Taliban Afghanistan with a Dash of Pakistan, Now What?

To most nations in the world, for obvious reasons, the Taliban’s brutal theocracy is a rogue and illegitimate state. As a result, Afghan money in overseas banks has, for the most part, been blocked. As Kathy Gannon, writing for the October 9th Associated Press notes, one of the biggest issues that the newly configured Afghan Taliban faces is “who will provide funds to stave off a full economic meltdown and looming humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan. Since the Taliban’s takeover, billions of dollars in aid have been frozen. Nearly 80% of the former Afghan government’s budget was funded by international donors.”

As our Congress faces a wave of sanction seeking legislators (22 Republican Senators have introduced a sanction bill), Americans are still visualizing the horrific and violent evacuation of Americans plus a few US-loyal Afghans and watching the degradation of women in the entire nation. There is little sympathy for the Taliban as they struggle to figure out how to run the country, very different from their prior governance two decades ago. But a collapsing Taliban-run nation does not mean a restoration of some form of democratic rule. It portends a failed state, starvation and extreme danger to anyone entering the country to help. Utter chaos.

The Taliban’s Afghan troubles seem endless. Even ISIS is attacking Afghanistan from within as Samya Kullab and Tameem Akhga tell us in the October 9th Los Angeles Times: “An Islamic State suicide bomber struck a mosque packed with Shiite Muslim worshipers in northern Afghanistan on Friday [10/8], killing at least 46 people and wounding dozens in the latest security challenge to the Taliban as it transitions from insurgency to governance.

“In its claim of responsibility, the region’s Islamic State affiliate identified the bomber as a Uyghur Muslim, saying the attack targeted both Shiites and the Taliban for their purported willingness to expel Uyghurs to meet demands from China. The statement was carried by the Islamic State-linked Aamaq news agency… Islamic State has also claimed two deadly bombings in Kabul, including the Aug. 26 blast that killed at least 169 Afghans and 13 U.S. military personnel outside the Kabul airport in the final days of the American pullout from Afghanistan.

“Islamic State also claimed responsibility for a bombing Sunday [10/3] outside Kabul’s Eid Gah Mosque that killed at least five civilians. A madrassa, or religious school, was attacked in Khost province on Wednesday [10/6] by unknown assailants.” To put it mildly, Afghanistan is an unstable mess. As US representatives meet with Pakistani leaders to discuss this new Taliban administration, there is serious tension in the air. Pakistan is trying to figure out how to live with a Taliban theocracy on its border… while maintaining relations with the US, which has its own agenda.

For Pakistan (still nominally our ally), caught in a pressure battle between their interests as opposed to the United States and a host of other nations who abhor any notion of helping the Taliban, the risks are monumental. Their fear: a collapsed Afghan state, hundreds of thousands of desperate and starving refugees, all fleeing their homeland. To Pakistan. Sure, there are other border nations. But Shiite Iran – the spiritual apostasy to a very Sunni Afghanistan – is not a nation that most Afghan refugees would consider. Except for neighboring Pakistan, the remaining border nations are within the Russian orbit. 

While the US may engage the Taliban for diplomatic necessities through Qatar, that tiny country is nowhere near the Afghan border. Thus, the United States pretty much needs Pakistan in its effort to evacuate Americans and Afghans who supported the US in its 20-year war and to help contain the expected growth of anti-American terrorist groups already growing within Afghanistan. However, as described below, Pakistan has its own share of issues that make obliging Washington very difficult.

To make matters worse, there is a wave of supporting religious sentiment in Pakistan that does not augur well for the existing government. “Pakistan faces fierce opposition among its population of 220 million to any accommodation to Washington for attacks on Afghanistan… A Gallup Pakistan Poll released late Thursday [10/7] showed that 55% of Pakistanis surveyed favored an Islamic government like the one operated by the Taliban in Afghanistan. The survey was conducted between Aug. 13 and Sept. 5 and polled 2,170 men and women in cities and in rural areas of Pakistan. It gave a margin of error between 2% and 3%.” AP.

Within this complex set of conflicting variables, the discussions between the United States and Pakistan on how to handle this Taliban state illustrate anything but an alignment of interests. Pakistan clearly wants financial stability in its new neighbor, just as many nations, including the US, are moving to withhold needed financing. A meeting between US and Pakistani officials on October 8th “came amid an array of unsettled issues. They include questions such as the level of future engagement with the Taliban in Afghanistan and the ongoing evacuation of foreign nationals and Afghans who want to flee the country’s new rulers…

“Even as it shies away from unilateral formal recognition, Pakistan has been pressing for greater engagement with the all-male, all-Taliban Cabinet that the insurgents set up after they overran Afghanistan in mid-August, in the final weeks of the U.S. and NATO pullout from the country.

“Pakistan has also urged Washington to release billions of dollars to the Taliban so that it can pay salaries of the many Afghan ministries and avoid an economic meltdown. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has warned that such a crash could trigger a mass migration.

“Washington, which spent almost two full years negotiating peace with the Taliban, is still smarting from its exit from Afghanistan after 20 years of war. Images of desperate Afghan men running alongside a departing American C-17 cargo jet, some falling to their death from the wheel well, have come to represent the mayhem of the U.S. withdrawal.

“Still, the United States is quietly talking to some Taliban leaders and Taliban Cabinet ministers to secure the evacuation of American nationals remaining in Afghanistan and others.” AP. The results of those talks? “Senior Taliban officials and U.S. representatives [were] meeting [on 10/9] in Doha, the capital of Qatar. Officials from both sides have said issues include reining in extremist groups and the evacuation of foreign citizens and Afghans from the country. The Taliban has signaled flexibility on evacuations… However, Taliban political spokesman Suhail Shaheen told the Associated Press there would be no cooperation with Washington on containing the increasingly active Islamic State group [and other Islamists] in Afghanistan.” AP, October 10th.   

Sentiments back in the United States would make it exceptionally difficult to release funds that would wind up supporting a Taliban government, particularly with resistance to containing anti-US extremists. But without those funds, Afghanistan may just become the failed state, an even worse breeding ground for Islamist terrorists with US citizens and assets in their crosshairs. We already lost once in Afghanistan. We may lose again. In the meantime, we may be considering some financial assistance. After the above talks, the American negotiators said that the two sides “discussed the United States’ provision of robust humanitarian assistance, directly to the Afghan people.” Sounds like a technical way of aiding the Taliban government without aiding the Taliban government. Huh? Stay tuned.

I’m Peter Dekom, and as much as the United States wishes the Afghan War to be relegated to an old and past bad memory, it just might be a recurring nightmare.