Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan has criticized the United States for its 20-year war in Afghanistan, claiming that Washington had no clear goals in the war-torn country.
In an interview with Dr. Eric Li, Director of the Advisory Committee of the China Institute of Fudan University, PM Imran stated that the U.S. mission in Afghanistan should have ended once former Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden was killed. “So, what they were doing after that, none of the Americans knew.”
Anyone who understood the history of Afghanistan would never have done what the Americans did,” he added.
Khan said that he was opposed to a military solution to Afghanistan from the start.
“They (Americans) were never clear on what they were trying to achieve in Afghanistan. Was it nation-building, democracy, or the emancipation of Afghan women? They had no clear aims,” Imran Khan added.
When a mission’s aim is unclear, it eventually leads to “failure,” as in the case of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan for the “war on terror,” he noted.
The prime minister stated that the world does not desire another cold war while discussing China-U.S. ties. He believes Pakistan might play the role it did in bringing China and the U.S. together in 1970.
