Kabul is in flames, the US army is under attack and US President Joe Biden has ended up in the crosshairs of critics in his country. While the Republicans are even calling for impeachment, the historic secretary of state is assessing the situation Henry Kissinger, in an article on Corriere della Sera. It takes “careful reflection to understand why America found itself giving the order to withdraw, with a decision taken without notice or prior agreement with the allies and with the people involved in these twenty years of sacrifices. And how is it that the main issue in Afghanistan has been conceived and presented to the public as the choice between full control of Afghanistan or total withdrawal,” Kissinger writes.
“We have convinced ourselves – according to Kissinger, a former national security adviser and former US secretary of state – that the only way to prevent the return of terrorist bases in the country was to transform Afghanistan into a modern state, equipped with democratic institutions and a government established on a constitutional basis, but such an undertaking could not foresee a certain timetable, compatible with American political processes”.
“The fight against the rebels could be scaled down to containment, rather than annihilation, of the Taliban and the political-diplomatic path could have explored one of the particular aspects of the Afghan reality: that the neighboring countries, even if in open hostility among themselves and often with America, could feel deeply threatened by Afghanistan's terrorist potential. Creative diplomacy could have distilled shared measures to stamp out terrorism in Afghanistan. This alternative has never been explored,” concludes Kissinger.
