Taliban dominance

AT PENPOINT

The situation in Afghanistan is almost daily shifting in favour of the Taliban, and there are more and more reports flowing in of provincial capitals falling to the Taliban, which indicates a change in strategy, from one of taking control of the countryside, to one of taking control of cities and the administrative centres they contain. In this the Taliban appear to be following the strategy used by Mao Zedong, when taking China from the Kuomintang.

Another interesting aspect of the Taliban strategy has been that they have not launched their campaign of a creeping takeover from their strongholds in the south-west of the country, but from the northern provinces. That has two implications. First, the Taliban want to be in charge of the entire country, and do not want to leave any centres of resistance to the Kabul government. Second, that they have evolved.

It should not be forgotten that there has been some talk of breaking Afghanistan up. One issue is that there are a large number of minorities. One result is that Afghanistan is a land of minorities, in that all the ethnic groups are minorities of ethnicities elsewhere.

Interestingly, the eponymous group of the country, the Afghans, are a minority, with more Afghans in Pakistan. It is also incidental that the world’s largest Pushtun/Afghan city is not in Afghanistan or the Pashtun areas of Pakistan, but in Sindh, Karachi.

Therefore, where the USA hived off a Kurd area off Iraq and gave it greater autonomy, there is ban on similar areas in Afghanistan, except perhaps the northern areas. That is the area where the minorities tend to be. It is worth noting that one of the northern provincial capitals to fall has been Sheberghan, the headquarters of Jawzjan province, where resistance could centre around the Uzbeks of the area. However, that illustrates the problem of having off bits and pieces of Afghanistan. Uzbekistan borders it, and could conceivably make a claim for a merger.

The Taliban would also remember that Ahmad Shah Massoud, their Tajik bugbear, who headed the Northern Alliance, was also holed up in the North. However, at the same time, it should be remembered that it has been almost 20 years since the Taliban were in office. While it was a movement of young men, a lot of the actual wielders of authority have now passed away, and a new generation has come to the fore.

It seems that whether the present regime will be like Pakistan’s, stuck between its reliance on the USA, and the realities of China being so nearby, or whether here is more clarity offered by the Taliban, who would be pro-China because anti-USA, the fate of Afghanistan depends more on the New Silk Road than was originally estimated when 9/11 happened.

This would be particularly true of battlefield commanders. While there are no doubt many examples of those who fought both the Soviet and the Americans, the callow 18-year-old of 1988 would now be 51. From a rookie the vets would be amused by, he would now be himself. As for those who led the initial resistance, who were about 40 in 1979, they would now be over 80, if still alive, they brushed aside the previous leaders, the men with whom the USA and Pakistani had worked. It should also be noted that those who called the shots then, even as young officers, have retired by now. Indeed, only the captains and junior majors of that era would still be in service, at some suitably exalted rank.

Just as the Taliban were those who brushed aside the older leaders, they will be brushed aside by the present crop of leaders. It must not be forgotten that the Taliban have always put a premium on battlefield

experience. Therefore, the leaders who are making agreements now are a little like Gulbadin Hikmatyar, who is now 72, but who was 30 when the USSR invaded Afghanistan, who became Prime Minister of Afghanistan after the Soviet withdrawal, but whose relevance to Afghan politics was shown in the 2019 presidential election, when he came in a distant third.

That is not something its neighbours would like very, ucj, especially since Afghanistan is scheduled to become an important part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative. This might well be the USA’s greatest loss in the current situation: its failure to prevent Afghanistan from becoming one of China’s main connecting routes.

China has developed access to the Indian Ocean through Gwadar. CPEC is of importance for this reason. To increase its footprint, it has taken over the development of Iran’s Chabahar port from India. That means it needs to have access to Afghanistan, which means that US attempts to contain it will be weakened by any government that is not hostile to China.

The Taliban have been experiencing the sort of international recognition they did not when they were in power. It should not be forgotten that the Taliban were only recognised by Pakistan and Qatar. Neither is now ready to recognise them, though both have played a crucial role in the negotiations with the USA. Both are considered close US allies, and while Pakistan is supposed to have influence over the Taliban, both the US-Taliban talks, and now the Taliban-Kabul talks, have been held in the Qatari capital of Doha.

The Taliban delegation visiting China may have been facilitated by Pakistan, but the contacts with India were probably not. While China had concerns over the BRI as well as fears of Taliban support of the East Turkestani Movement, India would be more interested in protecting its commitments in Afghanistan, which it had made because of there being both a favourable regime and a US umbrella. It obtained the opening of consulates, particularly the one in Kandahar, which had no purpose beyond acting as outposts against Pakistan. The USA did have contacts with the Taliban regime, but that only came after the Taliban were in power.

The present contacts indicate not just the unease among regional powers, but also the expectation that the Taliban will take over. This cannot be of much solace to President Ashraf Ghani and his regime. Ghani is perhaps symbolic of the US experiment. Even before the Soviet invasion, head graduated from an American high school and studied anthropology at the American University Beirut and Columbia University, where he pursued an academic career after getting his PhD. He hen got into the World Bank before becoming Afghanistan’s Finance Minister, and then its President. An Afghan, but thoroughly integrated into the US system, his replacement by the Taliban would be unpleasant for the Americans.

Pakistan has failed to hold one international conference, and is now trying to host another. However, the fate of Afghanistan seems tied up with that of the BRI and the New Silk route. Some of the responsibility for the failure must lie with the BRI already proving a measure on which the world is to divide between the USA and China.

It seems that whether the present regime will be like Pakistan’s, stuck between its reliance on the USA, and the realities of China being so nearby, or whether here is more clarity offered by the Taliban, who would be pro-China because anti-USA, the fate of Afghanistan depends more on the New Silk Road than was originally estimated when 9/11 happened.