Trump’s Afghan gamble!
10:47, 29/08/2017, Tuesday • Yeni Şafak English News Center
Our readers will remember that we indicated that when
Donald Trump
became the U.S president he would be in a serious conflict with the institutions of “the established order
.”We estimated that some barriers would be created to prevent him from carrying out his promises; that tension in relations with Russia and accordingly sanctions would continue, and that the U.S. elevate its presence in Syria. Trump, who had advocated that the U.S. should withdraw from Afghanistan, also backed down from this argument. Trump’s “U” turn struck a fatal blow to his relations with the radical right wing.
After becoming the U.S. President, Trump asked for a comprehensive report for a new strategy against the demands of the Secretary of Defense
General James Mattis
, the National Security Adviser General H.R. McMaster
and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Joseph Dunford
that they send reinforcements to Afghanistan. Despite all the precautionary measures of the radical right faction, led by Steve Bannon
in the White House, the generals managed to convince Trump.In his speech on the morning of Aug. 21, Trump announced that the position of the U.S. in Afghanistan would be determined depending on the conditions, and, not on the time; he also did not give a specific withdrawal date. Another attention-grabbing detail was the harsh accusations against Pakistan. Trump wanted Pakistan’s foe India to take a more serious role in Afghanistan. Explaining his “U” turn as “
The world looks very different from the seat of the U.S. President
,” Trump gave the green light and sent nearly 4,000 troops to Afghanistan.Those who criticize Trump’s “U” turn compared the U.S. to “
the Soviet Union
” that occupied Afghanistan in 1979. Moscow paid a very heavy price for delaying its withdrawal from Afghanistan. The title of conservative writer Eliane Johnson
’s article in Politico
was “How Trump swallowed a bitter Afghanistan pill.
” “Blackwater’s”
former CEO Eric Prince
, who tried to convince Trump to assign the war in Afghanistan to private security companies, took the stage as well. According to Prince, who formed an alliance with the “Nationalists
” at the White House, Trump’s Afghanistan plan was the continuation of an unsuccessful strategy that has been going on for 16 years.In an article published in Politico on August 23rd with the joint signatures of
Prof. Douglas L. Kriner
and Prof. Francis X. Shen
, there was a warning that Trump might regret his decision. Kriner and Shan conducted a research about how Trump’s position regarding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan had an impact on his victory in the 2016 elections. According to this research, Trump won more votes in areas where the families of American soldiers who died or were wounded in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars lived. The research established a meaningful correlation between the rates of those who complained about military losses and those who supported Trump. Therefore, the writers drew attention to Trump’s new strategy which they defined as the “Afghan Gamble,” saying that he may suffer in the 2020 elections. Radical-right media organ “Breitbart News
” claims that it was the National Security Adviser Megeral McMaster who directed Trump’s Afghanistan talk. To not use the phrase “Radical Islamic terrorism
” in Trump’s speech text was also McMaster’s idea. “Breitbart News
,” “Zionist Organization of America
” and Islamophobic circles blamed McMaster for prohibiting the use of the phrase “Radical Islamic Terrorism” in National Security Council units. To summarize, Afghanistan is a significant discrepancy in the war between “Globalists
” and “Nationalists
.”