We’ve learned nothing from Afghanistan and Iraq.
On Oct 7, 2001, the United States began an ill-fated campaign to ‘nation build’ Afghanistan.
Now 24 years after that anniversary and 2 years after the Oct 7 attacks by Hamas, we may be on the cusp of an even worse nation-building program in Gaza that seems to have learned absolutely nothing from the disastrous nation-building operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Right down to resurrecting former UK PM Tony Blair to head ‘nation building’ in Gaza.
Nation building in Afghanistan and Iraq failed for three reasons.
- The Bush administration believed that the problem in Afghanistan, Iraq and other Muslim countries wasn’t the people, their culture or Islamic religion, but their governments.
- Bringing ‘democracy’ and ‘free enterprise’ into murderous tribal societies was supposed to marginalize Islamic terrorists by giving the locals something better to do than kill infidels.
- Foreign aid experts and world government types would build a ‘technocratic’ government propped up by international investments to turn Afghanistan and Iraq into Switzerland.
A generation later all of this seems idiotic and insane. And we’re about to do it all over again.
The Gaza ‘peace plan’ is based on these same three fantasies that failed disastrously in Afghanistan and Iraq. None of this would work even if Hamas did not exist. Since Hamas does exist and runs Gaza, it will fail even faster than Afghanistan or Iraq did. The only question is how much it will cost us. And how badly it will destabilize the region and spread Islamic terrorism.
The Gaza peace plan is rife with bullet points about “technocratic, apolitical governance”, “Arab partners”, “panels of experts” and using “international standards to create modern and efficient governance” that could have been taken from the nation building plans for Afghanistan and Iraq, not to mention the original efforts to create a ‘Palestinian’ state or the efforts to turn Gaza into a testbed for a ‘Palestinian’ state that allowed Hamas to take over.
The Bush G8 statement on Gaza in 2004 promised to “build democratic, transparent and accountable Palestinian institutions”, using the World Bank as a “transparent mechanism for receipt of international assistance” and “fair and transparent” elections.
3 years later, Hamas was in complete control of Gaza. Why?
The Arab Muslim population occupying Gaza did not want “technocratic experts” or “peaceful coexistence”. Neither did the Afghans or Iraqis. We deluded ourselves into thinking they did.
They wanted an Islamic state and a perpetual war with the rest of the non-Muslim world. Until we recognize this, every ‘nation building’ program for the Muslim world will end the same way whether it’s Bush’s democracy, Obama’s New Middle East or new efforts to make over Gaza.
When nation building programs are announced, “international experts” and aid groups swarm to come up with exciting ideas involving solar panels and microfinance, solicit billions in aid and then vacation in the Swiss Alps while the Islamic terrorists on the ground cash the checks.
The Taliban took over Afghanistan using the money we spent sending aid, building roads and funding schools to win the ‘hearts and minds’ of the Afghans. The Houthis built their war machine in Yemen on the backs of the aid we sent to fix their fake famine. Hamas has been doing the same thing. The more money goes into Gaza, the bigger the terrorists get.
The Gaza peace plan, like all nation-building projects, pretends that some ‘international’ system will do the heavy lifting. As generations of UN peacekeeping forces should have taught us, we are the only ones who will be doing any heavy lifting, both financially and militarily, if needed. --->READ MORE HERE
If it strikes you as foolish, consider how well the serious people’s ideas have turned out in the Mideast.
Give it to him. Give him your applause. Sometimes pessimism reaches a point of moral error. Sometimes hope is the only realistic approach.
So give it to President Trump, whose White House has produced the first progress in the Mideast since the grave crisis of Oct. 7 began. He announced Wednesday with typically Trumpian words. He called it, “a big, big day, a beautiful day, potentially one of the great days ever in civilization.”
Israel and Hamas have agreed to the first phase of a peace plan to end the Gaza war. It is a 20-point plan so a lot could go wrong, but the first phase includes a cease-fire, Israeli troop withdrawal to an agreed-on line and the freeing of the remaining hostages held by Hamas. Gaza will be governed by a Palestinian committee overseen by a marvelously named “Board of Peace,” chaired, marvelously, by Donald Trump.
When word broke in Gaza on Wednesday, they danced in the streets and chanted; they were still cheering on Thursday. In Israel they went to Hostage Square and sang.
Here any reliable pundit would counsel caution—it could all fall apart, joy may be premature. All true. But I’ll take my joy premature, bartender. If it turns out progress was illusory we will at least have reacquainted ourselves with what optimism in the Mideast feels like—it feels energetic, like something that can get you through the next day.
Sometimes you have to break away from heavy, sodden reality and go straight into joyful idiocy.
I like the Barnum & Bailey aspect of the Trump administration. Other things I don’t—chaos, vengeance, lack of thought about the deeper meaning of things. But I like the circuslike color. It’s human, and government doesn’t always seem human.
I think world leaders are still so shocked by Mr. Trump as a phenomenon that they overjudge his support, and that contributes to his power with them. He walks into the room at some Group of 20 meeting and he’s so outsize, he literally fills the doorway—big suit, big man, big tie, big hair, glower; he doesn’t even try to set his face in a smile. They look at him and think: That’s 70% of the American people. He doesn’t have that kind of support and they know it, but they can’t help thinking of him that way.
Why would a sleek and prowling operator like Bibi Netanyahu accept a deal? Because Mr. Trump scares him, because Mr. Trump is as big an animal as he is. Bigger. The president is aware of and careful with but not afraid of Bibi’s most reliable supporters in the U.S. Bibi has long thought that he essentially controlled and held all the loyalty of the biggest group of pro-Israeli Americans—evangelical Christians. But Mr. Trump, unlike his modern predecessors, has hooks into them and loyalty from them more than Bibi does, and would use it against him. Bibi respects this, being an animal. --->READ MORE HERE or HERE
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