Failure of another strategy and another General

The American occupation of Afghanistan is about to complete its 17^th year. Over this period, America has had three different governments and three different presidents with each announcing and adopting different strategies for success.

Alongside experimenting with different strategies, Bush, Obama and Trump have also rotated various Generals to implement and win the longest war in American history.

But despite seventeen years of war, Reuters news agency published a report stating that the latest military strategy of the White House announced in August of 2017 and dubbed the ‘Trump Strategy’ is failing in the same fashion as the previous military strategies and there are no visible signs of progress.

Reuters report says that one of the main goals of the Trump Strategy was to weaken the Taliban, beat and push them out of territories but even passage of an entire year, the American and hireling forces have neither exerted control over any new areas nor have they been able to take an offensive posture.

Moreover the Wall Street Journal newspaper reports that the Trump administration has sidelined the main commander of American forces in Afghanistan, General John Nicholson, and replaced him with another General named Scott Miller. Nicholson has been removed from his post because of his ineffectiveness on the battlefield and failing at showing any tangible achievements.

The above reports send a clear message that yet another American military strategy in Afghanistan is a failure and the eighth US General has also been sentenced with defeat. A general rule in experimentation is that once a formula fails to give the desired result repeatedly, that particular formula is declared ineffective and must be replaced with a different formula. The American military formulas for Afghanistan have proven themselves absolutely ineffective and have failed repeatedly over the course of seventeen years but the White house officials insist on trying their luck with further military strategies and replacing their eight general with ninth instead of giving reason any thought at all.

The Islamic Emirate is of the belief that repeating military strategies will only yield repeated failures. If the Americans want to pull themselves out of this mess with some honor, they should adopt a formula different to that involving a military strategy, a peaceful strategy of dialogue. A famous Afghan saying states “No matter how big a mountain may seem, there is always a path over it”. We believe that the Afghan problem can be solved through understanding and negotiations which will ultimately result in our nation achieving peace and stability.