Sir: The humiliation of the United States in Afghanistan in its failed effort to impose western style liberal democracy on that country has shown the limitation of a military superpower.

The “ messy” American exit has also vindicated former U.S. President Donald Trump’s position that America should not be imposing its will, fighting other peoples’ wars or playing the policeman of the world.

As a structured exit plan, President Trump had facilitated the Doha Agreement with the Taliban under which U.S. troops would have been withdrawn by May 1, which would have saved America the global embarrassment of a forced evacuation as the Taliban captured Afghan capital, Kabul, on Sunday August 15.  America had gone to battle in Afghanistan initially in its war against terrorism following allegations that the Taliban government in Afghanistan then provided safe haven for the 9/11 terrorists who attacked New York and Washington, D.C. in 2001. Later, the war on terror became an ideological war to force-feed Afghanistan with American brand of liberal democracy. As the world is witnessing, that attempt failed, woefully, exposing ‘almighty’ America to global ridicule, after nearly 20 years of misadventure in the Asian country.

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This debacle of U.S. foreign policy should engender a rethink by America’s political leadership and its messianic, democracy evangelists on the futility of seeking to impose its ideology on other nations.  America’s apparent arrogance of power, that has been checkmated by a so-called Third World country, like Afghanistan, should be a lesson to countries with imperialist inclinations that the will of a determined people cannot be conquered by force of arms.

The unfolding tragic situation in Afghanistan could have been avoided if a negotiated solution had been vigorously pursued as against President Joe Biden’s vain hope that an unmotivated Afghan military, though heavily armed by the U.S., could stand up to the surging Taliban. The Afghan debacle is also a failure of the much-vaunted American intelligence agencies and those of its western allies in NATO to adequately decipher the dynamics of the Afghan situation and an under estimation of the Taliban for the long haul.

America is the world, literally, being the most cosmopolitan nation and should tightly be a beacon of hope to other countries, if its political leaders can shed their messianic bent and braggadocio about their awesome military capability but rather deploying their super power assets – military, economic, diplomatic – with fairness and respect for the sensitivities of citizens of other countries, especially in Africa, Asia and South America.

America’s “messy” exit from Kabul, as described by President Biden himself, is akin to similar chaotic evacuation of American embassy in Saigon, South Vietnam on April 30, 1975, when military forces of communist  North Vietnam overran U.S. supported South Vietnam. An estimated 58, 000 Americans were lost in that 20- year Vietnam nightmare.

The lesson from America’s misadventure in Afghanistan is that power must be exercised with great caution.

• Dr. Bisi Olawunmi, olawunmibisi@yahoo.com