The adverse effects of repeated efforts by the United States to implement and foist their own version of a free world on the orthodox and formalized societies of the Islamic world have, without exception, met with failure. This, however, has not discouraged the US from its well-meaning, but often misguided and bumbling efforts to bash on regardless with their version of political reform, based on their mistaken impressions about there being a ‘good’ and a ‘bad’ Taliban and there being in existence a group of ‘moderate’ Islamists; this after leading Arab luminaries have denied there being any moderate Islamists: according to them, a person either believes in the precepts of Islam does not. There is no half way house in the religion.
Any claim that the US was unaware of the diversion of such aid by Pakistan to meet its own insidious agenda on Kashmir is, at best, disingenuous and naive.
Further, one of the principal backers of the Taliban, i.e. Pakistan, have belatedly realised that there is no “good” Taliban; unfortunately only after the recent massacre of schoolchildren in Peshawar, after the Taliban has moved fully out of the sphere of influence of Islamabad. More importantly, this has been after Islamabad had temporarily ‘convinced’ the US of the existence of the self-same “good” Taliban.
In the case of the Syrian Free Army, for example, the underlying US principle has been of undermining and degrading the viability of the Bashar al Assad regime. Towards achieving this end, the US has, in 2014 alone set aside $ 5 Billion for anti IS efforts, including earmarking a sum of $1.6 billion for training “moderate” rebel forces in Syria. An additional sum of $ .5 billion has been set aside for the training of such forces. The ‘Cromnibus Bill’ set aside for this purpose authorises the US Secretary of Defence, in coordination with the Secretary of State, to provide ‘assistance, including training, equipment, supplies, sustainment and stipends, to ‘appropriately vetted elements of the Syrian Opposition and other appropriately vetted Syrian groups and individuals’. Parts of this generous funding has, inevitably reached the IS and al Nusra.
Press reports indicate that IS jihadists had signed a non-aggression pact with Syrian rebels in a Damascus suburb recently. According to this both sides had agreed not to attack each other and to consider the Nussayri regime as their principle enemy. The term Nussayri is a pejorative used to describe the sect of Islam to which Syrian President Bashar al Assad belongs. Some commanders of the Free Syrian Army had even admitted collaborating with IS and al Nusra Front. Syrian Army sources also admitted elements of the Free Syrian Army had formally joined the IS and al Nusra. US senators claimed that there was no mechanism to ensure rebel groups did not join the IS, which has led to the decidedly embarrassing situation of the IS being provided with arms funded by US taxpayers.
The almost careless insouciance shown by the US in its dealings with the Islamic world began with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the realisation of the Reagan Administration, duly supported by ‘Iron Lady” Thatcher, that this was the opportunity of a lifetime for mortally wounding the Communist entity. Technically speaking, the Carter Administration was responsible for beginning limited covert military assistance to the Mujahidin against the Soviet Union’s presence in Afghanistan and the implementation of the Reagan Doctrine saw the United States providing full-scale overt and covert aid and training to anti-communist resistance movements and guerrillas not only in Afghanistan but also in Africa, Latin America and other places in Asia to diminish Soviet influence in these regions, as part of America’s Cold War strategy.
The agenda and training given to the mujahidin was more to “kill Russians” rather than to ‘liberate’ Afghanistan. It is ironic that the licence to kill was given by the same countries which claim to be in the forefront of the fight against terror.
The current backing and funding of the Syrian Free Army is horribly evocative of the training and arming of the mujahidin for confronting the Soviet forces in Afghanistan earlier; there are already signs that the forces being unleashed from the conflict in Iraq and Syria are developing a mind of their own and going the same way as the Afghan mujahidin.
In Afghanistan, the US/UK role was to extend support and create myriad militant groups opposed to the Soviet incursion. Saudi Arabia, due to its financial clout for this effort and Pakistan, due to its geographical contiguity with Kabul, were important partners in this plot to arm, train and indoctrinate mujahidin to fight the Soviet troops in Afghanistan. American weapons largesse flowed into Pakistan for the new mujahidin and the diversion of some of such aid by President Zia and his henchmen, as also by later governments of Pakistan, to equip and train their own terror outfits for Kashmir was natural. Tacit legitimacy was accorded by US to this practice, in exchange for Pakistan’s help in training the mujahidin for Afghanistan. Any claim that the US was unaware of the diversion of such aid by Pakistan to meet its own insidious agenda on Kashmir is, at best, disingenuous and naive. Clearly, Washington did not worry too much about decided impetus being given by Pakistan to the Kashmir militants, as long its own agenda on strengthening the insurgency in Afghanistan against the Soviet Army was being fulfilled.
The Unites States has since continued on a unilateral policy of encouraging regime change in the Islamic world, especially in the Middle East, of regimes which are not amenable to the American view of the world. Like Phoenician Prince Cadmus and also Jason in search of the Golden Fleece in Greek mythology, the US has sowed the dragons’ teeth in the region with panache, taking care since the Iraq war, to function under the fig leaf of “coalition” action.
The agenda and training given to the mujahidin was more to “kill Russians” rather than to ‘liberate’ Afghanistan. It is ironic that the licence to kill was given by the same countries which claim to be in the forefront of the fight against terror. The nature of the mujahidin opposing the Russian army in Afghanistan became increasingly ferocious and feral and it was not long before the warlords were involved in fighting among themselves in an internecine war where morals and ideals soon took a backseat. These developments led to the creation of a new ogre, the Taliban.
Self-confessed “war” President George Bush merely increased the intensity of something that was begun by his predecessors. The results were indeterminate, both in Afghanistan and in Iraq.
By now, the genie was well and truly out of the bottle. Guerrilla warfare tactics taught these mujahidin to kill more effectively; knowledge of improvised explosive devices and the effective use of modern explosives was imparted to mercenaries and mujahidin who flocked to the new hotspot, led to the proliferation of this knowledge among the mujahidin ranks. It also led to the creation of a fighting force of mercenaries and mujahidin, who, once the Afghanistan war had wound down, were available as guns for hire for a variety of causes, many of which seriously challenged peace and political stability in Arab countries from where these individuals had originated.
Despite the instability resulting from the sudden availability of a large body of jihadis looking for a cause that would give them gainful employment, the US kept fishing in the troubled waters of the region. It is not coincidental that both Omar Abdul Rahman, responsible for the February 1993 attack on the World Trade Centre, as also Osama bin Laden, had initial connections in some manner or the other, to American intelligence. Self-confessed “war” President George Bush merely increased the intensity of something that was begun by his predecessors. The results were indeterminate, both in Afghanistan and in Iraq.
In the former case, the war by US coalition forces did not succeed in the primary aim of destroying the Taliban; the latter moved away from even Pakistan’s control and a new Frankenstein in the al Qaeda was also born. The US intervention in Iraq did succeed in the goal of deposing Saddam Hussein, but the much touted US search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq turned out to be a dud: no such weapons existed in the first place. Also, the prolonged US, sorry Allied, presence in Iraq only created unrest in the country and created conditions which are being exploited by entities like the IS today. A continuation of the unrest in the area is inevitable, till the struggle, throws up its own regional leader.
The agenda of regime change being followed by the US in Syria has created al Nusra: there is no assurance this group will not develop political ambitions in the time to come, which may run counter to the US plans for the region. The US-led coalition aerial bombing against the Islamic State group in Syria has already antagonised al Nusra, the Syrian franchise of al Qaeda, which has described the air strikes as a “war against Islam” and threatened to attack the worldwide interests of the participating countries. Developments seem headed to a new confrontation between the Islamists and the US and its “allies”.
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