The US ’loss’ of Afghanistan is a repositioning and the new mission is not a ‘war on terror,’ but Russia and China.

The New Axis of Evil

Tony Blinken may blabber that we were in Afghanistan for one overriding purpose to deal with the folks who attacked us on 9/11.

Every serious analyst knows that the overriding geopolitical purpose of the bombing and occupation of Afghanistan nearly 20 years ago was to establish an essential Empire of Bases foothold in the strategic intersection of Central and South Asia, subsequently coupled with occupying Iraq in Southwest Asia.

Now the loss of Afghanistan should be interpreted as a repositioning. It fits the new geopolitical configuration, where the Pentagons top mission is not the war on terror anymore, but to simultaneously try to isolate Russia and harass China by all means on the expansion of the New Silk Roads.

Occupying smaller nations has ceased to be a priority. The Empire of Chaos can always foment chaos and supervise assorted bombing raids from its CENTCOM base in Qatar.

Iran is about to join the Shanghai Cooperation Organization as a full member another game-changer. Even before resetting the Islamic Emirate, the Taliban have carefully cultivated good relations with key Eurasia players Russia, China, Pakistan, Iran and the Central Asian stans. The stans are under full Russian protection. Beijing is already planning hefty rare earth business with the Taliban.

On the Atlanticist front, the spectacle of non-stop self-recrimination will consume the Beltway for ages. Two decades, $2 trillion, a forever war debacle of chaos, death and destruction, a still shattered Afghanistan, an exit literally in the dead of night for what? The only winners have been the Lords of the Weapons Racket.

Yet every American plotline needs a fall guy. NATO has just been cosmically humiliated in the graveyard of empires by a bunch of goat herders and not by close encounters with MrKhinzal. Whats left? Propaganda.

So meet the new fall guy: the New Axis of Evil. The axis is Taliban-Pakistan-China. The New Great Game in Eurasia has just been reloaded.

ByPEPE ESCOBARAUGUST 16, 2021. This article has been repubished from Asia Times.