Nicholas Burns, former US ambassador to NATO, said Washington’s 20-year presence in Afghanistan gradually obscured the original purpose of the US mission. He added that at the outset of the intervention in Afghanistan, US officials did not expect the deployment to last for two decades.<\/p>\n
In an interview with CNN, Burns said: “We stayed too long and in a way lost our understanding of the clear purpose of our mission.” According to him, a number of US allies also took on very dangerous roles in the mission and suffered heavy casualties.<\/p>\n
He said the most important lesson for the US from the Sept. 11 attacks was the need for the country to rely on its friends and allies. Burns said that after the attacks, Washington received broad support from its partners, and that solidarity was “inspiring” for the US at the time.<\/p>\n
According to him, when only 12 days had passed since he began his job as US ambassador to NATO, he was unable to contact the White House, the State Department or the Pentagon after the Sept. 11 attacks, but the ambassadors of Canada, Denmark, Norway and Iceland called him and expressed their support. He added that these countries said they stood with the US and would accompany it in Afghanistan if needed.<\/p>\n
Burns also said Washington’s allies were prepared to activate Article 5 of the NATO treaty, and by the next day all members of the alliance had agreed. Under this article, an attack on one NATO member is considered an attack on all members.<\/p>\n
He said that on Sept. 12, 2001, in a conversation with then US national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, he had stressed that Washington needed its friends. According to Burns, Rice replied: “It’s good to have friends in the world.”<\/p>\n
In another part of the interview, the former US ambassador to NATO expressed regret for supporting the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. He said the US decision to enter Iraq was a mistake, and that the country became trapped in the “Iraqi quagmire,” with an 11-year presence and the deaths of many people also resulting from that decision.<\/p>\n
Burns added that one of the most difficult questions in world politics is determining the right time to intervene militarily or refrain from doing so. In this context, he referred to comments by former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who said her greatest regret was the US failure to intervene in the 1994 Rwandan genocide.<\/p>\n
Afghanistan became the main focus of military operations by the US and its allies after the Sept. 11 attacks, and NATO also maintained a substantial presence in the country in the years that followed. The alliance’s Article 5, which Burns referred to, is one of NATO’s most important principles, and its activation after Sept. 11 was one of the rarest events in the alliance’s history.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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