"When the U.S. helped rebuild Germany, Japan, and South Korea after war, the outcomes were largely successful.
These countries became stable, developed allies. Even Vietnam, decades after war, rebuilt its economy and normalized relations with the U.S.
In contrast, after two decades of intervention and nation-building, Iraq and Afghanistan remain unstable, fractured, and regressive.
The reason is not simply corruption, tribalism, or economic failure. The deeper problem is that Islam as an ideology dominated national life and resisted every foundational element of modern statehood.
In Germany and Japan, citizens accepted defeat, recognized the need for reform, and prioritized rebuilding.
The Marshall Plan, U.S. military support, and institution-building efforts worked because the people and leadership embraced a vision of progress, nationhood, and future prosperity.
In South Korea, despite dictatorship and poverty in the 1950s, leaders made deliberate choices to industrialize, educate, and modernize. The U.S. provided military and economic support, but the Koreans supplied the will to change.
Even Vietnam, a communist state, saw the benefit of global trade and growth. It adopted economic reforms, and by the 1990s had built a functioning state and stable national identity.
All of these societies had one thing in common: they prioritized the future, national development, and modern institutions over revenge, ideology, or religious supremacy.
The U.S. spent $2 trillion in Afghanistan over two decades, training 300,000 Afghan troops, building infrastructure, and supporting elections.
In Iraq, the U.S. toppled Saddam Hussein and supported the formation of a democratic state.
But both countries collapsed into internal chaos.
Why? Because in both societies, Islam was not just a religion, it was the dominant political and social framework. It was not compatible with the values required to build a modern nation-state.
In Afghanistan, even U.S.-trained soldiers and civil leaders often maintained loyalty not to the state, but to religious leaders, tribal elders, or Islamic ideology.
The idea of a secular republic conflicted with Islamic traditions that reject democracy, women’s rights, and non-religious law.
The Taliban didn’t just win militarily, they never lost ideologically. Their belief in jihad, sharia, and martyrdom remained culturally stronger than any Western-backed vision of progress.
The fall of Kabul in 2021 wasn’t just a military collapse. It was the final proof that Islamic ideology never accepted the legitimacy of the Afghan Republic.
In Iraq, the story was the same. After 2003, the country splintered into Sunni and Shia factions. Militias backed by Iran rose in power, and sectarian violence exploded.
The new Iraqi constitution, while claiming to be democratic, still placed Islam as the foundation of the state. This meant freedom of speech, religion, and secular governance were permanently undermined.
Many Sunni insurgents and Shia militias saw themselves not as Iraqi citizens but as defenders of Islam, not builders of Iraq.
Groups like Al-Qaeda in Iraq and later ISIS emerged from this vacuum, not just as terrorist organizations, but as religious movements with Islamic justification for violence and control.
Islam, as practiced politically in Iraq and Afghanistan, does not separate religion from state. It does not prioritize individual rights, democracy, or secular law. It prioritizes:
Ummah over nation, sharia over constitution, martyrdom over development, afterlife reward over worldly responsibility.
This ideological structure is fundamentally incompatible with nation-building in the Western sense.
No matter how much money or support the U.S. offered, it could not override the religious worldview that rejected pluralism, secularism, and liberal institutions."
