This piece is a corollary to my earlier published article titled “Endless-Immoral Wars,” where it was stated that, “The U.S. does not fight for the independent underdog, and it does not fight for liberty. A country or even a political party that attempts to be independent of U.S. militarism, or to truly promote private property rights in a way that costs the U.S. state some measure of power or profit, quickly finds itself a target of its wrath. Ukraine and Israel are current boutique wars of choice, connected to and very much like those the U.S. government pursued for profit and show in Iraq, Yugoslavia, Syria, Afghanistan, Libya, and elsewhere. Such boutique wars feed and satisfy the military-industrial-congressional enablers and facilitate control over domestic resources and liberty. They promote endless state borrowing. They allow the state to scratch an itch, just as a snake sheds its skin to grow.”

U.S. presidents since Roosevelt have pursued his “big stick” foreign policy agenda. In the slightly less than a hundred years from 1898 to 1994, the U.S. government successfully intervened to change governments in Latin America alone at least 41 times. Since the Second World War and especially after the fall of the Wall in 1989, the U.S. has pursued foreign policy initiatives often perceived as escalatory rather than diplomatic in potentially serious geopolitical situations. Overall, while the United States engaged in 46 military interventions from 1948–1991, from 1992–2017, that number increased fourfold to 188. In more than 80 countries worldwide, the U.S. manages over 750 military facilities. With such a spatial arrangement of military capabilities, it has, and continues to, influence major and minor conflicts – most recently in Eastern Europe and the Middle East.

Pakistan fell into SEATO and CENTO traps, which ultimately led to its deleterious participation in the so-called jihad against the former USSR (1979–1989) and then in the USA/NATO/Allies’ invasion of Afghanistan (2001–2021). In the late 1970s and 1980s, the U.S. managed billions of dollars from KSA to fund the so-termed ‘Afghan Mujahideen,’ who fought the Soviets’ 10-year invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s under the operational control of Pakistan’s prime intelligence agency, ISI. While those fighters eventually expelled Russian influence, they later fought one another for dominance. In the ensuing power struggle, a cadre of those rebels (including Osama Bin Laden) ultimately fused into the Taliban and al-Qaeda – leading to the controversial 9/11 attacks inside the U.S., which paved the way for the invasion of Afghanistan. Once again, Pakistan was coerced into playing its old role in reverse order, this time with disastrous repercussions, embroiling it in a web of internal and external threats. The 2001 U.S. invasion subsequently paved the way for incursions and the complete destruction of resource-rich and economically stable Muslim countries in the Middle East.

Since 9/11, the U.S. has expended over $8 trillion on wars with “enemies” and “friends” in the Middle East. Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Yemen define the former; Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan the latter. However, thousands of American soldiers and hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians have perished due to America’s foreign policy interventions, under the false justification of “nation-building” and bringing “democracy” to targeted countries. Sane minds among American veterans opine that, irrespective of America’s decades-long failed foreign policy initiatives in the region, there are those who remain cautious about further meddling in the Middle East.

The CIA- and MI6-engineered overthrow of the democratically elected Iranian leader Mohammed Mosaddegh, followed by repeated regime changes in Afghanistan, Central Asian Republics, and other countries of South Asia, including Pakistan, from the 1950s to the present, is well known and established. The hypocrisy surrounding the spread of democracy is a blatant bluff, as popularly elected representatives are often replaced by autocratic rulers, fake aristocrats, monarchs, and ‘democracy hustlers.’

Former American Congressman Ron Paul stated in 2008: “Terrorists don’t come here and attack us because we’re rich and we’re free. They come and attack us because we’re over there.” Nevertheless, the ‘Immoral Wars’ continue ceaselessly. Even though Western meddling in the affairs of Ukraine was a bête noire for Russia, the U.S. helped engineer a coup to overthrow the democratically elected president of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, in 2014; he had announced plans to sign an economic agreement with Russia instead of the EU.

The complete destruction of Gaza and the mass killing of innocent Palestinian Muslims, with the direct involvement of the U.S. and its allies, continues unabated, with the UN and ICC as bystanders. The world has been enduring the U.S.’s ‘hammer-versus-nail-head approach,’ with over-reliance on destabilising sanctions and military force rather than diplomacy, intelligence gathering, economic statecraft, and persuasion.

Be that as it may, weaker states find themselves suffering under such high-handedness by a superpower now beginning to be challenged by two main competitors: China and Russia, along with their alliances such as SCO, BRI, CSTO, and BRICS. Pakistan has remained a major victim of U.S. interventionism in politics, economy, and security – perhaps the worst-hit example of ‘economic hit men.’ What Pakistan is experiencing today has its roots in the short-sighted grand decisions taken in 1979 and 2001 under American duress and the carrot-and-stick policy. Once bitten, twice shy – the only way out is to acknowledge past strategic blunders and join the right blocs to achieve long-overdue political, economic, and security stability.

Saleem Qamar Butt
The writer is a retired senior army officer with experience in international relations, military diplomacy and analysis of geo-political and strategic security issues.