The 2001 attack was originally scheduled for late June. Osama bin Laden wanted the attack to happen when Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was visiting white House. This dramatically reflects the terrorists’ hatred for America’s support of Israel. The Egyptian commander of the hijackers, Muhammad Atta, told bin Laden that he was not ready yet.
That summer the White House was flooded with intelligence warnings that an attack in the US was imminent. I was there when George Tenet, the Director of Central Intelligence, repeatedly raised the alarm. Bush did not convene a meeting of his national security team to discuss the threat, share information and prepare a contingency plan. The result was that a conspiracy that should have penetrated and stopped was abandoned to kill thousands and change the world.
after the rapid fall of Taliban, the Bush team took their eyes off Afghanistan and invaded Iraq, which had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks. The Afghan mission was catastrophically cut short at a critical moment when it was possible to create stability and order. Instead, the country was engulfed in civil war. In 2002, the US had less than 8,000 troops in Afghanistan, while in 1999, the US and its allies placed 50,000 troops in Bosnia to stabilize a country with a population 1/10th the size of Afghanistan.
Donald Trump negotiated a deal with the Taliban, an ally of al-Qaeda, to arrange for the withdrawal of NATO troops from Afghanistan in exchange for a public denial of al-Qaeda. The deal was concluded without input from the Afghan government or NATO allies; And the Taliban never broke away from al-Qaeda. It is deeply ingrained in the Taliban.
The Biden administration held on to Trump’s reckless, inept negotiator and pursued a flawed deal. The withdrawal was a disaster and raises serious questions about the competence of the administration’s national security team.
Fortunately, despite terrorist attacks by Islamic State-Khorasan, the evacuation of the Americans and some of our Afghan allies was carried out somewhat optimally. Several countries helped with the evacuation, which included grounding their troops and planes, sharing the risks. A notable exception was Saudi Arabia.
Significantly, another Israeli Prime Minister was about to go to the White House, when the terrorists attacked the Marines. It was the biggest loss of life for our soldiers in years.
The withdrawal from Kabul has devastated US intelligence capabilities in Afghanistan. The country is now an intelligence black hole where al-Qaeda will attempt to reproduce.
He is not the only terrorist who is close to the Taliban. NS United Nations has reported that Lashkar-e-Taiba He has a significant presence with the Taliban. Jaish-e-Mohammed also congratulated him. Both will plan a fresh attack on India from Afghanistan.
The Pakistani military will continue to be a major ally of the Taliban. Senapati is the winner in Rawalpindi. For them it is a repetition of the 1989 victory over another superpower, the Soviet Union. They were ground allies of the Mujahideen; The CIA was only his quartermaster. No Americans fought in Afghanistan in the 1980s. Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) The Directorate fought the Mujahideen inside Afghanistan and even in Soviet Central Asia.
This was Zia ul Haq’s war. He took all the important decisions. The first was to divert some supplies from the Afghan war, including weapons from the Americans and Chinese, to militancy in Kashmir. Zia planned to repeat his victory in Afghanistan with the expulsion of India from Kashmir. Today’s generals in the ISI would be tempted to do the same.
But it is a problematic victory. Another beneficiary of the fall of the Afghan government is likely to be the Pakistan Taliban which has been at war with the Pakistani military for years. The Afghan Taliban has dubious ties with its Pakistani counterpart. Certainly, the Afghan Taliban are in touch with their fellow Pakistani believers and will offer safe haven in their new conquest. When the time comes, a big blow can happen.
Furthermore, the Afghan Taliban are completely anti-Shia. Incidents of violence have happened in the past as well. This would increase sectarian tensions in Pakistan, which has a much larger Shia population than Afghanistan.
The Afghan people are big losers. They have fought for the world community since 1979, when the Soviet Union invaded. More than a million people died in the decisive battle of the Cold War. Thousands died fighting al-Qaeda and the Taliban. They deserved better than America.
The end of the US war in Afghanistan gave Washington an opportunity to attack Pakistan. For most of the last 40 years, America’s policy towards Pakistan was linked to its wars in Afghanistan, in which the US relied on Pakistan for military reasons. Now we don’t need Karachi.
We can engage Pakistan – China’s closest ally and the world’s sixth largest country in terms of nuclear weapons arsenal – on its own merits. It would be a good start for Biden to talk to Prime Minister Imran Khan, whom he has postponed for seven months.
Engagement does not mean agreement. Washington engages with Beijing and Moscow without acknowledging their brazen behavior. The inclusion of Islamabad may prove to be issue-specific. But the talks would be free from the demands of a war in Afghanistan for at least the first time since 2001, if not 1979.
.