Fears for future after exiting Afghanistan

THE final withdrawal from Afghanistan continued to dominate the newspaper comment sections with speculation on what the future holds.

Daily Mail

Richard Littlejohn said the war in Afghanistan was “all over bar the shouting”. “Militarily, the game’s up. Yet the shouting goes on, as Western politicians try to salvage some face from the rubble,” he said. “Incredibly, Boris Johnson has dangled the possibility of establishing formal diplomatic relations with the new regime in Kabul.”

He said the Prime Minister is offering to double our humanitarian and development aid to £286 million if the Taliban promise not to allow their country to become a haven for international terrorists targeting the West. The columnist added: “I’m surprised he hasn’t already invited the Taliban to take part in the upcoming COP26 climate summit in Scotland. I can just see him posing for photos with Wee Burney, Sleepy Joe Biden and one of the mad mullahs.”

Daily Express

Jessica Taneja said Taliban 2.0 was a laughable PR construct.

“With the elimination of foreign aid, the Afghan economy will collapse,” she said. “Lack of proper infrastructure and resources will give rise to terrorist activities, pushing Afghanistan into further conflict. With zero focus on health and education provision the Afghan economy will bomb and we can expect a refugee exodus and hyperinflation.”

She said it was difficult to decipher to how the Taliban will keep either the peace or the economy afloat. “Hasty and unplanned withdrawal of US forces has not only created a political void but also a major security concern. The war-torn nation has seen 42 years of instability and bitter conflict, history reminds us both foreign and regional forces failed to bring in stability to the region.”

The Guardian

Mohammad Ali Shabani, editor of Amwaj.media, said that to understand what may come next for Afghanistan and the world, more attention needs to be paid to the tectonic shifts in the Arab and Iranian involvement in

Afghanistan. “Tehran has gradually engaged with the Taliban as a partner in its goal of expelling the ‘great Satan’ from the region,” he said. “And today, the Iranian political establishment openly accommodates the Afghan group. In the past, Afghanistan was a stage for the widely mutually detrimental Iran-saudi rivalry across the region. That prospect is not likely to re-emerge.”

He said Iran could yet again seek leverage over the Taliban by backing its opponents in Afghanistan,

“Or ... the continuing cold war between Qatar and the UAE could well spill over on to Afghan soil, as it has in Libya. Unless the worst of these and other competitions are checked and regulated, the consequences will not be confined to Afghanistan.”