Volodymyr Zelensky is these days being feted in a number of Western capitals. Since the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 by Russia, an unwise move by Vladimir Putin, the Ukrainian leader has been lionized by the United States and indeed the entire West. His military has been provided with some of the latest in hardware necessary to fight a war. And everywhere he has gone -- to the United Nations, to Brussels, to Ottawa, to London, he has been treated as a heroic figure, for all the right as well as wrong reasons.
And yet history in our times demonstrates the truth of how men like Zelensky have been portrayed as great soldiers of liberty and then abandoned when their usefulness came to an end. One here has the recent instance of Afghanistan, where in the aftermath of the Soviet invasion of December 1979 (the Soviets always seemed to be walking into countries they thought were moving in the wrong direction and needed to be put back on the right path -- Hungary and Czechoslovakia), Ronald Reagan jumped in with money and ammunition to assist the Mujahideen.
Reagan’s act ended up creating problems for Pakistan, where the dictator Ziaul Haq needed to move out of his pariah status and acquire some respectability. Reagan gave him that respectability. The two men helped in destroying Afghanistan in ways that will someday be recorded in historical details. When it came time for George W. Bush, Washington and its Western partners thought Afghanistan needed to be reinvented into a nation. Tribes do not become nations, but Bush tried nevertheless. We were witness to Hamid Karzai installed as president in Kabul. He was followed by Ashraf Ghani.
Karzai and Ghani were men who were to be abandoned by their friends after all the hype that had been built around them, testifying to their ability to hold Afghanistan together and keep it safe from the Taliban. The Taliban came back in August 2022 and Ghani fled the country. Twenty years of a Western presence went up in smoke when Joe Biden decided to go for a precipitate withdrawal from Kabul. Today the country is back in the hands of the medieval Taliban whose worldview rests on keeping women indoors and preventing them from acquiring any form of education.
In their times, both Karzai and Ghani were celebrated by the West as the harbingers of a new, modern Afghanistan. Afghan soldiers were trained at Bagram air base. Those of officer rank underwent training at military academies in the West. It all came to naught. And it did because the West was fatigued, saw the helplessness of its position and so decided to abandon Afghanistan to the wolves. Karzai and Ghani, once the embodiment of Afghan modernity, have now dwindled into being footnotes in Afghan history.
A question arises
Which raises the question: How much longer before the West realizes that it is not worth coddling Zelensky any more, for the good reason that Western military aid will not strengthen his country enough to defeat the Russians on the battlefield. The Ukrainians might win a few skirmishes, might feel happy with some drone attacks on Moscow. On the larger picture, though, Russia will always be a mighty power that will be difficult to beat. Meanwhile, the conflict will exacerbate tensions in Europe and lead to circumstances where politics in the continent will reach a state of polarisation hard to bridge.
Will the West, which once welcomed Karzai and Ghani to such significant global spots as the White House, decide to wash its hands of Zelensky as the conflict worsens, with the current stalemate in the war seemingly moving to a cul de sac? One recalls here the enthusiasm with which the West welcomed Mikhail Gorbachev’s glasnost and perestroika, convinced that he was the man who would democratise the Soviet Union. But soon the ardour cooled, especially after Gorbachev emerged weakened from an abortive coup against his government by hardline communists in August 1991. Gorbachev was ditched and the West transferred its favours to Boris Yeltsin, who went on to prove that he was inept as president of the Russian Federation.
In recent times, Washington’s obsession with Venezuela’s Juan Guaido in his attempt to dislodge President Nicolas Maduro from power is one of the more disturbing narratives relating to the Western unease with nationalist politicians taking charge of their countries. Guaido should never have been encouraged in his questionable mission of trying to seize power through showing Maduro the door. Guaido is today as good as abandoned by the West, seeing that his campaign to commandeer the state has failed to come to pass.
Unlearning from history
One is reminded of the Bay of Pigs fiasco in April 1961. The new Kennedy administration, driven by thoughts of a removal of Fidel Castro from power in Cuba through sanctioning an invasion of the island nation by Cuban exiles based in Florida, went into action. The Cuban regime, however, was prepared to meet the invaders head on. As they alighted from their boats, stepping on to the beach and walking ahead in what they thought would be a day of rejoicing for all Cubans, they were swiftly cut down by waiting Cuban forces. The air cover Kennedy had promised the exiles never materialised. Washington was soon forced to abandon the men it had encouraged in their mission of attempting the overthrow of Castro’s revolution.
Only months before an uprising in Iran forced the Shah from power, President Jimmy Carter, on a state visit to Tehran, praised the monarchy as symbolic of stability in the region. It did not register with the White House that the winds of change had begun blowing in Iran, that unless Washington decided to go into Tehran for a second time to save the Shah -- the first was in 1953 when the CIA stepped in to remove the nationalist prime minister Mohammad Mossadegh and restore the fugitive Shah to his throne -- the monarchy’s days were numbered. The Shah fled in January 1979, moved all over the world for a place of exile. Only Egyptian President Anwar Sadat welcomed him in Cairo, where he died in 1980.
The bottomline: The West, especially Washington and the European Union, which have played a leading role in helping Zelensky prosecute the war against Russia, ought now to come round to the idea that diplomacy needs to come into the picture. The ICC will do itself much good if it withdraws the warrant of arrest served on President Putin as a measure toward easing the road to peace.
The Russians have launched the war; and Ukraine, with western support, has clearly worsened the situation. The West has two options before it now. It can stop militarising Zelensky, stop characterising Putin as a dictator and explore the means toward an opening of peace negotiations between Moscow and Kyiv.
Or it can continue to celebrate Zelensky in the mistaken belief that Ukraine will prevail against Russia, that the conflict will end in a Kyiv victory. The likelihood, though, is that Zelensky’s admirers will get tired sooner or later and eventually do to the Ukrainian president what they did to Ashraf Ghani.
Europe in our times has seen small border clashes open out into intractable military conflicts. The wars in former Yugoslavia are the latest instance. The Russia-Ukraine conflict should not traverse the same path to desolation. The West needs to reach out to Moscow.
Syed Badrul Ahsan is Consultant Editor, Dhaka Tribune.
