The bitterly divided government in Kabul is no more after President Ashraf Ghani and some 80 of his ministers and senior government officials fled the Taliban’s swift conquest of the country, the speed and efficiency of which would have put Nazi Germany’s “Blitzkrieg” to shame.
Disastrously faulty intelligence assessments gave Kabul 90 days to fall and had planners drafting an orderly evacuation of thousands of Westerners and their local staff. All were stunned to see the city overrun in only 75 hours and to watch the Taliban calmly stroll into the presidential palace on August 15.
Mayhem and desperation overwhelmed Kabul’s international airport the next day, as hundreds of Afghans overran the runway in front of a rolling American C-17 aircraft, prompting an Apache chopper in low flight to clear a path for the aircraft. Flights were later suspended after videos showed desperate people clinging to the fuselage.
The primary culprits for the orgy of despair at Kabul’s international airport are the West’s various intelligence officers; not for underestimating the Taliban, but for overestimating the diabolically corrupt Afghan government.
The blame game has already started in every Allied country, with the worst of the finger-pointing occurring in Washington, which is of little help to the thousands of Afghans stranded at Kabul Airport or for those who have dared to stand up to the re-establishment of Taliban rule.
The Taliban said they want a “peaceful transfer” of all power and rejected the notion of a transitional government. Their promise of safety to all who stay and those who wish to leave Kabul was received with overwhelming skepticism.
In fact, the US doubled the initial contingent of some of its most elite troops sent in to safeguard the evacuation to 6,000. Tens of thousands of Afghans who have worked for Western governments, NGOs, the media, as well as other rights activists and artists are now fleeing in fear. European officials warned the hastened retreat meant the evacuation of local helpers risked being cut short, Politico reported.
The two-decade-old conflict in Afghanistan, ignited by the 9/11 attacks, killed tens of thousands of people, cost nearly $3 trillion and thousands of US casualties, all in what is now crystal clear – an exercise in futility.
On paper, the Afghan security forces numbered somewhere around 300,000 people, but in recent days these have rapidly shrunk to some 50,000, if that, according to American officials. These shortfalls can be traced to numerous issues that sprung from the West’s insistence on building a fully modern military with all the logistical and supply complexities one requires, which proved utterly unsustainable for the Afghans without the United States and NATO.
At the height of the war, more than 100,000 American troops occupied Afghanistan, as did tens of thousands of others from about 40 nations in the United States-led NATO coalition. In the past five years, more than 50,000 members of the Afghan security forces have been killed, and tens of thousands wounded. The Taliban’s losses are believed to be comparable. Out of about 3,550 NATO coalition deaths in Afghanistan, nearly 2,400 have been Americans.
Earlier, negotiations in the Serbian capital Belgrade started in early 2018 between some Taliban commanders still controlling swathes of Afghanistan and the Kabul government broke off after the third round in 2019 to resume at an unspecified future date, now clearly never. Those peace negotiations coincided with record violence from both sides. In just the last quarter of 2019, the Taliban carried out 8,204 attacks, the highest over the past decade. The United States dropped 7,423 bombs and missiles during the year, a record since the Air Force began recording the data in 2006, according to US sources.
During one of the rounds of peace talks in Belgrade in 2019, the Taliban commanders of some 20 provinces talked directly to President Ghani for the first time ever, albeit over Skype. Their demands were mundane – they were asking for bridges, roads, water, concrete infrastructure and economic projects.
It is very easy to draw a conclusion that Kabul made a classic mistake simply by ignoring provinces and areas under enemy control in retaliation, which begs the question: why wasn’t some of the vast international aid implemented in Taliban territories to blunt their influence? Where did all that aid to Afghanistan disappear? Or, most of all – why were they never really eradicated?
These talks in Belgrade, held understandably under a media blackout, hosted by the Serbian Foreign Ministry and organized by the East West Bridge think-tank, were followed by the US-Taliban talks in Qatar where the two sides signed the deal in late February 2020.
The agreement laid out a timetable for the final withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan, a country that has been fighting foreign powers for the past four generations and described as an incubator of terrorist plots. It now brings back powerful images of Saigon in 1975, an association State Secretary Anthony Blinken adamantly rejects.
The scenes of packed and fearful people in their thousands unfolding at the airport are not helpful where thousands are still stranded, scared to death. Odds are the Taliban will not attack them but will revel in the humiliation and use it as a propaganda tool.
In Vietnam, in April 1975, as in Afghanistan today, the under-armed but committed, almost fanatical local forces drove out a superpower, showing that it pays to be patient and dig in. Time always works for the local population and resistance against regimes propped up by foreign powers. No one can accuse the Taliban of not being fanatical about their cause. Their brutal rule, adhering to the strictest Islamic code with an abhorrent lack of respect for human, and especially women’s rights, was cut short by the US intervention in 2001 and later carbon copied by the ISIS’ homicidal fighters.
It also showed that brutality pays off when launching an offensive against a puppet regime after the West announced its intention to pull out. Fearful of what would happen to them if overrun by Taliban and remembering the town squares awash in blood from executions from the last time this happened, most US-trained government troops chose to surrender or flee. Some even turned their guns on their former colleagues and trainers.
The US spent close to $85 billion to train and equip a military force that has crumbled like a house of cards, thanks inter alia to massive corruption and theft among its ranks.The international reaction was pitiful at best. Top UN and EU brass called for moderation and threatened sanctions and isolation, which would have an impact akin to waving a fist at an unloading B-52 bomber and swearing at its pilot.
The Taliban need no international recognition for the time being – they have Pakistan and its long and porous border. Islamabad helped create the Taliban in the first place, then fed them until they came into full bloom. Given the reaction of a part of Pakistan’s military and intelligence, it seems it will continue with the policy with even greater fervor this time round. They can always depend on Qatar for financial aid as well, and a lot depends on how Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will reassess the Turkish-Afghan relationship. In his dire straits, he will grasp any straw that he can turn into a benefit.
Then there are the oil- and gas-rich former Soviet republics to the north, whose proximity means that Moscow will have to make a deal with the Taliban to ensure security on that border.
Last but not least, there is China, which has become an integral part of the recent negotiations on the handover of power in Kabul. Afghanistan has always straddled the ancient and recently revived Silk Road stretching from the Great Wall of China, across the Pamirs, through Afghanistan, and into the Levant and Anatolia. Its length was about 4,000 miles in ancient times. That route is now more important than ever as China strives for world dominance.
Even if the Taliban stay quiet and taciturn in their stunning victory, it’s a safe bet that there is not a single terrorist cell in the world that is not celebrating and extract some sort of false courage from these developments, which they will interpret the American retreat as a resounding defeat of the West. This will serve to feed their lore and mythology for centuries to come.
The West’s security services best be on alert now for any signs of unrest or operational activity among terrorist groups like Hamas, Al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, ISIS or semi-legitimate organizations like the Moslem Brotherhood and various Moslem aid charities.
The Taliban have undertaken the obligation not to allow terrorist cells, fighters and leaders on their territory, a vow which they will probably keep for a short while. The Taliban this time do not owe much to other countries or traditional sponsors of terrorism. However, is time on their side?
Those terrorist links that partially birthed the Taliban are powerful bloodlines, i.e.: the Haqqani Network, known for its campaign of suicide bombings, is integral to the Taliban leadership. The network’s leader, Sirajuddin Haqqani, is the Taliban’s deputy leader and military commander. The Taliban even now refuse to acknowledge the word “terrorist” and have never disavowed the Al-Qaeda terrorist organization which was the root cause of their own downfall 20 years ago.
Their weakest point now will be their behavior in the weeks to come. Even if the transfer of power goes peacefully, how long will it take for the bloodlust of vengeance to prevail? Will women once again be barred from work and schools, public life and be yet again reduced to the status of slaves? Judging by the latest reports from Kunduz, just a week into the Taliban rule, all signs are there that, despite the initial “charm offensive”, the Taliban have not changed. There are still many mullahs who believe that the Taliban black on white banners should fly over Jerusalem.
Another burning question right now is how will this debacle impact the US-led Western presence in Iraq, amid calls by Baghdad for foreign troop withdrawal?
The Taliban will now be under a microscope for even minuscule signs of terrorist activities or repeated bloodshed and human rights violations, but how will the world react in case of infractions is the multi-billion-dollar question.
