Springtime in Afghanistan – Talibondage

It helped push the Soviet Union over the edge into extinction: fighting an unwinnable war across some of the most rugged terrain on earth amid factions fired by foreign intervention, local warlords and a polyglot of language and culture. Wikipedia summarizes: “The Soviet–Afghan War lasted over nine years, from December 1979 to February 1989. Insurgent groups known collectively as the mujahideen, as well as smaller Maoist groups, fought a guerrilla war against the Soviet Army and the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan government, mostly in the rural countryside. The mujahideen groups were backed primarily by the United States, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan, making it a Cold War proxy war. Between 562,000and 2,000,000 civilians were killed and millions of Afghans fled the country as refugees, mostly to Pakistan and Iran.”

That was then. When President George W Bush retaliated against the Taliban-controlled nation that harbored the 9/11/01 terrorists and allowed them to train there, we began a war that continues to this very day… where little more than the region around the capital city of Kabul remains in the hands of the government we installed, among the most corrupt on earth. Most of our remaining troops are on a “training” mission, but the war rages on.

During the Soviet war, we funneled money and arms to the mujahideen to topple our Soviet enemy, mostly through the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI), which has always had strong fundamentalist Sunni leanings. After the war (starting in 1994), with tons of unofficial support from Saudi Arabian sources and quick to take advantage of a power vacuum, one particular faction of Sunni fundamentalists rose above the clutter: they called themselves “Taliban” (literally the “students”… followers of a particularly strict view of the Qur’an). Since the 1970s, one key faction, a powerful and driving force within the Afghan Taliban, was the Haqqani network, which was founded by Jalaluddin Haqqani. That network, quite alive in both Pakistan and Afghanistan, has risen even higher in power and stature in the contemporary Taliban hierarchy.

Saudi money was literally pouring into Sunni fundamentalist schools (madrassa), and the Taliban gathered recruits and weapons that had grown strong during the earlier war, many of whom had settled into the border region in Pakistan, the ungovernable Pakistani Tribal District. Soon, the entire country was under Taliban control, which was nominally toppled when U.S. forces attacked after 9/11. “Mission Accomplished” cried President George W Bush in full combat gear. Wrong! The government we installed, corrupt from the get-go, never controlled the entire nation. We kept shoveling money at them, soldiers in the field, air strikes, but to this day, the “democracy” we imposed controls far less land than the reincarnated Taliban (the latter controls 70% of the nation).

There isn’t the slightest possibility of Kabul’s defeating the surrounding Taliban and the few remaining warlords who will not let go absent an escalation in the American presence well beyond anything the Soviets ever contemplated. And we know that ain’t happenin’!

But it’s springtime in Afghanistan, after yet another harsh winter, and what has now become an annual “new beginning” tradition is back. The Taliban annual spring offensive. The May 7^th The Cipher Brief explains: “Violence once again grips Afghanistan, with the Taliban, the Islamic State and other terror groups carrying out deadly attacks and kidnappings across the country. Last month, the Taliban announced the beginning of its annual ‘spring offensive,’ and this past weekend bombed a mosque that was being used as a voter registration center, killing 14 and injuring dozens more…

“Bottom Line: The Afghan Taliban is mounting an increasingly lethal insurgency across Afghanistan, as both U.S. troops and Afghan Security Forces face near-everyday violence throughout the country. With the Taliban gaining momentum and reasserting control in remote, loosely governed parts of the country, the window for reaching a negotiated peace to end the ongoing conflict is rapidly closing.” Read: We are going to lose this one big time. While this effort can hardly be blamed on Donald Trump, he most certainly will take the blame for so isolating America foreign policy from that of our purported allies so as to saddle the United States with the ultimate responsibility for our failed efforts in the region. How will The Donald explain this loss to the American people?

And as our president’s need to take credit for everything good – like the looming settlement of animosity on the Korean Peninsula – there is a natural revulsion from leaders of nations having to make compromises, such as North Korea and Iran, to allow Trump to claim “his” success. This revulsion could easily derail what might otherwise might have worked just to prove how ineffective “bully and name-calling” Donald Trump really is in such sensitive matters. We should expect the balance of the Trump presidency to rise and sink within these ego-driven parameters. Americans will be the biggest losers. It will take years to reverse… if we even can.

I’m Peter Dekom, and “bully” diplomacy only works when the bully is ready to put up a huge military commitment that no one believes the United States can mount in its currently highly polarized state.