There is no “people of Afghanistan” to rise up to fight for their country. Reading the actual history is quite informative. There’s a region that’s been demarcated by outside powers as Afghanistan in order to fit into the Westphalian nation-state system, but which has only ever been unified for a few decades here and there in its history, and only by force. The people who live there are a collection of ethnic groups, Pashtuns, Tajiks, Uzbeks, Hazaras, and others. From their point of view, the British Empire came along and drew lines around where they lived and called it a nation. That doesn’t create a national identity in them, though, and another empire coming along and murdering them with drones doesn’t do it, either. It takes a special kind of imperialist stupidity (Bush-like, one might say) to think that it would.
Similar story in Iraq. The British Empire drew some arbitrary lines on the map to divide up the area of the fallen Ottoman Empire, and mashed together disparate, rivalrous groups. It’s stunning that Iraq is as functional a nation today as it is. (Although in a quick perusal of the news, I see articles about Iraqi nationalism fading.)
In short, from their point of view, the United States now is the problem, and the instigator of much of the violence, so why would they fight for a nation-building project that the US tried to impose at gunpoint?
The British Empire drew some arbitrary lines on the map to divide up the area of the fallen Ottoman Empire, and mashed together disparate, rivalrous groups.
I agree with you, but to be fair Iraq as a concept is really old, so it’s not like demarcating the area we call Iraq as one administrative unit is a new idea. BTW the Iraqi state is only as functional as it is because opposition to it coalesced around ISIS and politically and military burned out/was crushed, allowing it to maintain a measure of monopoly on violence. It’s still very dysfunctional in a day to day level, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_in_Iraq.
so why would they fight for a nation-building project that the US tried to impose at gunpoint?
That too, but also intentional and unintentional Western sabotage of these nation-building projects to make the results more pliable to Western interests results in shitshows like the US-backed Afghan government that folded within months of US withdrawal. It’s not like the US couldn’t undertake a successful nation-building project if it really wanted to; it just doesn’t.
There is no “people of Afghanistan” to rise up to fight for their country. Reading the actual history is quite informative. There’s a region that’s been demarcated by outside powers as Afghanistan in order to fit into the Westphalian nation-state system, but which has only ever been unified for a few decades here and there in its history, and only by force. The people who live there are a collection of ethnic groups, Pashtuns, Tajiks, Uzbeks, Hazaras, and others. From their point of view, the British Empire came along and drew lines around where they lived and called it a nation. That doesn’t create a national identity in them, though, and another empire coming along and murdering them with drones doesn’t do it, either. It takes a special kind of imperialist stupidity (Bush-like, one might say) to think that it would.
Similar story in Iraq. The British Empire drew some arbitrary lines on the map to divide up the area of the fallen Ottoman Empire, and mashed together disparate, rivalrous groups. It’s stunning that Iraq is as functional a nation today as it is. (Although in a quick perusal of the news, I see articles about Iraqi nationalism fading.)
In short, from their point of view, the United States now is the problem, and the instigator of much of the violence, so why would they fight for a nation-building project that the US tried to impose at gunpoint?
I agree with you, but to be fair Iraq as a concept is really old, so it’s not like demarcating the area we call Iraq as one administrative unit is a new idea. BTW the Iraqi state is only as functional as it is because opposition to it coalesced around ISIS and politically and military burned out/was crushed, allowing it to maintain a measure of monopoly on violence. It’s still very dysfunctional in a day to day level, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_in_Iraq.
That too, but also intentional and unintentional Western sabotage of these nation-building projects to make the results more pliable to Western interests results in shitshows like the US-backed Afghan government that folded within months of US withdrawal. It’s not like the US couldn’t undertake a successful nation-building project if it really wanted to; it just doesn’t.