Deepak Vohra

As the endgame nears, Afghanistan is in a mess, and it gets worse by the day.

America and its allies spent more on Afghanistan than on rebuilding Europe after World War II.

Over one year ago, a tired America and a re-energized Taliban signed a landmark agreement in Doha leading to a “political settlement”, but the deal did little to find a peaceful resolution to the war in Afghanistan or even to the war on terror.

America and NATO went in to punish the Taliban, and are coming out with their permission!

Former US President George Bush who sent in American troops after 9/11 says the decision to disengage is wrong.

As the United States and its allies leave Afghanistan, they are only the latest to realize that Afghanistan has always defied timelines and solutions and is truly the graveyard of empires.

Attempts at anything resembling centralized control, even by native Afghan governments, failed.

In negotiations with the Taliban since 2018, the US wanted a ceasefire, cutting ties with al Qaeda and other terrorist groups, intra-Afghan peace talks, and a withdrawal of all foreign military forces, declaring that

“Nothing is agreed till everything is agreed.”

The Taliban intensified its attacks, and got what it wanted - a withdrawal not linked to the other issues.

In short, the U.S. ended up legitimising the Taliban.

at the expense of the government in Kabul that they had worked to create and support.

Ironically, those who blasted the U.S. for overstaying in Afghanistan, not lambaste it for an irresponsible withdrawal.

The crucial question - which has hung over the country since 2001 - is whether the Afghan state can survive without foreign troops.

Though there were reports of several hundred Afghan troops crossing into Tajikistan fleeing a Taliban advance, they are fighting back with air power.

The Afghan security forces outnumber the Taliban, 350,000 to 100,000.

In the early 1990s, the victorious Mujahideen, not having an enemy that they could unite against (since the Soviets had left ignominiously in 1989) turned on each other and Afghanistan (no longer of interest to the West) descended into a brutal civil war, with all factions engaging in ethnic and religious cleansing.

As always, civilians bore the brunt.

Then in 1994, the Taliban (students), from the refugee camps in Pakistan, some with experience of fighting the Soviets and trained by the Pakistani army, emerged from their madrasas and marched in to punish the rapacious warlords, promising peace and stability to a traumatized population.

Fired by their semi-literate leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar, they captured heavy weapons and aircraft from frightened regime troops, and advanced rapidly.

They were welcomed, but soon showed their true colours, ruling through terror rather than popular acceptance.

In September 1996, with military support from Pakistan and money from Saudi Arabia, they seized Kabul and founded the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.

Former President Muhammad Najibullah was at the UN compound when the Taliban soldiers came in the evening of 26 September 1996, dragged his castrated body through the streets of Kabul, and hung it from a traffic light pole outside the presidential palace to show the public that a new era (actually Afghanistan’s nightmare) had begun.

They imposed their fundamentalist interpretation of Islam in areas under their control, issuing edicts forbidding women to work outside the home, attend school, or to leave their homes unless accompanied by a male relative.

Thieves’ hands were cut off and women executed for adultery.

Only three “free” countries, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and UAE recognized the fundamentalist Taliban regime.

Then 9/11 happened, the Taliban refused to surrender Osama bin Laden, the US invaded, no one rallied to their support, and America got into its longest annual war.

With the Taliban gone, a new constitution opened the way for democratic elections, a free press, and expanded rights for women.

In 2021, the resurgent, better organized and savvier Taliban have so far reneged on all their agreements with the US and the Afghan Government; the latter in any case is totally marginalized.

Claiming to control 85% of the country in July 2021, the Taliban pretended, in a signed piece in the New York Times earlier this year, that they sought an “Islamic system in which all Afghans have equal rights, where the rights of women that are granted by Islam…are protected.”

However, no one trusts them.

On the ground, they have slaughtered surrendering troops, most horribly the handful of Special Forces in Daulatabad.

According to the UN, they earn USD 1.5 bn annually from the opium trade, and more from mineral exploitation, taxes, land sales, production of narcotics etc.

Their assurances to China that they will not host Uighur militants are meaningless.

As in 1996, they will implement their version of an Islamic regime, which most Afghans don't want but will have to put up with.

The Indo-Pacific region was the global focus of geopolitics till a few months ago, now it shares the spotlight with Central Asia.

Taliban 2 will be no different from their previous incarnation.

They will welcome nasty fellows like IS and Al-Qaeda, who are reported to be fighting alongside them along with Pakistan’s sons-in-law, the Jaish-e-Mohammed and the Lashkar-e-Taiba.

Which countries will developments in Afghanistan impact?

Pakistan and China, Russia (presently in love with the Taliban), the five Central Asian “stans”, and India – all want a stable, non-terror hosting Afghanistan.

If the Taliban become overly aggressive, the Central Asian States will be very uncomfortable.

Neighbouring Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Kyrgyzstan have suffered

from the Taliban brand of Islam.

Tajikistan experienced a savage civil war in the 1990s, with Taliban Islam being used for mobilization and legitimization.

The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (that destabilized Kyrgyzstan) was formed in 1998 with Taliban support.

The Taliban-nurtured Turkistan Islamic Movement (TIM) is an Uighur Islamic extremist organization in Western China seeking an independent East Turkestan replacing Xinjiang.

The Afghanistan and Central Asian cauldrons are simmering, waiting to boil over.

Though they are a product of Pakistan’s military establishment that seeks a long-term hold over Kabul, the Taliban do not trust Pakistan that dumped them after 9/11 without even saying “sorry guys” because of US threats (of the we will bomb you into the stone age variety.)

Pakistan soon renovated its mothballed Taliban training camps and resumed clandestine support, terrified of the growing Indian and Tajik influence in Afghanistan.

Feeling that their military had become an American mercenary, in December 2007 former Pakistani-trained Mujahedeen formed the Tehrik-i-Taliban in Pakistan (TTP) to capture state power through a terrorist campaign with support from Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State.

As the British and Russians and Americans have learned, it is possible to conquer territory in Afghanistan temporarily, and defeat Afghans in open battle, but it is virtually impossible to hold the region for long.

You can rent an Afghan, you can’t buy an Afghan.

The people of Afghanistan have nowhere to go, and can fight their whole lives.

Afghan heroes are those who resist foreign occupation, and defend their honour, their religion and their homeland.

Some of the Taliban leaders, Guantánamo graduates, do not grasp how much the country has changed - they still believe that they can shoot their way into power.

The United States has spent billions of dollars to build a “stable, strong, effectively governed Afghanistan

that won’t degenerate into chaos.

Though best by graft, in Kabul the effects are evident.

High-rise apartment buildings remade the skyline, and the streets filled with cars; foreign aid helped create new jobs, and women began going to work and to school.

One third of the 8 million kids in school are girls, literacy trebled in 20 years, life expectancy went up by 50%.

After decades of civil war and repressive government, the capital became a rollicking international city.

Then, assassinations and bombings drove most of the foreigners away. At night, the streets are quiet.

Twenty years into the American-led war, Kabul feels again like the capital of a poor and troubled country.

Afghanistan’s future is decided far from Kabul.

A senior journalist has written that in his meeting with Ghani, he seemed abandoned, like a pilot pulling levers that weren’t connected to anything.

Donald Trump was clearly desperate to make a deal that would allow him to say that he had ended the war.

When the Taliban refused to include the Afghan government in the talks, the U.S. did not insist.

The talks became a justification for unconditional US withdrawal and actually incentivized terrorism and violence.

The deal is an American admission of a lost 20-year long, trillion-dollar war, a repeat of Vietnam without the face-saving device of a Geneva Conference.

For America, Afghanistan is no longer a major consideration. While the Afghan regime considers the Taliban an existential threat, U.S. officials see President Ashraf Ghani as an obstacle - wedded to the status quo, which keeps NATO troops in the country and him in power.

The Taliban will not share power with the existing Afghan government, and there will be no transitional government to write a new constitution and lay the groundwork for nationwide elections.

The trends were clear in the Doha meetings.

The two sides shouted at each other; Taliban leaders said the Afghan officials represented an illegitimate government, propped up by infidels and bankrolled by Western money.

One Afghan Government negotiator said: “They thought they were there just to discuss the terms of surrender. They said, ‘We don’t need to talk to you. We can just take over.’

A bloodbath is in the making, because no party trusts the other.

The spoiler-in-chief is Pakistan (a Pakistani official had once even thought of an Islamic union with Afghanistan) but even it will not relish the fact of millions of refugees again pouring over the border.

And with no foreign troops in Afghanistan, it can no longer bill them for “services” provided.

The Pushtun Taliban do not recognize the Durand Line, that divides Afghan Pashtuns from their Pakistani ethnic brothers.

No regime in Afghanistan can be a Pakistani puppet.

Once the Americans are fully out, there will be a free for all in Afghanistan.

The worst sufferers, as always, will be the people of Afghanistan.

China will depend largely on Pakistan to keep the Uighurs and assorted Islamic radicals in Afghanistan under control.

Although the Taliban say that China (which claims to have invested heavily in copper and oil) is a welcome friend for reconstruction in Afghanistan, and that all protection would be provided to their nationals, China is not buying that.

Neither Russia nor Iran would be unhappy to see China and Pakistan get mired in Afghanistan.

Saudi Arabia and the UAE would not like to see Johnny-come-lately Turkey jump into the fray and add to the cauldron of mischief.

What about India?

An interesting tidbit of history.

In a March 1950 speech in Parliament, Jawaharlal Nehru, commenting on the Afghans and their King Zahir Shah’s search for India's support for self-determination in Pashtunistan, lamented not “being able to help in any way." 

Today, unlike the US, we cannot disengage because of geography and because of our hostile relationship with Pakistan.

We need partners

India is committed to the reconstruction and development of Afghanistan: New Delhi recently signed the US$ 300 million Shahtoot dam project to provide clean drinking water to Kabul.

India supports “an Afghan-led, Afghan-owned and Afghan-controlled process for enduring peace and reconciliation in Afghanistan.”

Indian assets in Afghanistan have been targeted by the Haqqani group, a major Taliban faction.

The first risk in Taliban Afghanistan is terrorism, even though the U.S.-Taliban agreement states that the Taliban will prevent terrorist outfits from operating on Afghan soil (we have not forgotten the hijacking of our plane to Kandahar in 1999).

The second risk is Pakistan’s perennial interest in calling the shots in Afghanistan, including through the Islamic State.

Pakistan has always sought “strategic depth” in Afghanistan, but instead the Taliban has found “strategic depth” in Pakistan.

In late 2020, the Pakistani intelligence head of terror group Islamic State's Khorasan unit (ISIL-K) was killed by special forces near Jalalabad, according to the Afghan security agency.

The agency claimed that of some 400 plus IS captives in their custody, the highest, 299, were from Pakistan, while 34 were from China (presumably Uighurs).

China, in a global confrontation of its own choosing against the US, is convinced that the U.S. will play around in China’s Achilles Heel, Xinjiang.

At a meeting with his counterparts of five Central Asian states in May, China’s Foreign Minister urged them not to allow the US to station its forces in Central Asia after its military withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Taliban Afghanistan will provide haven to all manner of anti-Indian terrorists, we are told. But I thought that is what Pakistan does!

At the July 2021 Dushanbe meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation organization Foreign Ministers, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said peace negotiations in earnest is the only answer since seizure of power by violence and force will never be legitimate.

“The world, region and the Afghan people all want the same end state: An independent, neutral, unified, peaceful, democratic and prosperous nation… The future of Afghanistan cannot be its past”, he tweeted.

What will happen now?

Can the Taliban be trusted? No.

Will the Taliban be willing to share power? No.

Have the Taliban modified their primitive, rigid Islamic ideology? No.

Why should they change, since, as they are, they have exhausted the Americans?

In Afghanistan, there can only be winners and losers, no compromises.

Can Ghani’s regime present a unified front and suspend sniping at each other, that damages the integrity and morale of the Afghan security forces? Unlikely, given the ruling dispensation’s history of cross-betrayals and opportunism.

Will Pakistan realize that a Taliban-dominated neighbour will be a magnet for its own terror groups and those from the neighbourhood?

Unlikely, as Pakistan is best known for smashing its face to spite its nose.

Even though it might take over, it is difficult to see an atavistic group like the Taliban survive permanently.

It is the most radical, misogynist and brutal of all Jihadi outfits which has waged a relentless war against an internationally recognized, democratic Afghan government which hitherto was militarily supported by the “free” world.

Hoping that the Taliban will adhere to their commitments is like a third marriage, representing the triumph of hope over experience,

(Deepak Vohra is a senior diplomat, special Advisor to Prime Minister on Lesotho, South Sudan and Guinea-Bissau and Special Advisor to Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Councils, Leh and Kargil)