Afghanistan & Empires

US Military Leaving

IN THE NEWS:

Our military is withdrawing from Afghanistan. As a result, Afghanistan is now constantly on the news — and rightfully so.

But is leaving Afghanistan the right decision? Although most Americans are divided on this one particular question, we can all agree that so many other important questions remain. For example, will the U.S. continue to support Afghan troops? Will Kabul fall the way Saigon fell (listen to a previous podcast about this)? And if so, what will happen to Afghan women then?

President Biden is emphatic that “we did not go to Afghanistan to nation-build”. And last week the President relied on history to support his decision, stating “No nation has ever unified Afghanistan, no nation. Empires have gone there and not done it.”

President Biden was a history major in college, so he probably knows a thing or two about history. But to better understand the history of Afghanistan, we spoke with Mr. Shah Mahmoud Hanifi, a professor of Central and South Asia and Middle Eastern studies at James Madison University.

Professor Hanifi has many publications regarding the history of Afghanistan since the 16th century, including his book Connecting Histories in Afghanistan. You can read about Professor Hanifi here, which includes links to his many publications. Also, click this link to listen to this podcast episode, which is also available on Apple or Spotify, and on ThePeel.news homepage.

IN THE PAST:

Although Afghan is a Persian term, Afghanistan is a multiethnic, multireligious and multilingual country — undoubtedly due to the fact that Afghanistan was historically wedged between Persian, Chinese and Indian empires and civilizations, with their manifold religions: Zoroastrianism, Nestorian Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, paganism (which lasted well into the 1800s in Kafiristan) and later different sects of Islam, including Sufism. Its historical imprint in Central Asia is much larger than its modern borders suggest, borders that were drawn during the “Great Game” to separate the Russian and British empires. And unlike India and Algeria and a host of other countries, Afghanistan was never fully colonized, which, in turn, impacted its technological…