Friday, August 27, 2021
The Tragedy of Afghanistan
The war in Afghanistan began in response by the United States and its NATO allies to the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, as an operation to deny Al Qaeda sanctuary in a country run by the Taliban. How it evolved into a two-decade nation-building project in which as many as 140,000 troops under American command were deployed at one time is a story of mission creep and hubris but also of the enduring American faith in the values of freedom and democracy.The Afghanistan papers published in The Washington Post — including a confidential project to identify “Lessons Learned” conducted by the Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, an agency created by Congress — painted a devastating picture of corruption, incompetence, lack of motivation and other flaws among the Afghan forces that the United States and its allies were trying to mold into a serious military. One Navy official said Afghans viewed their police as “the most hated institution” in Afghanistan. Other officials described systematic looting by soldiers and officers, as well as Afghan casualties so huge — 60,000 killed since 2001, by one estimate — that the government kept them a secret. The corruption was so rampant that many Afghans began to question whether their government or the Taliban were the greater evil. The Pentagon and the U.S. Congress deserve a share of the blame for the debacle, and certainly for the rosy progress reports that so often emerged. But what the United States or its allies could or should have done differently — and whether that hoary cliché about Afghanistan as the graveyard of empires has been validated once again — is a debate that should consume politicians, pundits and historians for years to come. The responsibility lies with both parties. President George W. Bush launched the war, only to shift focus to Iraq before any stability had been achieved. President Barack Obama was seeking to withdraw American troops but surged their levels instead. President Donald Trump signed a peace deal with the Taliban in 2020 for a complete withdrawal by last May.
OP-ED: #Afghanistan: Sanity in Surrender
By Abdul Hadi Mayar
When Afghan National Defense and Security Force (ANDSF) surrendered to Taliban unit after unit, people and media viewed it with contempt; describing it as an act of cowardice. But now when the dust of the Taliban’s rampaging victory is subsiding, the army’s refusal to fight back appears rather saner as it stopped Afghanistan from sliding into a Syria-like situation. As soon as the US resumed the drawdown of its remaining troops from Afghanistan on May 1 this year, a large number of districts in rural areas of the country fell to the Taliban without any resistance. Those initial gains of the Taliban exposed many weaknesses of the Afghan National Army. It came out that ANDSF foot soldiers had been working without salary for many months. Besides, they also faced a scarcity of equipment and fuel. Despite that, journalists and analysts covering Afghanistan, in keeping with the Afghan history, overlooked the Taliban’s gains as far-flung rural districts had never had any significance in Afghan warfare. The government’s authority in Afghanistan has always remained restricted to big cities. Secondly, Afghanistan never had an organised army, which we can expect in any modern state. Traditionally, the loosely organised Afghan military force had consisted of regional warlords, given ranks according to the force under their tribal command. Even the ANDSF, which the US and NATO raised into an army over the last 20 years, was not immune to this drawback. There have been accusations of a large number of ghost soldiers present in the army and non-payment of salaries to many genuine staff members. Such a roughly combined force could not be expected to counter the Taliban in rural areas where logistic support and reinforcement are difficult to reach on time. However, by the time the Taliban reached the thresholds of major cities, ANDSF and its special operation force, equally supported by the popular uprising militias, forcefully resisted their initial attacks in Helmand, Herat, Kandahar and the eastern Nangarhar and Paktya provinces. Any resistance against the violent and jihad-emboldened Taliban would have obliterated whatever Afghanistan was left with. The situation in the non-Pashtoon northern provinces was a bit difficult as the regional and local warlords under the command of Uzbek General, Abdul Rashid Dostum Tajik chieftains, Atta Muhammad Nur and Ahmad Masud, had practically been weakened as their ethnic leaders were sidelined over the recent decades.Emboldened by the victories in the southern, western and eastern provinces just a week before the Taliban’s final march on Kabul, the Afghan Army took to the north as General Dostum and Atta Muhammad Noor were hastily restored to their might in Mazar-e-Sharif. Several major controversial steps, including replacement of the Army, the transfer of General Sami Sadat, a triumphant corps commander in the strategic Lashkargah city in the middle of the war and total shifting of focus to the north, left the southern and western provinces vulnerable. Despite that, compromises and secret deals were seen more at work behind the Taliban’s abrupt victories than any weakness of ANDSF commanders. While General Dostum was preparing to launch a counteroffensive against the Taliban in the northwestern Jawzjan province, Dawood Laghmani, the governor of the southern Ghazni province, surrendered to the Taliban without a fire-shot. Earlier, Zaranj city of Nimroz province on the Iranian border has fallen to the Taliban in the same manner. Yet, it did not have as much impact as it was a far off desert province. Simultaneously, Ismail Khan, the governor of the western Herat province, who had pushed back a Taliban attack with massive public support just days back, capitulated to the Taliban without any visible justification. At the very moment, Zabihullah Mohmand, the corps commander of Mazar-e-Sharif, surrendered to the Taliban while General Dostum and Atta Muhammad Nur had to flee to Uzbekistan; accusing the former of handing over all ANDSF ammunition to the Taliban. These unexpected defeats greatly demoralised the remaining units. Thus, commanders of the Afghan army, President Ashraf Ghani and other government leaders were left with no option but either to surrender or be perished. While fleeing the country, Ghani said the siege of Kabul at the hands of Taliban left him with only two options: to fight back and confront hundreds of thousands of Kabul residents to bloodshed or to defect. He said he had chosen the second option to avoid bloodshed. This act of the president not only left his government virtually dissolved but also melted away the army. Many Afghan and international journalists and analysts, including Americans, equally blamed the debacle of Afghanistan on the hasty and unplanned decision of the Biden administration to withdraw the remaining US forces by September 11 this year.The withdrawal of the remaining US-NATO troops from Afghanistan was very much on the cards and no one had disputed its need. President Biden was correct when he announced on April 29 this year to end this “forever war” as it “was never meant to be a multi-generational undertaking of nation-building.”However, it also remains a fact that it was not a war wished by the Afghan people themselves, nor had any Afghan invited the US forces to their country. If Al Qaeda had attacked the US and the Taliban had hosted it in Afghanistan, Washington could return as soon as it had accomplished its objective of bombing both Taliban and Al Qaeda into “stone-age.” But if Americans remained in Afghanistan and took upon themselves the task of national-building, which, according to President Biden, Washington had never meant at all, then the war-weary Afghans, and of course their government and civil and military officials who had served Americans during all these long years, deserved to be taken care of while planning to withdraw the US forces from the country. There were even conspiracy theories aired on social media that this was all part of the deal between the US and Taliban though sanity would not give any credence to such accusations. Whatever might be the reasons for the disgraceful capitulation of the Afghan army, the fact remains that any resistance against the violent and jihad-emboldened Taliban would have not only obliterated whatever Afghanistan was left with, but also unleashed such a destructive civil war, which might have faced Afghanistan with the same fate as that of Syria.https://dailytimes.com.pk/808283/afghanistan-sanity-in-surrender/
Pakistan’s Support for the Taliban: What to Know
Pakistan’s government and military generally favored a Taliban victory in Afghanistan. But maintaining support for the Taliban is risky.
Why did Pakistani officials cheer the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan?
It is important to note Pakistan’s government and military are not monolithic institutions but rather groups with competing interests. With that in mind, it is true that these groups were generally in favor of a Taliban victory. After the Taliban took over Kabul, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan declared that the Taliban were “breaking the chains of slavery.”
There are three long-standing and overlapping reasons for Khan’s public show of support. First, Pakistan has vested ideological interests in the Taliban. Pakistan was created in 1947 as a Muslim nation and Islam was the glue that was supposed to hold together many otherwise disparate communities with diverse linguistic and ethnic identities. But this was a struggle. In 1971, after a bitter civil war, a large portion of Pakistani territory in the east dominated by the Bengali-speaking community broke away to become Bangladesh. That loss made the Pakistani government particularly paranoid about the western territories of Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, which have large Pashtun or Pashto-speaking populations. Pakistan established madrassas in these territories to emphasize and teach a particularly strict brand of Islam in the hopes that Islamic nationalism would suppress Pashtun nationalism. Taliban leaders, who also espouse Islamic nationalism, were trained in those madrassas.
TURKMENISTAN
CHINA
Pashtun areas
Kabul
Peshawar
AFGHANISTAN
Islamabad
IRAN
Quetta
Durand Line
PAKISTAN
INDIA
0
500 km
ARABIAN SEA
0
200 mi
Note: Data as of June 2021.
Second, Pakistani officials worry about the border with Afghanistan and believe that a Taliban government could ease their concerns. Since 1947, Afghan governments have rejected the Durand Line, which separates Pakistani Pashtun-dominated territories from Afghanistan. Afghanistan, home to a Pashtun majority, claims these territories as a part of a “Pashtunistan” or traditional Pashtun homeland. Pakistan’s government believes that the Taliban’s ideology emphasizes Islam over Pashtun identity.
Third, it is imperative for Pakistan to have a Pakistan-friendly government established in Afghanistan. Pakistan accuses India of seeking to exploit its ethnic and linguistic divisions to destabilize and break up the country. India’s good relationship with former Afghan President Ashraf Ghani’s government did nothing to assuage this concern. A Taliban government could help Pakistan counter India, including by providing a haven for anti-India jihadi groups.
How has Pakistan’s relationship with the Taliban changed since 9/11?
Pakistan continues to be a major source of financial and logistical support for the Taliban. The Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency has supported the Taliban from their inception with money, training, and weaponry. The ISI also maintains strong ties with the Pakistan-based Haqqani network, a militant group that works closely with the Taliban. (Sirajuddin Haqqani, the leader of the Haqqani network, has also been a deputy leader of the Taliban since 2015.) The Taliban own real estate in Pakistan and receive large donations from private individuals in the country.
At the same time, under pressure from the United States, Pakistan has over the years detained—and allegedly tortured—Taliban commanders, including Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, a Taliban founder who is now back as one of the group’s chief leaders. Moreover, the current Pakistan Army chief, General Qamar Javed Bajwa, is reportedly more wary of the Taliban’s potential to destabilize Pakistan.
Going forward, Pakistan’s influence with the Taliban could decrease. The Taliban have been politically savvy in attempting to build ties with China, Iran, and Russia. If China, a close Pakistani ally, chooses to recognize the Taliban-led government, it will do so without enthusiasm for the virulent religious nationalism espoused by both the Taliban and Pakistan. This is because it could spill over into China’s Xinjiang region, where the Chinese government has used claims of separatism to crack down on Uyghur Muslims.
What consequences could the Taliban takeover have for Pakistan?
Pakistan is playing a risky game in supporting the Taliban. Its goal to contain Pashtun nationalism and counter India by having a Pakistan-friendly government in Afghanistan does not account for either the quirks of the Taliban or the warring religious fundamentalist forces within Pakistan.
Showing its sensitivity to the Durand Line, Pakistan has spent millions of dollars over the past few years to reinforce and demarcate the border. Yet, the Taliban, in conformity with other Afghan governments, have neither accepted the Durand Line nor Pakistan’s attempts to physically demarcate it. Nor have the Taliban ever renounced or condemned the Afghan goal of a Pashtunistan.
To complicate matters further, the Taliban maintain close ties with the Tehrik-e-Taliban (TTP), sometimes referred to as the Pakistani Taliban. The TTP comprises small Pashtun militant groups that are sympathetic to the Taliban, operate along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, and vow to war with Pakistan until it secures an independent Pashtunistan. The TTP is responsible for the deaths of many thousands of Pakistani civilians. Recognizing the link between the Afghan Taliban and the TTP, General Bajwa reportedly warned Pakistani lawmakers that the groups are “two faces of the same coin.”
Moreover, if Afghanistan once again descends into civil war, Pakistan will have to cope with another huge flow of refugees. Last year, an estimated 1.4 million Afghan refugees were living in the country.
Finally, Pakistan could jeopardize its relationship with China if Afghanistan (as well as Pakistan) becomes a haven for Muslim separatists, including disaffected Uyghurs from Xinjiang.
How could the United States and its allies work with Pakistan on the situation in Afghanistan?
The United States faces a complex situation in South Asia, and in its bilateral relationship with Pakistan. The U.S. government has a long-standing record of investment in Pakistan in return for cooperation on terrorism, but this has yielded limited dividends given Pakistan’s own regional security interests.
Now, Washington has two additional elements to consider. The first is its deepening strategic partnership with India. Over the past few years, India has become more receptive to U.S. overtures for closer security ties. Given these gains in the U.S.-India relationship, the United States should be extremely careful in its relationship with Pakistan; any sense that Washington is not using what clout it has to rein in Pakistan’s backing of cross-border terrorism will jeopardize its relationship with New Delhi.
The second element is China’s growing interest in the region. Although the Chinese government is unlikely to stir up religious terrorism in the region, it will seek to work with the Taliban and possibly even incorporate Afghanistan into its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Any U.S. strategy should seek to offset Chinese investments. And China also has clout with Pakistan. One option for the United States is to utilize China’s fears about religious nationalism and militancy spilling over from Afghanistan to initiate space for a U.S.-China-Pakistan cooperative strategy to pressure the Taliban.
https://www.cfr.org/article/pakistans-support-taliban-what-know