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America's deep entanglement in the Middle East has left a legacy of war, instability, and broken promises. With Afghanistan and Iraq behind, growing tensions with Iran raise the question — is Tehran the next target in Washington's playbook?
The middle-east has been embroiled in a cauldron of it's own for decades. The intervention of big nations, super power's in the region has shaped regional dynamics fraught with regime changes, proxy wars, puppet wars, terrorism and sectarian warfare.
The United States of America has been involved in the dynamics of the middle-east for a very long time and it has tried to control the region most famous for it's rich oil and natural gas resources.
From Afghanistan to Iraq, the US has spent trillions, lost thousands of American lives, made huge political blunders and rather than ushering in stability and it has thrown the region in more chaos than before, left a trail of instability, radicalization.
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Afghanistan
As many likes to believe, America's involvement in Afghanistan did not begin in 2001 but in the early 1980s during the cold war. After the soviet invasion of Russia, America saw a chance to check-mate it's rival by supporting the Mujahideen. Who can forget CIA's most expensive covert operation, 'Operation Cyclone' initiated by the Democrat President Jimmy Carter? The policy was continued even by his Republican successor Ronald Reagan.
America covertly supported the Islamist resistance group against the Soviet invasion. America formed a loose coalition with Pakistan's ISI and with support from Saudi Arabia, they prolonged the resistance. This prolonged resistance bled Soviet forces and is often acknowledged as the event which hastened USSR's eventual fall.
After the Soviets withdrawal, Afghanistan descended into a chaos from which emerged the Taliban which is known to have given safe haven to Al-Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden. This allowed the Al Qaeda to plan global attacks including the most famous 9/11 attacks on US soil.
The fall of 2001 saw America invading Afghanistan and toppling the Taliban government in order to dismantle the Al-Qaeda nexus and hunt down Osama Bin Laden. However, what followed was a complex effort of nation-building and counter-insurgency in a war torn country. The US government tried hard to bring democracy in a land dominated by fierce tribal warlords. It drained American resources. Even through it managed to establish a puppet government in Afghanistan, the mission became unsustainable due to corruption within the Afghan government. The Taliban regrouped in neighbouring Pakistan and plagued the country by a long insurgency. The state of Afghan remained fragile despite heavy investments- the American promise of democracy remained a mirage.
Over the next two decades, after having spent almost $ 2 trillion, America sought an exit. It was during the end of Donald Trump's first term that the Doha Agreement played out and the terms of US withdrawal was laid out.
President Joe Biden continued on this plan, but the American withdrawal in August of 2021 could not be anymore disgraceful. The scenes at Kabul airport will forever remained etched in public memory and will speak of America's failed efforts.
Iraq
Another pawn in the chess-board was Iraq. The Bush administration made a full-scale invasion of Iraq on the ground that it possessed weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) which posed threat to global peace. The claim was found to be untrue, something of which the now president, Donald Trump too has spoken off time and again. The stated objective of Iraq's invasion was clear: disarm Saddam Hussain, eliminate terrorism and liberate the Iraqi people. The unfounded war was deeply flawed as it was based on questionable intelligence and ideological ambition. Saddam Hussain's alleged links with Al-Qaeda networks were also found to be grossly exaggerated.
Despite UN skepticism, US proceeded with the 'Operation Iraqi Freedom'. The naming could not be more delusional. By the time the US troops officially left Iraq, Iraq was a deeply fracture state having endured years of war, counter-insurgency. The power vacuum created by the American withdrawal, Iran backed Shiite military forces, arose the infamous ISIS. Daesh established it's caliphate in 2014 and America had to return again to defeat them with a joint global force. At it's height, Daesh controlled 56,000 square kilometres of Iraqi territory under whom almost 4.5 million citizens lived.
Today, Iraq remains riddled with corruption, sectarian politics, and foreign interference. Though elections take place, governance is weak, and militias often wield more power than elected officials. America’s war, launched on faulty premises and with no clear endgame, left a nation scarred and a region destabilized.
Is It Iran's turn now?
Iran and America has been involved in a proxy war since 1979 after the Islamic Revolution and the fall of Shah Reza Pahlavi's government. Iran has more often than not called US the 'Great Satan' and there has been contention regarding Iran's Nuclear program.
The assassination of Qasem Soleimani in Baghdad, killing of Iranian nuclear scientists are all part of the great game that Iran and USA has played over the years. USA's CIA and Israel's Mossad have over the years carried out many overt and covert killings of Iranian top military men and scientists.
The Breakthrough Deal
Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action which is also known as the Iran Nuclear deal was sighed hailed as a breakthrough deal by foreign policy experts. The deal was signed between P5+1 (USA, UK, France, China, Russia) +Germany along with the European Union. The deal agreed to limit the Iranian Nuclear Program in return for lifting sanctions.
The deal bought time, if not anything else. Time was essential as it could have been used to demand concessions from Iran. But the unilateral pull out of USA from the deal by Donald Trump did little and Iran started breaching terms of JCPOA as the heavy sanction again started to cripple Iranian economy.
The latest problem comes as Israel struck many of Iran's nuclear facilities.
The IAEA director general reported that they 'Did not have any proof of effort to move into a nuclear weapon'. They informed this to various media outlets.
Will America Join Israel in it's war against Iran? - It is a question of most importance in world politics today.
'I may do it, I may not do it. I mean, nobody knows what I'm going to do..', said President Donald Trump to reporters stationed outside the White House. Though Trump has been vocal about not joining other's wars, it is left to be seen whether he keeps on to his electoral promise of not joining another war, or we are in for another American Faux Pas in the middle-east.
