US pursuing wrong-headed policy in Afghanistan: Analyst

The United States has been pursuing a wrong-headed policy in Afghanistan and the Middle East for several years, an American political analyst and activist says.

Mark Weber, the director of the Institute for Historical Review, made the remarks in an interview with Press TV while commenting on a senior Democratic lawmaker’s proposal that about 10,000 US troops should remain deployed in Afghanistan for decades to prevent the Taliban from gaining control.

On Monday, in one of the deadliest attacks against the NATO occupation force in Afghanistan this year, a Taliban bomber targeted a military convoy near Bagram Air Base near Kabul, killing six and injuring three US troops.

“This statement by senior US lawmaker Brad Sherman shows that many prominent American politicians and officials have still not learnt the lesson of years of failed US policy of in Afghanistan and in the Middle East,” Weber said.

“Brad Sherman’s statement is reaction to the recent killing of US troops who were on patrol in Afghanistan. But those troops would still be alive today if American political leaders had not sent them there at the first place,” he added.

The US and its allies invaded Afghanistan on October 7, 2001 as part of Washington’s so-called war on terror. The offensive removed the Taliban regime from power, but after more than 14 years, the foreign troops have still not been able to establish security in the country.

Weber said, “As the record of US policy over the past fifteen years has clearly shown, American military involvement has not ended strife and conflict in the region  as American leaders pledged and promised. It has in fact made the problems of the region far worse with harmful consequences for Europe and the world.”

“Today, as in 2001, US policy in the region is reactive and not clearly thought through. The fact that high-ranking American lawmakers and officials now, fourteen years after the 2001 invasion want to send more US troops to the country, shows clearly that the premises of US policy have for years been short-sighted and wrong-headed,” he stated.

“The US has been trying to act as a kind of world policeman, the role for which it has neither the means nor the will to carry out. The only sensible policy for the US should be the one of non-intervention in the conflicts and problems of Afghanistan and in the Middle East,” the analyst noted.

In October, President Barack Obama announced plans to keep 9,800 US troops in Afghanistan through 2016 and 5,500 in 2017, reneging on his promise to end the war there and bring home most American forces from the Asian country before he leaves office.

According to US officials, Washington would also maintain a large counterterrorism capability of terror drones and Special Operations forces to fight militants in Afghanistan.

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