Unity against terrorism

Unity in the United States and the European Union is essential. US President Joe Biden used the word unity many times in his speech before the 20th anniversary of the attacks on the Twin Towers in New York, the Pentagon in Washington and the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania. 

It may seem too obvious at this time to insist on unity in all aspects, institutions and society, but it is nonetheless essential. Especially when Donald Trump's most demagogic populism attacks with premises that he himself accepted when he began negotiations with the Taliban in Doha. Now he speaks of surrender in defeat when all US presidents since George Bush, including the one who initiated the war in Afghanistan and two years later in Iraq, were aware of the enormous and unsustainable drain that the two campaigns represented in terms of lives and money. 

It is true that control of Afghanistan went beyond eliminating Al-Qaeda terrorists and their leader Osama bin Laden. It was a crucial point in Asia between China, India, the Black and Caspian Seas, acting as a pivot between several nuclear powers and a key route for oil and gas pipelines from countries such as Iran, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan to China and India. It is also an important stepping stone for the Chinese Silk Road. In short, Afghanistan is key to the strategic interests of China, Russia, Iran and India, and now the United States and the European Union have lost control. But just as Alexander the Great lost control centuries ago, and more recently the British Empire and the Soviet Union. 

We will have to wait to see the consequences of a decision that should have been executed many years ago to prevent the West from falling apart in such a way. It is true that another challenge of the American intervention in Afghanistan and Iraq was aimed at pitting Sunnis and Shiites against each other again because the conviction in Western countries is that an understanding between all Muslims would put Christians at serious risk. 

The fact is that unity in the United States and the European Union is essential in order to face the challenges posed by China and Russia to achieve world hegemony, each in the regions and sectors that are most favourable to them, from the economy, trade, technology, cyberspace and interference, among others. The image of defeat and humiliation provoked by the chaos at Kabul airport should not serve as a political weapon among Americans, it should represent the need, now more than ever, for a good diagnosis of the situation and the adoption of the necessary policies to recover the West's pulse in the world.