US 'in Decline' Today Due to 'Ignorance, Arrogance' - Pakistani Senator

MOSCOW, (Sputnik) - The reasons why the United States failed in Afghanistan and Iraq and is "in decline" today are its "ignorance and arrogance," the chairman of the defense committee of the Senate of Pakistan, Mushahid Hussain Sayed, told Sputnik.

"The US policy towards certain countries in Asia is sometimes based on the combination of ignorance and arrogance. Arrogance, because they are a big country, because they think of themselves as a superpower, they think they know it all. But they don't. They don't know the culture and the values of other countries. And also ignorance, because they don't understand the people of these places. This is why they failed in Afghanistan, this is why they failed in Iraq," Sayed said in an interview.

These are the same reasons why the US is "in decline" now and has been like that for some time, he added. The senator explained that he used to live in the US, received a masters degree from one of the most respected US universities in Washington — Georgetown, and worked in the US Congress as an intern. However, the country had changed a lot since then and the US he knew "was different."

"The US I knew was a very strong and inclusive society, welcoming towards foreigners. They used to be multicultural and multireligious. Now I see a lot of paranoia and a lot of xenophobia in the US. They call the Chinese threat, the Russian threat, the Islamic threat … That's nonsense. They are returning to the 50s. So for me the modern US is a very strange, exclusive and divisive America," the senator said.

In October 2001, a US-led coalition launched an invasion of Afghanistan. However, the Taliban took power in Afghanistan in August 2021, triggering the collapse of the US-backed government and accelerating Washington's troop pullout. On August 31 of the same year, US forces completed their withdrawal from the country, ending the 20-year-long military presence.

In March 2003, the US-led coalition invaded Iraq without a UN Security Council resolution. Consequently, the total of excess deaths related to the war amounted to 654,965 as of October 2006, according to The Lancet journal's survey. The US troops withdrew from Iraq in December 2011. Despite that, to date, the US and coalition forces remain a notable military presence in the country, with military bases.