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Biden Is Not Ending The ‘Forever Wars’. He Is Preparing The Path To New Ones.
Daniel Larison writes that Joe Biden's foreign policies are probably worse than Trump's:
Joe Biden’s foreign policy record as president in his first six months has been as bad as his non-interventionist and antiwar critics feared it would be. Biden has made one significant and correct decision that he appears to be following through on, and that is the withdrawal of the last remaining U.S. troops from Afghanistan, but even here there is reason to worry that US forces may be relocated to other nearby countries and the war against the Taliban will continue from afar. On almost every other front, Biden has not only failed to undo some of his predecessor’s worst and most destructive policies, but in many cases he has entrenched and reinforced them.
Biden has failed to stop the U.S./Saudi war on Yemen. He is keeping troops in Iraq and Syria. His retreat from Afghanistan turns out to be fake. He is sabotaging a return to the nuclear with Iran.
The U.S. has, in contradiction to its Doha agreement with the Taliban, restarted its bombing campaign against them and is likely to continue it for years to come:
The top American general overseeing operations in Afghanistan declined to say Sunday night whether U.S. airstrikes against the Taliban would end Aug. 31, the date previously given by officials as a cutoff for such attacks.
Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr., the head of United States Central Command, refused to commit to ending the United States last remaining military leverage over the Taliban: airstrikes.
…
The Taliban reacted furiously to the strikes, saying they were in breach of the 2020 agreement negotiated between the militant group and the United States.
The concentration of strikes against the Taliban reflected a new sense of urgency in Washington about the imperiled Afghan government.
“I’m just not going to be able to comment about the future of U.S. airstrikes after Aug. 31,” General McKenzie told reporters after meeting with Afghanistan’s president, Ashraf Ghani, and his aides earlier in the day.
The Taliban have recently done a lot of diplomacy with visits to Moscow, Beijing and Tehran. Together, with Pakistan, which continues to supply the Taliban with weapons and manpower, those countries are planing for a future where the Taliban will have total control of, or at least a significant role in. the Afghan government. They have promised to invest in a Taliban led Afghanistan.
But the U.S. will not allow a rebuilding of the silk road between China and Iran. It will not allow for safe 'Belt & Road' investments in Afghanistan. Instead of controlling Afghanistan for its own purpose, as it did with its occupation, the U.S. will, from now on, do its best to deny others to benefit from the country.
After first pressing the Afghan president to make room for an interim government, Biden is now again backing him. In a phone call last Friday Biden pledged full support for Ghani's continued hardline:
President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. spoke today with President Ashraf Ghani of Afghanistan. President Biden and President Ghani discussed the situation in Afghanistan and reaffirmed their commitment to an enduring bilateral partnership. President Biden emphasized continued U.S. support, including development and humanitarian aid, for the Afghan people, including women, girls, and minorities. President Biden and President Ghani agreed that the Taliban’s current offensive is in direct contradiction to the movement’s claim to support a negotiated settlement of the conflict. President Biden also reaffirmed the United States’ commitment to continue supporting the Afghan security forces to defend themselves.
But Ghani's government has no way to survive. The Taliban control Afghanistan's borders and can finance themselves with customs duties and taxes. Ghani thereby lacks the income to run the state. Now Biden is promising him to give $4 billion per year to the Afghan army while having few control over how that money will be spent. Ghani and his circle will do their best to loot the stash.
Instead of leaving Afghanistan alone and letting it find a new balance Biden is revamping the Great Game in which Afghanistan will be again the foremost casualty.
During his campaign Biden had promised to rejoin the nuclear deal with Iran. But no action has followed. Talks with Tehran started too late and were filled with new demands that Iran can not accept without diminishing is military defenses.
The arrogance of the Biden administration is at full display in its believe that it can dictate the terms to Tehran:
If the U.S. determines that Iran is not prepared to return to full implementation, or that Iran’s nuclear program has advanced to the point that the non-proliferation limits in the deal cannot be recaptured, it will explore options, including for tightening enforcement of economic sanctions, but he hopes it does not come to that, he said.
“We will see whether they are prepared to come back,” the senior US diplomat said.
It is not Iran that left the UN endorsed JCPOA deal. It was the U.S. which went back on it and re-introduced a 'maximum pressure' sanctions campaign against Iran. Iran has said it is willing to again reduce its nuclear program to the limits of the JCPOA deal if the U.S. removes all sanctions. It is the Biden administration that is unwilling to do so while making new demands. That is obviously not going to work.
Today Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei met with the outgoing government of President Rohani and warned the incoming government against any hope that the U.S. will change its unreasonable position:
Khamenei.ir @khamenei_ir – 9:20 UTC · Jul 28, 2021
Others should use the experience of Mr. Rouhani’s govt. One experience is distrusting the West. In this administration it became clear that trusting the West isn’t helpful. They don’t help and they strike a blow wherever they can. When they didn’t, it was because they couldn’t.
Administrations should utterly avoid tying their plans to negotiations with the West, for they’ll certainly fail.
This administration too, wherever it relied on negotiations with the West & the US, they were unsuccessful, & when they relied on domestic potential, they succeeded.
In the recent nuclear talks, the Americans staunchly insisted on their obstinate stance. When making promises & on paper they say they’ll remove sanctions, but in practice they didn’t & won’t. Then they say new articles should be added to the deal that already exists.
The West & the US are totally unjust & malicious in their negotiations. They have no hesitation in breaching their commitments at all. In the previous agreement, they breached their commitments & they give no guarantee they will abide by their commitments in the future either.
If the U.S. does not come back into the JCPOA deal, without any further conditions, Iran will eventually leave the deal and proceed with its nuclear program as it wants. That would be an utter failure of Biden's hardline tactics. One wonders what the Biden administration has planned to do when that happens.
As Larison summarizes:
Biden’s foreign policy so far is largely made up of failures to achieve his stated goals and failures to overturn the worst policies that he inherited from Trump. In some cases, Biden has not even made the effort to overturn them. The Biden administration likes to use the phrase "America is back" as its foreign policy motto. Judging from Biden’s first six months this just means that America is back to more of the same destructive and inhumane policies that we have had for decades.
Instead of ending the 'forever wars', as Biden promised during his campaign, he is prolonging old ones while preparing the path for new ones.
That is a path that will not go well for the U.S. of A.
Pepe Escobar’s been writing a lot because there’s much to report. Here he presents a round-up of the many recent meetings and focuses closer on the SCO’s role in the peace making. He does make one important observation about the Taliban:
“The most important fact is that the Taliban are, de facto, a constellation of warlord militias. What this means is that Mullah Baradar in Tianjin does not speak for the whole movement. He would have to hold a shura with every major warlord and commander to sell them whatever political road map he agrees with Russia and China.
“This is a huge problem as certain powerful Tajik or Uzbek commanders will prefer to align themselves with foreign sources, say Turkey or Iran, instead of whoever will be in power in Kabul.
“The Chinese might find a detour around the problem by literally buying everyone and his neighbor. But that still wouldn’t guarantee stability.”
And while the SCO has perhaps the best insight into the overall problem:
“The SCO, for its part, has kept an Afghan contact group since 2005. Afghanistan is an SCO observer and may be accepted as a full member once there’s a political settlement.
“The key problem inside the SCO will be to harmonize the clashing interests of India and Pakistan inside Afghanistan. [My Emphasis]
And that’s where as several have mentioned where the Outlaw US Empire can continue to destabilize the region. But we won’t have to worry about Pakistan doing its best:
“Pakistan, meanwhile, is working closer and closer within the SCO framework. Prime Minister Imran Khan could not be more adamant when addressing US public opinion: ‘Washington aimed for a military solution in Afghanistan, when there never was one,’ he said.
“’And people like me who kept saying that there’s no military solution, who know the history of Afghanistan, we were called – people like me were called anti-American,’ he said. ‘I was called Taliban Khan.'”
Pepe linked to Dawn‘s report about Khan’s PBS interview yesterday, which covers more ground than just the Afghan/Taliban situation and is worth the read, or you can watch the video, which is linked at the article. Here’s that item’s lead:
“Prime Minister Imran Khan has said that the United States ‘really messed it up in Afghanistan’ as he questioned the American motive of Afghan invasion in the first place and then their subsequent attempts of seeking a political solution with the Taliban from a position of weakness.”
Pepe also links to this interview in German with Russian Taliban expert Andrei Kazantsev. However, I must report that Kazantsev isn’t immune to Outlaw US Empire propaganda:
“The attacks of September 11, 2001 in New York were linked to Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda. Bin Laden and many of his leaders hid in Afghanistan with the Taliban. The US demanded his extradition – if the Taliban had complied with this demand, there would have been no war. It is an important point: the Americans were initially willing to continue to work quietly together, but the Taliban did not betray Bin Laden.” [My Emphasis]
We all know that the Taliban offered to extradite bin Laden IF the Empire provided evidence, which of course was never supplied, and he never appeared on the FBI’s Most Wanted List–Ever. That’s a very unfortunate way to start an interview by dissing your own credibility. However, he does know a few important facts:
“Andrei Kazanev: Many do not understand the structure of the Taliban. The Taliban are a construct of troops of warlords. The real role in this is not played by the people who travel the world on behalf of the Taliban and conclude agreements, the so-called political wing. But the real warlords, who can often conduct their own policies completely independently of the official positions of the Taliban. This results in problems.
“The Taliban sign a peace agreement and yet there are a number of terrorist attacks by individual field commanders. The Taliban claim that these are not their attacks, but in reality, of course, they are warlords who must be seen as part of their movement.
“Only that they are often not controlled by the political wing. Another problem is that there are many groups in Afghanistan that are funded by external actors, solving problems that have absolutely nothing to do with peace for Afghanistan and can hardly be included in an agreement.
“These are, for example, the Fatimyun troops, which are financed by Iran. Fatimyun is an important force currently fighting in Syria. In the event of an escalation in the civil war, Fatimyun would return to Afghanistan and become a major force against the Taliban. In addition, there are field commanders of Uzbek or Tajik origin who openly turn to either Turkey or Russia in search of support. The Taliban, in turn, have many ties to Pakistan, especially the political wing.”
As I mentioned, the interview with Telepolis is in German. And so it continues as we learn more about the many complexities needing to be addressed to establish a peaceful political settlement. IMO, finding a solution in Myanmar will be just as complex.
Posted by: karlof1 | Jul 29 2021 16:55 utc | 116
emersonreturn @135–
Thanks very much for your gracious reply! While doing my daily rounds, I was treated to further information about what Russia and Putin are doing to better improve the lives of all Russians and even those from other nations in this report presented to Putin by General Director of ANO Russia–Land of Opportunity–Alexei Komissarov. His testimony backs my steadfast assertion that Putin’s primary aim is the development of Russia’s Human Capital which provides the foundation for Russia’s current development and future accomplishments:
“You have repeatedly stated that people are our country’s key asset. They are indeed talented, caring and highly motivated.
“The systemic work that is being pursued at your initiative, the work to identify, promote and develop talents, is yielding good results. In 2017, you took the decision to launch the Leaders of Russia contest. The same year, we launched a programme to train a personnel reserve at the Higher School of State Administration, RANEPA, dubbed the ‘school of governors’ by the media.
“In your 2018 Address to the Federal Assembly, you noted that a single platform was necessary. In fact, on May 22 you signed an Executive Order on the creation of the Autonomous Non-Profit Organisation Russia – Land of Opportunity. We have a mission that sounds rather serious: ‘We are creating Russia’s future, opening equal opportunities for everyone.’
“Much has been done during these three-odd years. With your permission, I will share some figures and facts. These, incidentally, cover what has been done since the Supervisory Board’s meeting that you chaired in March, not only during these three years. There are changes in evidence. But first, I would like to share some sociological data.
“Polls show that 64 percent of our people believe that young people have an opportunity to realise their potential in Russia, to put their talents to use, and to succeed in life. As for those who took part in our projects, 93 percent think this.
“83 percent of the contestants said that taking part in our projects had a positive effect on their personal fulfilment, 65 percent said it helped them find their vocation, 97 percent mentioned the positive effect of our projects, 78 percent said their self-confidence had been boosted and 50 percent said that they have become happier. And it was not us conducting the polls, it was VTsIOM who are independent.” [My Emphasis]
As you read further, you’ll discover that Putin’s initial initiative has spawned a galaxy of associated contests and organizations all aimed at Making Russia Great, many of which have roots in the Soviet Era. The stats are impressive. And this revelation proves Russia is anything but isolated:
“We received about 11,000 applications from 150 countries, which really amazed me. It is incredible: 150 countries have shown an interest in this competition. It is probably not all that surprising, because the prizes there are substantial. Thanks to your decision, finalists can apply for a simplified residence permit, and winners are even eligible for Russian citizenship. In fact, we have not found such examples anywhere in the world, where participants are transparently selected to obtain such opportunities. It seems to me that this is very important.”
Clearly, Russia’s attention to cultural outreach in its foreign relations are responsible for such a response, along with the prestige of Russia’s educational institutions. And for someone my age, I find it excellent that Russia’s elderly, “People of the ‘silver age,'” also avail themselves of this opportunity at self-improvement and social activity. And these programs are still in their infancy. Clearly they can provide the basis for Russia’s own meritocratic system for the proper utilization of every Russian’s talent.
Posted by: karlof1 | Jul 30 2021 20:33 utc | 136
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