Cuarenta años de guerra en Afganistán. Una crónica anunciada

by Tariq Ali

En septiembre de 2021 Estados Unidos anunció que se retiraría de Afganistán. No cumplió ninguno de sus objetivos “liberacionistas”: libertad y democracia, igualdad de derechos para las mujeres o la destrucción de los talibanes. El establishment de seguridad estadunidense sabía que la invasión había fracasado; el enemigo no podía ser sometido por más que sus fuerzas permanecieran. Pero ¿quién era el enemigo?, ¿los talibanes, Pakistán, el pueblo afgano? En esta obra Tariq Ali ofrece su visión de la guerra y el intervencionismo en Afganistán y desentraña desde las incursiones soviéticas, la llegada de los talibanes y las diversas misiones fallidas, hasta el papel desempeñado por Pakistán, las promesas de paz de Obama y el vigésimo aniversario del 9/11.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Politics, War, Military History, The United States Of America, Essays

279 pages, Paperback

First published November 30, 2021

About the author

Tariq Ali (Punjabi, Urdu: طارق علی) is a British-Pakistani historian, novelist, filmmaker, political campaigner, and commentator. He is a member of the editorial committee of the New Left Review and Sin Permiso, and regularly contributes to The Guardian, CounterPunch, and the London Review of Books.

He is the author of several books, including Can Pakistan Survive? The Death of a State (1991) , Pirates Of The Caribbean: Axis Of Hope (2006), Conversations with Edward Said (2005), Bush in Babylon (2003), and Clash of Fundamentalisms: Crusades, Jihads and Modernity (2002), A Banker for All Seasons (2007) and the recently published The Duel (2008).

Reviews

[Stitching Ghost · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book appears to be largely a collection of articles written at the time where the events were happening and it's not quite what I was hoping for when I picked it up. There are some deeper cuts that were interesting, and Ali's style is generally accessible and easy to read. There was a part where he went on about his coining and defense of the term "islamo-anarchists" in regard to Islamist terrorists which I can sort of see where he's coming from with but still think it's actually a counterproductive term.

Long story short, it's a decent intro to the topic if you don't mind reading a series of texts in present tense about events happening over decades and don't have anarchist sympathies.

[Iman · Rating 4 out of 5]

It seems like this book is based on previously written material rather then anything new the author has written. However as the title says that this was a predictable outcome I suppose that makes sense. Nonetheless I really enjoy Ali's writing style. His wit is very sharp and although he is a self professed Marxist , his criticism of the Soviet Union is just as scathing as that of the United States. In addition, it's really quite interesting reading about the situation in real time as it's happening. As Ali is also Pakistani , his idea of Pakistan's role in the rise of the Taliban is also very interesting. One critique, the way the entries are organized is quite confusing. It doesn't follow a date format because those are all mixed up leaving you confused because Ali is writing about 9/11 and you think you're still in 1986. If a clearer organization system was created that would have been preferable. That does not take away from the content of the book.

[Eleanor B · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ali is incredibly clever. His sharp tone make the assertions in this book are impossible to disagree with and a pleasure to read. On their own merits, individual essays offer a brilliant, fresh, and necessary perspective. As an anthology however, it makes for an unbearably boring book as there are only so many ways to say the same thing.

[John Mihelic · Rating 4 out of 5]

It really felt like Verso and Ali threw this together after the trouble with the withdraw of America forces last summer to benefit from Afghanistan being in the news. The essays here do cover the 40 years from the time around the Soviet invasion in the late 70s to the current day. They are more weighted in time from the time of the American occupation – my guess is recency made rights easier to get.

That said, I am glad I read the essays / reporting because it helped give me more context to the history of the region, from the monarchy to the Soviet invasion to the rise of the Taliban to the US invasion. It it just hard for me to imagine that someone my age would have lived their whole lives under different governments and the threat of violence, but Ali draws out that historical context here. It does make me worried about what’s next for the people of Afghanistan as they try to build their country again under a Taliban government shakily accepted as part of the international community. Accepted, that is, until the next time a stronger force finds them blocking the crossroads of their perceived needs.

[Ian Grace · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book reads like one big flex. Its thesis is that Ali was right about Afghanistan, and, yeah, he was right. I did learn some new things, and the historical background was helpful, but most of all I respect the flexing.

[kereru · Rating 4 out of 5]

really great account! the passage in one of the early chapters of a 1998 interview w brzezinski where he proudly admits the us actively provoked the soviet invasion in afghanistan & were behind the taliban from the beginning was really scary. death to the usa!

[Christoph H · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Forty-Year War in Afghanistan: A Chronicle Foretold is a collection of occasional prose by Tariq Ali about the Soviet-Afghan War of 1979-1989, the War in Afghanistan of 2001-2021, and the period of civil war in between. Most of the essays are opinion pieces (many of them originally published in the Guardian) or book reviews (mostly from the London Review of Books).

The book is divided into four sections. The first is about the period before 2000 (focusing on the rise of the Taliban), the second the period between 2001 and the end of the George W. Bush presidency, the third Barak Obama’s first term, and the last the final nine years of US military involvement in Afghanistan. There is an appendix which includes essays on the Soviet-Afghan War and is effectively a fifth section except that it is out of chronological order. Verso must have assumed that readers buying the book in 2021 wanted to get straight to the Taliban, Al-Qaeda and the US and not be distracted by a bunch of Russians.

Pieces are grouped by theme and not strictly in publication order. Ali contributes a preface and introduction, and the last piece before the appendix is a longer essay titled “Twenty Years after 9/11” which originally appeared in Nation shortly before the book was published, so it works well enough as a summary of the case.

The legal analogy is appropriate because Ali has a point to make and he is confident about it. If the subtitle wasn’t a sufficient hint, the preface ends with a lament: “It’s sad it took history forty years to confirm my thesis.”

So what is Ali’s thesis? Stated simply, that foreign intervention in Afghanistan is a bad idea and that the US and Britain made a mess of it like the Soviets before them. From a post-2021 vantage point it is hard to argue with that, and Ali deserves credit for seeing the complexity and difficulty of the war from its outset. His writing about the Taliban and its fraught links to Al-Qaeda and Pakistan is insightful and his early view of the Taliban’s relationship with Afghan society holds up well in the light of recent analysis (such as Carter Malkasian’s excellent history of the conflict).

Ali is also a skilled practitioner of the intelligent polemic, which is indispensable in the writing of a good opinion piece. One particularly pointed article on the departure of Tony Blair opens with a flourish:

The departure, too, was spun in classic New Labour, Dear Leader fashion. A carefully selected audience, a self-serving speech, the quivering lip and soon the dramaturgy was over. He had arrived at No. 10 with a carefully orchestrated display of union flags. Patriotic fervour was also on show yesterday, with references to ‘this blessed country…the greatest country in the world’ – no mention of the McDonald’s, Starbucks, Benetton that adorn every high street – nor of how Britain under his watch came to be seen in the rest of the world: a favourite attack dog in the imperial kennel.

This makes for entertaining reading, but it’s no more a natural register for carefully reasoned analysis than opinion pieces and book reviews are natural homes for it. Yet the subject demands it. This is clearest when Ali turns his attention to Pakistan in the third section of the book. Ali is evidently very knowledgeable about Pakistani politics but the attempt to compress its dizzying complexity into short essays produces cryptic pieces filled with bewildering lists of names and acronyms.

Grouping essays by theme also leads to repetition in more than ideas. Frequently, a specific sentence or phrase will reappear in multiple pieces creating an unpleasant sense of déjà vu.

The long essays are more satisfying because they give Ali space to develop an argument, but they are few in number. They also tend to incorporate, frequently verbatim, the best parts of the shorter pieces. The result is a mismatch between form and content and a book that is very good in parts but unsatisfying overall.

[Peter Corrigan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well he gets the 'I told you so Prize' and is happy to take a slew of victory laps to advertise his prescience in this collection of essays on the happenings over there since really about 1979. The essays are reprinted (it would have been nice to know where they first appeared!) over the 1979-2021 period right up until the still unbelievable Biden fiasco withdrawl in August 2021. The essays are mostly informative and full of both insight and anger which is not necessarily misplaced but gets a bit repetitive and is almost always one-sided (i.e. the West is Bad, the Muslim World is a Victim, blah, blah and oh yeah those Afghan Women are the unfortunate losers). Some of the more interesting portions deal with the Soviet decision to invade in December, 1979 and just how quickly that occurred after previous reluctance. Interestingly, he is actually more complimentary of the Soviet occupation than the U.S.

Ali is a British-Pakistani so there is a whole lot about Pakistan and it's byzantine internal and external politics. In fact much more about them then the Afghans themselves, about whom you hear very little, which is actually a real weakness. The collection is also quite uneven temporally, with long stretches of time ignored. There is next to nothing on the Doha talks or the run up to and details of the 2021 debacle which was also disappointing. As an overall history of the war it is not worthless but not really to be recommended. Its strength is the sense of currency in the essays and numerous predictions which alas, were not heeded. In fairness, the title is accurate about the Foretold part. He did say that occupation was always going to be a failure from just after 9/11 and for the next 20 years.

Lastly, the book feels like it was rushed out in the wake of the Afghan withdrawl in order to 'capitalize' on the fading shreds of Western interest in the benighted Afghan state. Which is actually an amusing irony as Ali is described everywhere as a 'Marxist'. Hopefully, the place will be ignored for the rest of time by the West, because as Ali points out repeatedly, ad nauseum, 'they don't want us there'. Quite frankly he is right about that and the feeling is (or ought to be) mutual. 2.5 stars rounded up.

[Mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

A compilation of Ali’s essays on the topic, stretching back to the Soviet invasion, put together in the aftermath of US defeat and evacuation from Afghanistan. It provides a solid outline of Afghanistan’s plight. Don’t expect super detailed accounts as each essay/chapter is about 10 pages or so and provides more an important summary of a given timeframe or topic than an in depth analysis, which is understandable.

Does a great job debunking the imperialist lies about the conflict, demonstrating just how much devastation Washington and NATO’s “good war” brought to the people of Afghanistan. From the empowerment of the Taliban both during the 80s and after (notably 1996), the fostering of the heroin industry, and the utter failure of so-called nation building are well exposed.

Ali is at his strongest when discussing Pakistani-Afghan, and therefore Pakistani-American, relations.

In sum it’s a good introduction to the topic that can certainly help one navigate where to dig deeper.

[alisha · Rating 4 out of 5]

tariq ali is incredibly smart and unapologetic on the topic of military imperialism, and this collection of essays and op-eds proves just that. some may find his enthusiastic “i told you so” tone grating, but i really admired it. he reported on these wars for forty years, in which he fervently predicted how the soviet and us interventions would result in political disaster and further instability and suffering in afghanistan and neighbouring pakistan. whilst his writing is easily accessible, i wouldn’t necessarily recommend it to those looking for an introduction to this period of conflict and empire, as it doesn’t claim to provide a rigorous history, nor can it do so within 200 or so pages.

[Richard · Rating 2 out of 5]

Valuable as far as it goes, but this is a collection of Ali's articles about Afghanistan and related matters going back to the 1980s. It's helpful to have snapshots from the last few decades, but inevitably the book feels less useful than a completely new work might have been. The introduction and the final piece do bring his account up to date. But in the end, I found an interview he gave on an episode of the Jacobin-related podcast, The Dig with Daniel Denvir, on October 12, 2021 to be much more insightful and revealing than this book ultimately turned out to be.

[Mark Pedlar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tariq Ali is a great writer. He foresaw all this and is never given credit for it, as he's a Marxist. Similarly, the Stop the War campaign in the UK is linked with the Left and is therefore never given credit. The same media and mainstream politicians who led the campaign for doomed interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq are now drumming up support for our military involvement in Ukraine. Should we laugh or cry?

[Kosta Dalageorgas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Along with Ahmed Rashid’s work on Afghanistan and Pakistan, Tariq Ali’s work is a must-read on this underreported and neglected part of the world. In many ways, Ali’s collection of essays and short pieces serves as a cautionary tale of what not to do as a foreign power in an area you have no idea about. As he writes, the US is part of a long line of Western powers (Britain and the Soviet Union) to get entangled and ultimately withdraw from Afghanistan. What was it all for?

[nutwoman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Was a great read and very interesting. Ali is clearly a talented journalist and writer and his arguments are very convincing. 4 stars because I think the anthology format was slightly confusing for me given that they’re put together chronologically but obviously weren’t at the time designed to fit into a larger book. I hope Ali writes more on Afghanistan

[isa · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75, interesting and informative read, a bit repetitive at times

[Jared Palencia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very repetitive, anti-Soviet bashing left-wing analysis

[Tom Lewandowski · Rating 4 out of 5]

he was right

[Regina Ferrer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Me sorprendio la actuaciòn de las grandes potencias como EUA o el Reino Unido en este conflicto, ya que solo veian por sus intereses sin preocuparse por la situación del pais.

[Bill Perrin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not too bad. Perhaps a new edition is needed which could include the “ latest history”.

[Ivan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un libro muy interesante si quieres recordar la historia de varios conflictos que obviamente tienen que ver con Afganistan. Es un repaso de nombres que había olvidado, de politicos muchos retirados o muertos que tomaron decisiones que aun ahora tienen efecto en Afganistan y Pakistan. El libro son una seri de notas periodísticas del autor que va desde principios de los ochentas y casi llega a la retirada de USA de Afganistan.

[Blanca bernal · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great historical description from the main human connections that make the trouble born.
Its analysis is practical and not dual, justify morality in different point of view.
This book is the best for understand the present war in middle-east.
Amazing investigation and summary.

[Ewan Anderson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent bit of background concerning the forty-year war in Afghanistan.

[Joe Whitcomb · Rating 3 out of 5]

unfocused and repetitive; you can get away with a lot of things when you're consistent and correct.

[Gino · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excelente libro que nos habla sobre el desastre que ha sido Afganistán durante los últimos 40 años producto de invasiones de las grandes super potencias.