The Best Thing the US Can Do for Afghanistan Is Stay Out of It
Despite four decades of imperial interventions, the United States was defeated in Afghanistan. Tariq Ali explains the long history of meddling in Afghanistan — and why the US's defeat will set back the broader project of American military supremacy.
Tariq Ali speaks at the 2014 Support for Gaza Demonstration. (David Hardman / Flickr)
Tariq Ali is a member of the editorial committee of New Left Review. He has written more than two dozen books on world history and politics, the most recent of which are The Clash of Fundamentalisms, The Obama Syndrome, and The Extreme Centre. He discussed his forthcoming book The Forty-Year War in Afghanistan: A Chronicle Foretold (Verso, November) with Daniel Denvir for The Dig, a podcast from Jacobin Radio. You can listen to the episode here. The transcript has been edited for length and clarity.
Daniel Denvir
You open your book: “The fall of Kabul to the Taliban on the 15th of August, 2021 is a major political and ideological defeat for the American empire.” US empire’s most committed fans seem to agree with you on that point, but they think that that’s a bad thing. What about the American defeat in Afghanistan is most harmful to American power?
Tariq Ali
It’s the fact that the United States, together with its NATO allies, occupied a relatively small country in Asia, stayed there for twenty years, and ultimately were forced to leave after a six- or seven-day offensive by the Taliban, who rode back a twenty-year occupation within the space of days.
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