The ignorance of political Islam continues to doom Western policy in Afghanistan

The catastrophically abrupt collapse of the Western-backed government in Kabul confirmed a complete lack of Western understanding of the dynamics of how to create political legitimacy in a traditional Muslim state.

The last Canadians involved in the NATO training mission in Afghanistan are pictured boarding a helicopter in Kabul in March 2014. The military campaign and provision of services in Afghanistan, however effectively executed, should have been accompanied by a third campaign of ideas. NATO’s failure to address the issue of political Islam doomed its efforts to failure, and continues to haunt Western policy, writes Julian Spencer-Churchill.Photograph courtesy of Canadian Armed Forces/Cpcl Patrick Blanchard

Opinion

BY JULIAN SPENCER-CHURCHILL

October 21, 2021

The current controversy over whether to recognize and constructively engage the odious Taliban regime, or to isolate it, continues to be guided by a general ignorance by secular Western elites of the important role of religious legitimacy in political Islam. Secular and progressive policymakers fai...

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