Rather than the Graveyard of Empires, Afghanistan is better described as "A Bridge Too Far"*. As in, wherever you, Great Power, think you're going, the conquest of Afghanistan is a land-bridge too far: Try something else. For your own sake. But, the British Empire didn't die when defeated in Afghanistan, neither did Alexander the Great. For Genghis Khan, it took some devious doing, but he defeated the empire ruling Iran and most of Afghanistan, a key victory--then moved on. The Soviet Union didn't collapse immediately because of Afghanistan, though it was a signal of an empire that had totally lost its bearings, one which suddenly collapsed, with a bit of a clandestine nudge from us there. Possibly the same could be said of the adventure US and NATO just completed there, though it's still too soon to be sure (check back in about 30 months).
As geopolitical destination targets for empire building go, Afghanistan isn't much to look at. ** In the set of completely landlocked countries (the least valued type), it's suprisingly far down the list, well below the likes of Mali and Kazakhstan, and actually a notch below Zambia. It does have a lot of interesting, nuclear-weapon armed (or possibly nuclear-arming) countries that it borders upon, so it could be viewed as a good place to attack on the way to something more exciting. Except that it's not--it's got to be one of the most challenging to conquer and govern as an outside invading force.
Funny thing is, we did knock it over in 2001, rather easily in terms of our forces required, with help from a resistance force opposed to the Taliban called the Northern Alliance. That one is now trying to reconstitute itself in resistance to Taliban rule in the Panjshir Valley. That group, if it survives for long, will pose one of the many tricky strategic decisions the US must make in the "post-war" environment ahead. Should we aid it? No doubt, the US popular opinion would be in favor, in a misplaced desire for revenge.
Yes, we won the war in 2001 there. It was a use of military force I agreed with, back then; so did 90% of Americans, and all but one members of Congress. The Taliban government had openly allowed the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks to operate from there; they either had to turn them over, or they would be ousted and Al Qaeda booted from there.
The mistake was staying there; we lost the peace. If I had been the decision maker then, I would have tried to get a few thousand Turkish troops in there, paid for by NATO. As a predominantly Muslim nation, they would have had a better understanding of the complexities of keeping the peace there, and better able to deal with the messy, ugly realities there.
For a short amount of time, the effort was supported. By us, and by many of our NATO allies. There were setbacks in the initial set of leaders to be inserted into the country, both with an assassination and another warlord dropped into a trap (in Herat), but the move to insert Pashtun leader Hamid Karzai and set him up as President was sound and worked fairly well. Until we got distracted.
Rumsfeld
The question is not whether we dropped the ball in Afghanistan so we could focus on Iraq, but why? Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld always wanted to focus on Iraq, a more "target-rich environment" than Afghanistan,** but punishing the Taliban and driving out Al Qaeda came first. After that was "completed" (with the other objective of the mission, neutralizing Bin Laden put on hold), Rumsfeld seems to have been promised the opportunity to mobilize and mass forces to attack Iraq. Once there, activating them took a life of its own, with the consequences badly or barely considered.
As Karl Rove is attributed by Dubya to have been the "architect" of his 2000 Presidential victory, the late Donald Rumsfeld was the architect of whatever we ended up doing after 9/11/2001. I know, he wasn't the person responsible for either post-conquest fiasco, then or now. But I think the "why?" answer points squarely at him, assisted by Dick Cheney. More power was granted to them, and the well-timed 2002 elections certainly helped give the Iraq thing a boost. (Republicans have had some facility with that timing thing, though their luck ran out last year.)
I do cut him a certain amount of slack as a fellow townsman, someone who bought up a lot of land because he loved it, and seems to have been treating it well. It falls to his family, but I would imagine they have been well-groomed to handle it.
That describes him very well, both groomer and groomed. He was highly influential in his days (which were during two different periods as Defense Secretary, 25 years apart), not just because of the importance of the post. He was exemplary in the effort he put into public service, applying himself and getting others to do so. Militarily, both Afghanistan and Iraq ended up being easy wins, for which he deserves credit to a limited extent. Once you accept the multi-pronged premise. But, amazingly, the event planners failed to consider the "exit strategy" dimension, really, for either, replacing it with fantasy and blur.
Donald Rumsfeld should be an object lesson to history of the danger of excessive self-confidence and unwillingness to hear alternative ideas. I'm not sure the Biden Administration learned that one before the current crisis. Seems to me there was an absolute absence of consideration of the worst-case scenario and what would be required to avoid it. Or maybe I'm wrong; I just don't see evidence of it.
What's next, Joe?
The arc of the Washington-Taliban 2.0 relationship under the Biden Administration is not yet determined. We will have to accept a lot of internal brutality, as vendettas are settled, town by town. We have a chance to do better than we did in relation to Iran, and so does theTaliban. At least, so far they can say, "See, no hostages!" The UN may have a role to play that can be accepted. War weariness is surely a factor, throughout the country.
The question that the finale of the evacuation, with the drone strike and collateral deaths of civilians as the best alternative to allowing the suicide bomber access to the scene at the airport, will bring to bear, in some form, is: Who will the Taliban call now when they know where the ISIS people are? As for Al Qaeda, nobody there better call themselves that, and that is final.
Deltafghanida(del-taf-gan-i-da)
As it's written, bad news comes in 3.
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