The Kabul Tribune (KT) — US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said in an interview with CBS News that Washington’s efforts to build democracy in Afghanistan were doomed from the beginning.
Hegseth criticized the US approach, saying that attempts to
reconstruct Afghanistan based on Western models were not compatible with the
country’s social realities. “In Afghanistan, Americans thought they could
rebuild a society that was in many ways very traditional.
There was an arrogant assumption that by creating military
forces and a Western-style government, it could be turned into a
democracy—something that was never likely to succeed,” he said.
The senior US security official added that the experience
showed that nation-building projects relying on military presence were bound to
fail and that the American public no longer supports such an approach.
Hegseth’s remarks come amid renewed debate over the US role
and policies in Afghanistan following the country’s long-term military
engagement.
