">the purpose of US intervention in the middle east is almost purely for reasons of power and resources"
"if this were the case, then the USA would have actually benefited from these wars."
I don't see where that conclusions comes from unless you fall for the same mistake you mention - adress too much competence. Also the US ruling class can loose a gamble.
I don't think you can correctly conceptualize the US presence in Afghanistan as a gamble for resources that was lost. It's been 20 years. If there was ever a gamble, it was a while ago
It was likely less about resources and more strategic influence. "Owning" Afghanistan would give America the ability to project power in a critically important region surrounded by American rivals where it lacked a military presence.
It boxes Iran in, it taps on China's exposed western shoulder and borders the stans that buffer Russia's soft underbelly and it's close enough to other established air bases that can provide logistical support.
Better yet, if you do manage to capture it, it's has some of the most favorable geography for repelling invasions of any country. If America was fully established there, getting it out would be pretty much impossible.
It's not a huge shocker it was seen as a prize worthy of an expensive gamble at a time when America felt it was at the peak of its power. Anyone remember fukuyama's "the end of history"? America had a pretty severe case of hubris in the 90s/early 00s.
The war was lost a while ago, of course. It's really hard to admit defeat however, and there's always a tinge of hope it might be turned around, a disbelief that the American military could suffer defeat, so, of course it dragged on.
Anybody who has worked on a huge, vastly expensive high profile project knows that inertia can drag it on for years after it's clear to everyone that it's dead in the water.
There’s a whole lot of (literally) nothing between Afghanistan and anything worth bombing in Russia or China, and the US has military presence much, much closer to the important parts of those countries.
Afghanistan would be good to have in a war with Iran, but I honestly think that the opportunity for that is gone. AFAIK Iraq has gone from being a US client state to nominally independent, and Russia’s plan to prop up the Assad regime worked out very well for them.
The "geopolitics" is just marketing. The point is to spend money that will disappear unaccountably into the Pentagon. Thousands of rich people get even richer. None of them care who is more secure or who dies, here or abroad. All of the fables that USA (war) news media excretes are for the purpose of making those rich people even richer.
if this were the case, then the USA would have actually benefited from these wars. you ascribe far too much competence to our ruling class
The actual reason is more like an unholy mishmash of the sunk cost fallacy and the ever-present need to pad the pockets of Boeing and Raytheon