Amir Khan Mutaqi, the chief of staff to the Taliban’s supreme leader, told the New York Times in a recent interview, “The current government stands on foreign money, foreign weapons, on foreign funding.” Mutaqi’s point: American and European assistance, let alone troops, have delegitimized the elected Afghan government. Mujib Mashal, the paper’s senior correspondent in Afghanistan who authored the article in which Mutaqi’s quote appeared, did not turn that question back on Mutaqi: After all, if foreigners delegitimize movements, doesn’t the fact that the entire Taliban leadership lives in Pakistan, that the movement receives assistance from Pakistan and Qatar, and that Pakistanis, Chechens, Uzbeks, and Arabs fight alongside the Taliban delegitimize the Taliban?
The same dynamic occurs in Iraq: Iranian-backed Shiite militias (which are distinct from the Hashd al Shaabi groups which emerged as a result of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani’s call) often take direction, if not fight alongside, Iranian nationals. The late Iranian Quds Force chief Qassem Soleimani, who under United Nations sanctions was not supposed to leave Iran, was in Iraq not only to deliver diplomatic messages but also give military direction. His presence advising the military in Iraq and Syria was no secret; he often allowed himself to be photographed. Likewise, the Iranians publicized their alleged unmanned aerial vehicle control center in Iraq’s Anbar province.
Too many Western diplomats and policymakers internalize a collective guilt rooted in Europe’s imperialist legacy. They ascribe automatic legitimacy to grievances against imperialism. Enemies recognize this and exploit it to put Westerners on the defensive.
Historically, however, no one should accept the legitimacy of such complaints. Put aside the fact that the years of European imperialism are nearly a century past. Today, the obsession with Western guilt ignores the fact that Pakistan and Iran are themselves acting like imperial, if not occupying, powers in Afghanistan and Iraq, respectively.
In the discipline of history, the study of imperialism and empire is a large field. While some countries (India, Indonesia, and Peru, for example) became subject to formal empire structures because their wealth could bring profit to the exploiting power, other countries were strategically important but too expensive to manage directly or lacked in natural resources. These became part of the informal empire. Afghanistan is the most famous example: the British sought to co-opt rulers and control the territory through them. What Pakistan is doing through the Taliban is not very different. It may be effective for a time, but it rubs Afghan nationalists the wrong way.
Many progressives likewise embrace the myth that Iran has not started a war in more than two centuries. Historically, this is nonsense. Nevertheless, even if Iran is not sending its troops formally into Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen, it is acting as an aggressor openly though informally acting through local and transplanted proxies such as the Zeynabiyun and the Liwa Fatemiyoun, two groups fighting in Syria whose members Iran respectively draws from Pakistan and Afghanistan Shiite communities.
The economic aspect of imperialism is also at play. The notion that Shiite Iraqis, for example, are Iranian sympathizers, is belied by the grievances voiced by ordinary Shiites in southern Iraq. They care little for the geopolitical tension between Washington and Tehran and seek only to be left alone. But their major complaint revolves around Iran’s dumping of cheap, low-quality manufactured goods, undercutting the local economy and their livelihood. Likewise, most Afghan Pashtun do not favor the Taliban and resent Pakistan’s high tariffs and random border closures, which undermine their ability to sell their agricultural products to the Pakistani market. Pakistan, meanwhile, uses its influence and pressure to dump cheap goods on Afghanistan.
The United States can debate exit strategies from both Iraq and Afghanistan. The U.S.-Iraq strategic dialogue will soon commence, although the Trump administration is treating it more as a cover for precipitous withdrawal than recognizing the benefits of a more established economic relationship. In Afghanistan, Trump seeks withdrawal absent any strategic logic. The president is ultimately commander-in-chief, but the failure of U.S. diplomats to push back on a narrative the delegitimizes U.S. and NATO forces has long undermined their diplomatic and strategic effectiveness. To not call out Iranian-backed militias and the foreign jihadis embraced by the Taliban as foreign fighters who should also evacuate Iraq and Afghanistan is to do a disservice to both countries’ sovereignty. It is time to call out Taliban and Iranian hypocrisy and recognize that the real foreign forces problem is not those who operate in uniform at the invitation of elected governments, but rather those sponsored by Islamabad and Tehran.
Michael Rubin (@Mrubin1971) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and a former Pentagon official.
