P Kharel

Curtains are down in Afghanistan as far as the presence of foreign troops is concerned. Only the most novices or someone shameless feigning are surprised over the unfolding events in that devastatingly conflict-ridden poverty-stricken country. The excessively delayed response to demands for the pull-out proved not only costly but internationally embarrassing for the mightiest superpower that fought its longest losing battle. Countdown had begun since the time US President Joe Biden announced that the American troops would be withdrawn from Afghanistan. By early August, the Taliban encircled the capital Kabul.

If the mighty NATO and some of the other best equipped fighting forces could not find a breakthrough after two decades of war, how would the Kabul troops fare at the hands of the Taliban? The British newspaper, The Telegraph, sounded an unconvincing bugle: “No one should be under any illusion about the consequences of the Afghanistan withdrawal. Those who served there should be proud of their achievements.”
However, US President Biden has affirmed that he would not send another generation of troops to Afghanistan. It is an admission that the war was not worth undertaking. Average Afghans are bitter about the protracted foreign presence in their country these past 20 years, which claimed the lives of more than 160,000 Afghans, including 100,000 civilians.

Blame game
Britain’s Guardian news outlet opined that the US must bear the single-largest share of blame for the “military disaster” in Afghanistan. On its part, the White House accused the Afghan military of “decades of mismanagement of war effort”. Washington’s latest public stand is that the Afghans themselves need to rise to the task against the Taliban. “They’ve got to fight for themselves, fight for their nation,” Biden said.
The sad story behind the 2003 invasion in Afghanistan was a massive miscalculation by the US-led big powers. The invading forces thought Afghanistan was an easy picking, only to find out to heavy costs in terms of prestige lost and more than $1 trillion wasted. Invading the land was far easier than leaving it.

NATO fell victim to the trap it had created. Now its embarrassed and frustrated member forces are engaged in either a blame game or vainly trying to put up an unconvincing brave face. In the process, they sound discordant tones while the rest of the world can see through the transparent discrepancies-laden declarations of the defeated lot.
In a shameless blame game, the United Kingdom regrets the US decision to withdraw, and holds it responsible for the Ghani regime’s subsequent trail of setbacks. Why can’t Great Britain start from the US is ending? Hanging on to the US coattails for a share in world domination won’t work much any longer.

The Afghan military resistance to the Taliban troops tottered and collapsed at a speed NATO had bewilderingly not expected. It just showed NATO’s amazingly poor power in assessing the actual strength of the Kabul-directed forces that were trained, armed and counselled by Washington and its allies. Clearly, it ignored the saying: one can take the horse to a pond but cannot compel it to drink.
Even as the invading forces returned home and lick the deep wound suffered in the far-off foreign land, their governments try to shield the failure either by blaming the incompetent Ashraf Ghani regime or the mismanagement of Afghan military and the inopportune timing of the US pull-out. As late as the 2019 presidential campaign, Biden had thundered that American troops would not be pulled out without a proper breakthrough, unlike what had happened in Vietnam. The words have begun to boomerang on the president amid the ugly blame game.

Abandoning friends and allies when things go bad too far is not anything knew. South Vietnam’s President Nguyen Van Thieu in 1975, Iran’s Shah in 1979, Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines in 1986, Afghanistan’s President Mohammad Najibullah in 1996, Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak in 2011 and, now, Ghani last week tell the tales loud and clear. The long-ruling leaders, backed by foreign powers as long as the going was good, could stand the political wrath of the times and met ugly exits, some of them quite brutal. They were abandoned like rats do to a sinking ship.

Meanwhile, the big powers not party to the NATO misadventure seek some space in the strategically important South Asian state that has throughout history repelled, expelled or defeated all foreign forces. China has been waiting since long for NATO to quit Afghanistan and pave way for it an opening of a non-military type to begin with. Economic and strategic interests are Beijing’s priority. Its Belt and Road Initiative could find a new thrust in a country that geographically connects West East, Central Asia and Europe.

Strategic search
The Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen has described China as a “welcome friend” in Afghanistan, and assured that investments would be welcome. The Taliban engaged in some quick thinking in preparation for the new political landscape in the offing after the last foreign soldier left Afghan soil. However, there remains an air of unpredictability of any lasting peace even if the Taliban have staged a comeback to seat of power. Afghanistan attracts some powers in as much as a candle flame does to a moth.

Having deluded themselves for so long, the quitters are expressing surprise as to why the Taliban advanced so swiftly after the foreign troops pulled out. They have only themselves to heap the blame for the ridiculous state of being surprised, considering that even a speck in the writing world such as this pen pusher, since the very beginning, had warned time and again that the Afghan rebels could not be defeated, if history were anything to go by.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson says his country is “extremely proud” of its role in Afghanistan, even if the situation there had “deteriorated” after the troops withdrawal. At the same time, he admitted: “There is no military solution to the Afghan situation.” And there never will be. Just read and reread history to let Afghanistan be Afghanistan.

(Professor Kharel specialises in political communication.)