Geopolitical truths, paradoxes, myths and uncertainty

As hurricane Ida barreled into the Gulf state of Louisiana on Sunday – 16 years to the day after hurricane Katrina caused widespread havoc – with winds reaching 150 mph, public attention understandably veered momentarily from the tragedy unfolding in Afghanistan.

There, days earlier, more than 170 people were killed, including 13 American service members in a terrorist attack attributed to the Islamic State-Khorasan, (IS-K), the Afghan affiliate of the Islamic State. Now, as the herculean effort to evacuate as many people – Americans, Afghans and others – as possible winds down, with 1,200 airlifted days before the 31 August deadline expires, attention is inevitably shifting away in other directions. PRESIDENCY OF CRISES Before directing our gaze towards them, a note should be taken that, according to CNN, a total of 116,700 people were evacuated from the Afghan capital since 14 August. While that is a remarkable logistical achievement by any reckoning, unfortunately a sea of people who wish to leave Afghanistan before Tuesday’s deadline comes into effect, are destined to be left behind to an agonizing, uncertain future.

In the meantime, hurricane Ida, the Afghanistan exit and an unhappy pandemic situation have exacerbated President Joe Biden’s presidency of crises, even as a mass of geopolitical truths, paradoxes, myths, and numbing uncertainty – bound to impact American foreign policy and international relations, generally - is enmeshed, opaquely, in the unfolding tragic Afghan saga. In attempting to grapple with such a broad spectrum of themes, let me begin with the question now uppermost in minds of many people in policy-making or policyinfluencing positions: can the U.S. work with the Taliban in Afghanistan? For starters, Washington Post columnist David

Ignatius dealing directly with the issue notes, 20 August, this paradox: After fighting the Taliban for 20 years, the United States is now turning to it for security assistance as it tries to evacuate Americans and Afghan allies from the country.

Ignatius asks: can this militant group become a reliable partner? Does the United States want to see the Taliban succeed or fail in its efforts to stabilize and rule the country? Under what conditions should Biden recognize it?

Ignatius hints that answers may lie in the following recommendation he attributes to Carl Malkasian, a former State Department official in Afghanistan, who has talked extensively with Taliban leaders: that the

United States’ condition recognition and support on the Taliban’s willingness to accept power-sharing and reconciliation – and a stronger commitment to stop al-Qaeda or other groups from attacking the United States.

A Washington Post story, 29 August – by John Hudson, Karoun Demirjian and Dan Lamothe – opine that the United States’ future relations with the Taliban is unclear but inform that the Biden administration is “actively discussing” the Taliban’s request with U.S. allies and partners in the region – but that the United States has not yet engaged directly with the Taliban to discuss what form a diplomatic mission might take.

They surmise that the lack of a set plan all but ensures that the United States’ diplomatic presence in Kabul will lapse for weeks, months or even longer, potentially complicating the Biden administration’s ability to make good on recent assurances that although the U.S. military is departing the country by Tuesday, the United States will continue to help Americans and Afghans who want to leave after they are gone.

The Post account informs that in considering retaining a diplomatic presence, State Department spokesman Ned Price said that the safety and security of U.S. personnel in that mission would be “first and foremost on our minds,” particularly after Thursday’s deadly suicide bombing.

An earlier Post story from Kabul by Susannah George, Ezzatullah Mehrdad, and Sudarsan Ravhavan had indicated that despite its brutality and harsh Islamic codes, the Taliban was accepted by many Afghans who had lived under its rule for a singular reason: The militants were thought to provide better security than previous governments, more so than any other force that had emerged in Afghanistan.

Hence, they claimed that after an IS-K suicide bomber killed 13 U.S. service members and at least 170 Afghans at Kabul airport, there was little faith among some Afghans in the Taliban’s ability or willingness to prevent future attacks.

TALIBAN 2.0 AND MYTHS Be that as it may, there is nevertheless considerable discussion reported in the international media about a ‘reformed’ Taliban or Taliban 2.0, as it is also referred to. An account in the Post from Kabul by George, 26 August, links the possibility of a ‘reformed’ Taliban to the vastly changed circumstances of the present where a ‘cashstrapped Taliban seeks political deal to legitimize government’.

As she informs: “The Taliban is scrambling to reach a deal with former Afghan officials to establish a government that could gain international recognition, keep the money flowing into the country and restore access to billions of dollars in international reserves…For the Taliban a political settlement could help the group avoid again becoming an international pariah, which could push one of the world’s poorest countries even further into poverty…"

“Most countries say they want to see a formal political transfer of power before recognizing a new government in Afghanistan; others, like Russia and China, suggest their decision could be based more on maintaining regional stability.”

Pervez Hoodbhoy, a Dawn columnist, meanwhile, 28 August, says that the Taliban now want to be seen as rulers rather than just a religious militia. They are eager to secure political legitimacy, both internationally and among Afghans.

So, what will Taliban 2.0 look like?

In my view, let’s not jump the gun, right now. Why not just wait and see what appearance the Taliban take, after their government is in place and their actions are subject to international scrutiny? My gut-instinct is that it will represent a sort of halfway house; a hybrid between its past repressive image and that of modern, secular democracy.

Not surprisingly, there are myths galore that surround the Taliban. Five of them have been usefully collated and analyzed by Ashley Jackson, in the Post, 29 August. They are listed in brief below.

Pakistan controls the Taliban. As per Jackson:

“It’s true that the Taliban could not have resurrected itself after 2001 without support, sanctuary, funding and protection from Pakistan’s primary intelligence agency (ISI), and other actors. But it is a complicated relationship… The Taliban has repeatedly resisted Pakistani pressure…More recently, the Taliban has tried to widen its diplomatic relations with senior figures seeking to build its ties with China, Russia, Indonesia, and even Iran, in part to lessen Pakistan’s grip.

The Taliban fragment easily. Says Jackson: Indeed, the Taliban is not homogenous. Its leaders have had to accommodate commanders and fighters with diverse interests and viewpoints, allowing them leeway at the local level… But the Taliban have shown itself to be a cohesive and disciplined organization… It has acted as one when it truly mattered.

The Taliban has a plan for running Afghanistan. As per Jackson: For all its military success, the Taliban has no blueprint for a post-victory state. The group’s public statements suggest that it didn’t expect the Afghan government to fall this quickly and have been caught unprepared… Which explains why it has taken this long to form a government.

The Taliban will bring back al-Qaeda. In Jackson’s opinion: The Taliban’s refusal to give up al-Qaeda after 9/11 was the main justification for the war in Afghanistan…The Taliban has never renounced or broken ties with al-Qaeda, a group that remains popular among the Taliban fighters, and forsaking it in favor of the United States is a political nonstarter… Al-Qaeda is a dramatically diminished presence numbering a few hundred fighters by U.S. intelligence estimates. And the Taliban, never interested in international jihad, has little reason to allow alQaeda to regroup, given the likely dire consequences for its rule should it do so…. An al-Qaeda resurgence is in no way inevitable, and much depends on how the international community engages with the Taliban on this issue now.

The Taliban doesn’t reflect Afghanistan’s diversity. In Jackson’s assessment: Afghanistan’s decades of conflict have often tracked along ethnic and tribal lines, with the Taliban seen as dominated by select tribal cadres among the nation’s largest ethnic group, the Pushtuns. Indeed, the Taliban’s rise has long been portrayed in Western media as a Pushtun issue…That might have been true in the 1990s, but the Taliban’s recent takeover was partly premised on ethnic and tribal outreach far beyond its Pushtun base.

INDIA AND PAKISTAN

For me, a revealing geopolitical sideshow of the aftermath of the Taliban’s sudden, sweeping victory in Afghanistan is how it has played out with vis-à-vis two prominent American political figures: to wit, John Bolton, former National Security Adviser to former President Donald Trump, and Trump soulmate, Lindsay Graham, Republican Senator from South Carolina.

In a fulsome Post op-piece 24 August, Bolton forcefully declares: ‘We can’t keep equivocating about Pakistan’ arguing that ‘with Kabul’s fall, the time for neglect or equivocation is over.’ In his view, “The Taliban takeover next door immediately poses the sharply higher risk that Pakistani extremists will increase their already sizeable influence in Islamabad, threatening at some point to seize full control.”

In an overly alarmist vein Bolton argues: “Obviously the world doesn’t need another terrorist regime, but the risk in Pakistan is of an entirely different order of magnitude, even compared with the menace of al-Qaeda or the Islamic State gaining secure bases in Afghanistan…While Iran still aspires only to nuclear weapons, Pakistan has dozens, perhaps more than 150, according to public sources…

“Absent clear evidence that Pakistan has terminated assistance to the Taliban, the United States should eliminate its own aid to Islamabad; strike Pakistan from the list of ‘major non-NATO allies’; impose anti-terrorist sanctions; and more. Our tilt towards India should accelerate.” And so on.

Graham, in contrast, in a tweet published in Dawn, 28 August, revealed that he had discussions 27 August with Pakistan Ambassador Asad Majeed Khan in Washington. In his tweet, he called the region “very complicated” and the current period “very dangerous” followed by this kicker: that “Pakistan must be part of a ‘sustainable solution’ to the conflict in Afghanistan.”

Graham also cautioned, “We must all remember Pakistan is a nucleararmed nation and there is a Pakistani version of the Taliban that wants to topple the Pakistan government and military.”

After leaving the reader to savor the difference between the Bolton and Graham viewpoints, as outlined above, let us now turn our focus to New Delhi’s take on the question of recognition of a Taliban government in Kabul.

For starters, take note that Taliban leader, Sher Mohammed Abbas Stanikzai – who trained at the Indian Military Academy in Dehradun, according to ThePrint, 29 August – released a public statement on 28 August, saying that the Taliban wanted to maintain “good relations” with India. Stanikzai was deputy minister for foreign affairs, and later deputy minister for health, till 2001, when the Taliban was first in power. He has been head of