Mother of all bombs

Under Donald Trump, the US seems to be entering into a new era in its history of militarism. On Thursday, the Trump administration created another first by dropping the most powerful non-nuclear bomb in the US arsenal – rather nauseatingly named the Mother of All Bombs (MOAB) – in the Nangarhar province of Afghanistan bordering Pakistan. The official target has been declared to be a ‘system of tunnels and caves’ used by IS terrorists. The US has declared that the attack killed at least 36 IS members. As far as official claims go, no civilian deaths were reported. Going by this latest incident, Trump seems to be interested in escalating US involvement in world conflicts – and that too by using new and potentially devastating weapons. In the aftermath of the Thursday bombing, the Afghan government will find it even more difficult to stick to claims of sovereignty post troop withdrawal by the US. And, with US Commander in Afghanistan General Nicholson having asked for a few thousand more troops, the likelihood of peace talks with Afghan Taliban succeeding is slim.

Already, the Afghan Taliban and the US are both not attending the 11-country talks on Afghan peace that started in Moscow on Friday. The talks were being seen as an attempt by Russia to play the role of a key broker, but Thursday’s bombing could be another reminder than the US remains a critical stakeholder in Afghanistan. If the Afghan government has prioritised a path of peace, then the US bombings go against that agenda since any further weakening of the Afghan government is likely to worsen the conflict in the country. The US military and administration have chosen a dangerous path. It is still easy to remember that it was US intervention that plunged Afghanistan, Iraq and the broader Middle East into unending civil wars and destruction. To many, the missile strikes in Syria and dropping the MOAB in Afghanistan are both part of the push to show Trump as a ‘tough’ American president. The reality, however, is that more bombings are just a continuation of US militarism in the world. They can hardly be expected to offer hope to a people and country ravaged by war. Instead, all the bomb confirms is that the Trump presidency is not the opening of a new chapter in American history, but rather a continuation of the same one.