Un ballo in maschera – Giuseppe Verdi’s 1859 opera based on a fantasy, the murder of a reigning prince during a masked ball – bears no relation with America’s failed experiment in Afghanistan, at least on the surface
But if the main operatic characters – with faces, hidden or accidentally uncovered – make for an entertaining show, the actors of the Afghan debacle, partners, allies and undercover enemies alike are no less lethal before dropping their own masks
A dark article published by Anatol Lieven in the British Prospect magazine, on August 27, 2021, is worth recounting (though the original itself, written with bitter-sweet irony, is sadly the more enlightening read)
In the note the Best and the Brightest, we attempted to highlight how American specialists and their allies – experts in their respective fields – intelligence, military and analysts of Afghan social strictures – failed dismally in coordinating their respective conclusions and in arbitraging between competing – and incompatible – strategies
We argued that highly competent analysts did not proffer a roadmap, concluding
“What is missing – with such calamitous consequences – is the holistic view: the recognition that diverse realities are interconnected, and the insights highlighting the whole in a decision process so much better than the sum of its analytical parts"
From a systemic angle, America’s huge agencies, intelligence and defense, may have failed to seek common ground, but Mr. Lieven takes sides and fingers irresponsible policy of the highest order
….because every single one of the operational cogs of the American war machine knew better
The Pentagon could not ignore the U.S. army’s failure in securing peace in either the countryside or in the cities, nor could the Afghan army be trusted to achieve the same – they knew
Intelligence agencies could not ignore the clannish society, the raw power of their provincial strongholds and the political opportunities, left unexplored, of power sharing – and of balance between warring tribes – they knew
As for the allies in the American coalition, Mr. Lieven records bitterly that NATO members were willing associates of the war ‘for the show’, to be seen on the side of the American superpower
At the cost of their soldiers' lives, “countries involved might as well have performed national dances at US presidential inaugurations to display their allegiance and amuse their imperial protectors”
Again, everyone knew
But no, for 20 years, flawed policies taking turns, one Administration following another, the masks – and the illusion of normalcy – kept more probable motives hidden
At the root of failure, in Mr. Lieven’s reading, is crowd-pleasing political communication, "set out in president George Bush’s declaration of the global war on terror and deeply rooted in American “exceptionalist” nationalism: the framing of the struggle as one of good against evil, in which “you’re either with us or against us.”
In foreign ventures, anywhere and not only in the hard mountains of Afghanistan, this posture only has the appearance of a political guideline because it ignores the lay of the land, the complexities of its societal texture and the deep undercurrents of local history
Spreading the gospel of democracy, or protecting women’s rights, remain worthy goals and not only for political stump speeches … but, as strategy assigned to military commanders or CIA analysts, it was nothing more than a mirage
For lack of a political roadmap, U.S. agencies fell back on the well-worn playbook - the greenback riding to the rescue to buy off local powerbrokers, a familiar story, from old times in Vietnam and more recently in Irak
A glaring stop-gap, the corruption eating into Afghan society and the high life led in Dubai by America's warlord allies of the Northern Alliance left the Afghan countryside wide open to a re-energized Taliban
A sense of inevitability had been pervading the American venture early on, because everybody knew
Ultimately, the mangled dispatch of bad news, the scale of human loss and the collapse of social structures (educational, healthcare oriented or orphanages, among many others) overshadowed Allied assertions of good will and of social progress in Afghan society
Downing the masks, defeated by determined guerilla fighters, America's establishment has many questions to answer
From basics, such as delivery of fighter planes to Afghan military the U.S. did not trust (without maintaining the logistics) , to the morally dubious, such as financial support to cocaine trafficking warlords, a bipartisan commission might have a full plate of inquiries
In the mean time, let us not hold our breath - sweeping hard questions under the proverbial rug seems to be all the rage