Tunisia and Afghanistan

<p>SWANA collective members Hamoud Salhi and David Lloyd&nbsp;devote our weekly half-hour to discussing the situation in Tunisia and developments in Afghanistan, where US and other foreign forces are gradually departing in time for President Biden’s deadline for a complete withdrawal by the twentieth anniversary of 9/11.&nbsp;Tunisia’s President Kais Saied announced last Sunday that he was invoking Article 80 of the country’s constitution, allowing him to dismiss Prime Minister Hichem Mechichi and suspend parliament. Although Saied’s move was initially greeted with celebration by people in the streets, given the unpopularity of Mechichi and his ruling Ennahada party, many--including a recent article in&nbsp;<a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2021/7/27/what-happened-in-tunisia-was-a-coup" target="_blank">Al Jazeera</a>&nbsp;(whose Tunis office was shut down by the police on Monday)—are calling this a coup. What’s the background to this? How does it relate to Tunisia’s major role in sparking the Arab Spring? What is the United States’ involvement in the region?</p> <p>US &nbsp;troops are in the process of withdrawing, while Taliban forces have taken large swathes of the &nbsp;country and effectively put major cities like Kandahar under siege. Is President &nbsp;Biden right that the US has achieved what it set out to do when it initially &nbsp;invaded Afghanistan? Or is this yet another catastrophically failed military intervention that will lead to the abandonment of the Afghani people and &nbsp;even scenes reminiscent of the fall of Saigon? We discuss the long-term &nbsp;involvement of the United States in Afghanistan, stretching back to &nbsp;neo-conservative efforts to further US global hegemony and oil &nbsp;interests, and the role played by US envoy Zalmay Khalilzad in the &nbsp;forward planning for the invasion of that nation.</p> <p>This &nbsp;show is co-hosted and co-produced by SWANA collective members David &nbsp;Lloyd and Hamoud Salhi, and edited by Ankine Antaram. If you miss our live broadcast