begun acknowledging the change of mood in Washington.
After a surprise visit to Damascus by President Omar Al Bashir of Sudan, apparently at the behest of the Arab League, the Arab countries appear keen to move on. Clearly at the instance of Saudi Arabia, Egypt and UAE, the League has talked of welcoming Syria back into the regional grouping. So let us just say all is forgiven and forgotten!
Meanwhile, Trump has talked of the Saudis helping with the reconstruction of Syria. As has been the case in a war-ravaged Afghanistan, both the West and Russia and its allies have been salivating over the massive investment potential and business opportunity that the rebuilding of a ruined Syria represents. So maybe there is a reason why these ancient Arab and Muslim countries are pulverised in the name of some lofty excuse or the other.
While the Arab and Muslim countries are encouraged to spend all their energies and resources in plotting and fighting against each other and bleeding each other into extinction, with the help of arms manufactured and provided by you know who, it is the global powers who have the last laugh. After all, it is their coffers that are filling up and bursting at the seams with wealth that once belonged to their victims. A simple game, you would think. Yet it is played again and again with the same deadly effect without its victims ever being any the wiser.
aijaz.syed@hotmail.com