The coming Afghan breakdown

Wall-to-wall coverage in American newspapers of the developing situation in Afghanistan as US withdraws

There has been wall-to-wall coverage in American newspapers of the developing situation in Afghanistan as the United States pulls out of the country. The coverage included an article by Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan published on June 22, by The Washington Post. Khan explained why his country will not provide bases for America’s possible need to carry out air operations in Afghanistan. Such a request may be made if Washington reached the conclusion that only American bombs would prevent the Taliban from gaining total control of the country from which it was expelled in 2002. The Taliban are surprised by the advances they are making and are now positioned to launch operations against major cities such as Kabul and Kandahar.

“In the past, Pakistan made a mistake by choosing between warring Afghan parties, but we have learned from that experience. We have no favourites and will work with any government that enjoys the confidence of the Afghan people. History proves that Afghanistan cannot be controlled from the outside,” wrote the prime minister. He recalled the heavy price Pakistan paid for the way it involved itself in the affairs of the neighbouring state. “Our country has suffered so much from the wars in Afghanistan. More than 70,000 Pakistanis have been killed. While the United States provided $20 billion in aid, losses to the Pakistani economy have exceeded $150 billion.” The impact on Pakistan included the arrival of three million Afghan refugees. If there is further civil war, instead of a political settlement, Pakistan will need to host more refugees, “destabilising and further impoverishing the frontier areas on our border. Most of the Taliban are from the Pashtun ethnic group,” continued the prime minister. The world has about 65 million Pashtun people. Of these 44 million live in Pakistan. Afghanistan’s share is a bit more than a fourth. The size of the country’s Pashtun population is estimated at 15.4 million.

Khan’s explanation for his stance on Afghanistan is that his administration which has been in office now for nearly three years has drawn important lessons from the past. But it is equally important to recognise that history does not repeat itself if the ground under it has changed. This was recognised by David Ignatius, a veteran American journalist who has been a student of the Muslim world and is a columnist for The Washington Post, in an article published a day after it carried the one by Khan. While the Taliban has achieved its dream of American withdrawal — this was the position Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda took in the early 2000s — “Afghanistan is a much more urban and modern nation than when the Taliban were driven from power 20 years ago. Kabul and other major cities may not fall easily; even if the army crumbles, militias will keep on fighting,” wrote Ignatius.

Afghanistan then did not have a strong central authority which could determine the course Kabul should take as the Soviet Union pulled out its troops from Afghanistan. In a conversation I had with president Ziaul Haq in late July 1988, he said he did not celebrate as did his prime minister Muhammad Khan Junejo that with Pakistan’s help some of the groups that had challenged the Soviet presence in their country had prevailed. The current central authority is not as weak as was the case in 1989. It will not disappear as had happened then. It has the support of several domestic groups in particular the Tajiks in the northeast and the Hazaras in the southwest. What the Soviet Union could not do then, the Americans and its NATO allies are promising to do now. They will continue to provide financial aid to Kabul and also help several Western nongovernment organisations to maintain their presence in the country and continue their work for the social and economic betterment of some of the disadvantaged groups. Several NGOs are committed to help the Afghan women to build on the progress they have made in the last two decades.

There are also reports in the Western press that the government in Kabul will assist some of the militias to resist the advance of the Taliban. The Afghan president held a meeting on June 21, on the eve of his departure to Washington, to discuss with President Joe Biden the situation Kabul faces as the Americans hasten their departure. Ghani called on the anti-Taliban militias to create a “united front” and support the Afghan security forces to “strengthen peace” and “safeguard the republic system.” The Taliban reject the current democratic system and seeks to install an Islamic one. Ghani has thrown his support behind people such as Ahmad Massoud, the 31-year-old son of Ahmad Shah Massoud, who was assassinated two days before the Al Qaeda attacked New York and Washington. When the Americans sent in their troops to avenge 9/11, they used Massoud’s Northern Alliance to remove the Taliban from Kabul. “But the prospect of unleashing a hodgepodge of rogue warriors to repel their old enemies also raises the specter of civil war, a state of anarchy that Afghans remember all too well from the 1990s,” wrote Pamela Constable and Ezzatullah Mehrdad in The Washington Post. “And although the armed groups have pledged to coordinate with government forces, it is also possible that the effort could unravel into confused, competing clashes among purported allies.”

Since May, the Taliban has seized more than 50 Afghan districts out of a total of 370. However, in hundreds of other districts they have an increasing presence. On June 22, the UN special envoy to Afghanistan, Deborah Lyons, told the UN Security Council that many of those districts surround provincial capitals, suggesting that the insurgents are “positioning themselves to tray and take those capitals once foreign forces are withdrawn.” The Taliban draws its fighting forces from the Pashtun areas in the south that border Pakistan, but the insurgents in the spring fighting season of 2021 have focused on gaining territory in the north. The most significant confrontation took place in Mazar-e-Sharif, the country’s fourth-largest city and the capital of Balkh province. “People here have enjoyed a peaceful life for 20 years. Now they are worried,” said Mohammad Afzal Hadid, head of the provincial council. “Government forces lost morale. Bases are falling one after the other.”

It would not be wise for the policymakers in Islamabad to draw comfort from the fact that the Spring 2021 offensive by the Taliban has focused on the areas distant from their borders. What should be a source of worry is that the Taliban is positioning itself to play a major role in governance in Afghanistan. Basically, the group is Pashtun and its success in gaining power in Kabul will affect the population of this ethnic group on the Pakistani side of the border.

 

Published in The Express Tribune, June 28^th, 2021.

Like Opinion & Editorial on Facebook, follow @ETOpEd on Twitter to receive all updates on all our daily pieces.