Yumna Rizvi & Sarah Yager
After Hamas-led Palestinian armed groups killed 1,139 people and took more than 250 hostages on Oct. 7, 2023, Israel’s UN ambassador called the attack “our 9/11.” The comparison he made is worth paying attention to. It wasn’t just the cruelty of the events or their magnitude. Israeli authorities invoked 9/11 to legitimize the dramatic show of force they intended in response, just as the United States responded over two decades ago with an invasion of Afghanistan and “shock and awe” in Iraq.
In many ways, the U.S. response to 9/11 didn’t end until August 2021, when the final U.S. troops departed Kabul. At the time of the withdrawal, President Biden said the U.S. would “turn the page on the foreign policy that has guided our nation the last two decades.” But the reality is that the U.S. has not turned the page. The United States has not reckoned with its excesses of force and abuses, and much of the abusive counterterrorism playbook remains in use as official U.S. policy.
There is no good way for the United States to promote democracy and human rights abroad while it remains a model for a militarized counterterrorism-based foreign policy.
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