'Unwise and Vain': Norwegian MP Slams NATO's State-Building Attempts in Afghanistan

According to Christian Tybring-Gjedde, the Afghanistan war was fraught from the very beginning by the lack of an exit strategy, and the US and its allies have long missed their chance of going out with their heads held high.

As government forces in Afghanistan and the entire bureaucracy built up by the West during the nearly 20-year campaign collapsed in the face of the Taliban's* advance, national-conservative Progress Party heavyweight Christian Tybring-Gjedde has not been mincing words about what has happened.

While the Progress Party foreign policy spokesman believes it was right for the US-led force to enter Afghanistan in 2001, as the 11 September 2011 attack had triggered Article 5, he believes the greatest challenge was the lack of an exit strategy.

Christian Tybring-Gjedde argued that the US and NATO should have withdrawn as early as 2011, after the architect behind 9/11, Osama Bin Laden, was killed in a raid inside Pakistan. This, according to the Norwegian politician, could have allowed NATO to "leave Afghanistan with our heads held high and declare victory". Instead, the alliance just dug in its heels.

"Instead, various foreign experts and a large political majority claimed the opposite. It was argued that NATO had to build a democratic Afghanistan. Engage in society building. It was unwise and vain", Tybring-Gjedde told the news outlet Resett. "What we will experience now is that all those who have wholeheartedly supported the presence in Afghanistan after Bin Laden will claim that they have warned. Well, they haven't. Many thought we were on the right track, now they are going to say the opposite", he added.

According to the Norwegian politician, the time is ripe now for a thorough and broad debate that will include a number of questions, including the challenges and repercussions of the Taliban takeover for NATO member states, including Norway.

On Sunday, the Taliban hoisted its flag over the presidential palace in Kabul after President Ashraf Ghani fled the country.

Subsequently, footage emerged online and quickly went viral showing hundreds of people rushing to the Hamid Karzai International Airport in an attempt to flee Afghanistan, as foreign diplomatic missions launched emergency evacuations.

Joe Biden's decision about the pullout from Afghanistan has come under fire from critics, who compared the exodus to a "Saigon moment", remembering America's panic-stricken exit from Vietnam in 1975, and voicing concerns that the pullout might be the start of "Daesh 3.0*". The criticism has been exacerbated by the fact that Joe Biden is currently on vacation and is expected to address the situation in Afghanistan only within the next few days.

*The Taliban and Daesh (ISIS/ISIL/"Islamic State") are terrorist groups outlawed in Russia and many other countries.