Many Qs, few As in unclear future for Af
The departure of the last US military plane from Afghanistan left the region facing uncertainty, with the Taliban seeking to cement control of a nation shattered by two decades of war and an economy long dependent on foreign aid and opium sales.
Now the US, its allies, and adversaries including Russia and China must all regroup and assess how they’ll approach the Taliban, which swept to power with stunning speed as American and NATO troops withdrew over the summer. The chaos of the American withdrawal following the collapse of Ashraf Ghani’s government only underscores the country’s fragility and the daunting challenges that await.
After evacuating some 120,000 people, the US says it will look to help any Americans who remain in the country. Less certain is the fate of the tens of thousands of Afghans -- civil society workers, women and girls, minorities -- who may still want to flee but couldn’t make it through the crush of people at Kabul’s airport this month.
What Will Happen to People Left Behind?
General Kenneth “Frank” Mckenzie, head of US Central Command, said Monday that the number of Americans remaining in the country totals in the “low hundreds” and that the State Department would undertake a “diplomatic sequel” to the military effort to evacuate U.S. citizens.
“We will keep working to help them,” secretary of state Antony Blinken said Monday evening after a Pentagon briefing.
The more complicated question is the fate of those Afghans who worked for the US government and military and the country’s Us-backed government, as well as people who may be subject to oppression and reprisals by the Taliban -- women and girls, ethnic and religious minorities, educators, employees of charities and other non-government organisations and others.
“I think the number of Afghans who worked with us and other coalition forces for the last 20 years are going to be few and far between getting out,” former national security adviser John Bolton said. As for the remaining Americans, “I’m very worried that they’re not coming out,” he said.
The US and European allies have said they will continue to help facilitate evacuations from Afghanistan, and on Sunday the state department and 97 other countries announced they had reached an agreement with Taliban leaders to allow them to continue removing people from the country after Monday’s withdrawal.
“The Taliban has made commitments on safe passage and the world will hold them to their commitments,” President Joe Biden said in a statement on Monday.
A Taliban government
The decisions the Taliban make in the days following the US withdrawal will reverberate long into Afghanistan’s future.
The militant group has engaged in talks with Afghan power brokers -- including Hamid Karzai, the first president after the US invasion, and Abdullah Abdullah, No 2 in the ousted administration -- on forming a new government.
In press conferences and interviews with Western media, Taliban representatives have said their government will be more inclusive to women, offered amnesty to those who fought against them, and vowed to battle corruption.
Many in Kabul and most outside the country are sceptical, suspecting a rapid return to the brutality that defined Taliban rule in the late 1990s that some Afghans initially welcomed for bringing order in the wake of a bloody civil war. And with even the Taliban surprised at how quickly they seized power, it’s unclear if the group’s leaders can impose order within their own ranks of young, often poorly-educated fundamentalists.
But there’s some incentive for the Taliban to attempt a different approach. Ethnic and religious conflicts have defined politics in Afghanistan, and a viable powersharing agreement has long eluded the country’s rulers. To avoid yet another civil war, the largely Pashtun leaders in the Taliban will need buy-in from the ethnic Uzbeks, Tajiks and Hazaras that wield regional power.
That task becomes even taller with the Taliban facing terrorist threats of their own from a local offshoot of Islamic State. And in a digital age where mobile phone cameras put atrocities in the full view of the world, a reign of terror could again isolate Afghanistan from the world, destabilising the Taliban government.
Will the world recognize the Taliban?
For the US and its allied partners, a decision about how or if to recognise the Taliban government is a high-stakes diplomatic quandary wrapped in political dynamite. On Monday, a senior state department official said US recognition of a new government wouldn’t come anytime soon.
The White House so far has largely sidestepped the issue. Biden has said the legitimacy of the government in Afghanistan would depend on whether the Taliban upheld international obligations and prevented terrorist groups from taking hold.
The first formal recognition of the Taliban government by a major power is likely to come from China, which has previously welcomed Taliban representatives to Beijing and hinted at the possibility in recent public statements.
Can Afghanistan’s economy advance?
Afghanistan’s economy is on the brink of collapse, and the biggest challenge for the Taliban government will be averting further shocks that would result in spiking prices and a humanitarian crisis.
The Us-led war left large swaths of the Afghan economy dependent on foreign aid and financing. The economy has been thrown into further peril after the US froze nearly $9.5 billion in Afghanistan central bank assets and stopped shipments of cash to the nation.
Zahid Hamdard, the deputy finance minister in the recently deposed Afghan government, urged the global community to continue providing aid to the country, saying it would help get the new Taliban government “addicted to aid”.
Navigating the short-term crisis will be essential to the Taliban’s hopes of profiting from Afghanistan’s minerals wealth.