Editor's note: Hamzah Rifaat Hussain is a former visiting fellow at the Stimson Center in Washington and serves as an assistant researcher at Islamabad Policy Research Institute (IPRI) in Pakistan. The article reflects the author's opinions and not necessarily the views of CGTN.

Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) John Sopko recently debunked the widely held notion promoted by the Biden administration that the Afghan government and domestic security forces are responsible for the country's security quagmires.

Marking a sharp detraction from attempts to absolve Washington from direct responsibility, Sopko placed the blame squarely on civilian and military policy makers in the United States who simply failed to understand Afghan historical realities and cultural dynamics. Given the results which unfolded in the past 20 years, this is a fair assessment. 

While U.S. military interventions have brought nothing but chaos and instability across the world, a lack of understanding of local dynamics coupled with reckless military adventurism resulted in dire consequences for Afghanistan.

Sopko spoke about how failing to understand the history of Afghans who across ethnic lines are a resolute nation was a conscious choice by American policy makers. The high value attached to traditional lifestyles grounded in Pashtunwali or the Jirga system of assembly was deliberately ignored.

Furthermore, the anarchy which haunted the country for over a decade was the result of imposing Western tailored solutions for a country unfamiliar with such arrangements both at the official and societal levels. The decisions to export American values without any due cognizance of local dynamics which Washington continues to pursue in different parts of the world today brought hostility, suspicions and resistance.

For Afghanistan, it brought a 20-year irreversible toll and a breakdown in social order.

The rule is simple. Let the Afghans decide for themselves by respecting local customs and dynamics. Local nuances are critical for policy makers without which the sustainability of short-sighted policies would remain questionable on the ground.

The concept of Pashtunwali in Afghan culture, which policy makers chose to ignore, for example, encompasses subjects such as independent thought processes, safeguarding honor, self-respect and promoting tolerance. Even decisions to prop up one ethnicity at the expense of the other potentially ignores the sensitivities of non-Pashtuns such as Uzbeks, Tajiks and Hazaras who are all part of the Afghan social milieu.

None of this was considered where the deliberate detachment from tribal customs and acknowledging the history of the country resisting invasions has resulted in lingering humanitarian disasters for 20 years which is as critical of a variable as lopsided decisions on military build ups.

Note further that SIGAR compiles research on Afghanistan which focuses on an array of subjects such as the informal economy to the grievances of populations. The fact that the inspector general himself is placing the blame squarely on policy makers demonstrates the detachment in the United States from policy-oriented research at the expense of elitist proclivities.

An example of sole prerogatives on Afghanistan ignoring historical or cultural realities is the involvement of the Central Intelligence Agency in political power change in the country and how over the course of 20 years, timelines were deliberately ignored as quick results were to be sent back to Congress for domestic U.S. consumption. Ordinary Afghans on the other hand were made to pay the price for such flawed depictions and limited understandings. 

Furthermore, the deliberate attempt to de-hyphenate U.S. blunders in Afghanistan and Vietnam as separate case studies has been debunked by Sopko where, in truth, the lessons from Saigon were never learned. According to SIGAR, no one president can be held solely responsible, yet its July 2021 report to Congress underlines how an array of officials and U.S. programs in the country should be held accountable, as per Sopko.

Note further that the entire strategy of denigrating local customs and catering to domestic politics is responsible for the many quagmires of U.S. invasions globally, to which Afghanistan is by far one of the most glaring examples.

Instead of facilitating dialogue between aggrieved parties or tailoring policies in line with local customs, Congressional whims were imposed and were met with hostility from most Afghans with the majority of them living in a perpetual state of fear. 

It is clear that by choosing to refuse the lessons of history or respecting cultural dynamics with Afghanistan, the United States cannot absolve itself from bearing sole responsibility for the 20-year war which has impacted millions of Afghan lives.

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