How the 9/11 wars changed the world

What is the issue?

The bombing by IS Khorasan Province outside Kabul airport that killed around  13 Americans at a time when the U.S. was scrambling to evacuate its citizens from Afghanistan was a tragic testimony to everything that went wrong with America’s war on terror.

What is the role of the U.S. in changing regimes around the world?

• Afghanistan - After the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, the U.S. went to Afghanistan to defeat al-Qaeda and topple the Taliban regime.
• Iraq - The invasion of Iraq based on false intelligence that President Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction created conditions inside Iraq for al-Qaeda to establish a new branch.
• Libya - In 2011, NATO launched another regime change war in Libya that led to different militias and governments fighting each other for control spreading terror to spread to other parts of Africa.
• Syria - The U.S. indirectly backed the armed rebels against the regime of President Bashar al-Assad that led to the rise of Islamic State.

What was the impact of the regime changing wars?

• Helped terrorist outfits proliferate in many countries
• Strengthened both Islamist and Islamophobic politics across the world
• Repeated attacks on Muslim-majority countries  strengthen the jihadist narrative referring  all westerners as “crusaders”
• Led to the emergence of Anti-Americanism as a dominant political theme across Muslim-majority countries
• Triggered a massive outflow of refugees from the affected countries to neighbouring nations
• Geopolitical setback to the U.S. with the rise of China when U.S. was busy with regime changing wars
• U.S. lost the war in Afghanistan and has withdrawn its troops

Does this mean that the global hegemony of the U.S. is over?

• The U.S. has suffered setbacks in the past as it had to withdraw from Vietnam in 1975, allowing the communists to win but it has bounced back.
• The U.S. which seeks to return to realism from neoconservatism, might wait for its rivals, especially China to commit blunders or it might grab other strategic opportunities.
• Afghanistan might not be the end of American power, it might be the beginning of the new U.S.-China cold war.

Source: The Hind