The million dollar pertinent question is how a terror group can be venerated and relied upon when the US too has listed several of the members of the Taliban Government as terrorists. Also, the American strategy of containing terrorism originating from Rawalpindi might become much more hoarse and strident leading to a further wedge in the relationship between Islamabad and Washington
With great power comes great responsibility. This age-old maxim is a pertinent poser before the American defence and strategic dispensation in a post-Taliban Afghanistan. Americans call their humanitarian and democratic zeal in Afghanistan part of their super cop and regulator stature imbued with yeomanly and philanthropic verve. Undeniably, there is an iota of value-laden foreign policy analysis premised upon what transpires in the larger global polity and the regional dynamics of South Asia. One can also cite, as an attendant strategic constraint, America’s failure to justify the long war, as far as the American presence in Afghanistan after September 11 is concerned. President Joe Biden arranged for the American withdrawal from the twilight zone’s battle stations but it is not his personal decision. The decision to make the exit had already been taken by President Donald Trump where-in, a deal was struck with the marauding Taliban that Afghanistan will not be deftly utilised as a springboard for terror attacks on the American homeland. President Biden has merely walked the talk as he persisted with the White House’s decision to evacuate the American interests from Afghanistan as the culmination of a mission.
The question that we need to ponder over is that is it the kosher time to leave Afghanistan? And, are the detractors correct when they contend that when the United States of America could not neutralise the Taliban in a two decade-long “Long Occupation” and the attendant “Long War”, could they have made a difference in the political and security scenario after the Kabul’s state forces collapsed without waging any major semblance of aggression and resistance.
Now, in the aftermath of the IS Kohorasan machinated casualties of American marines at the Kabul Airport, will Washington carry out a mission as they had done in 2014 in Iraq as the power vacuum there had been surreptitiously occupied by the Islamic State and its novae dictum of territorial dominance. One opinion contends that the US could have negotiated with the Taliban in Qatar and also continued to aid and abet the battle in the twilight zone of Afghanistan. American presence was required as it was hugely successful in diminishing the influence and the advent of the nefarious Islamic State (ISIS). American interests could have stayed on till the menace of the Taliban was completely eradicated. With the Pakistan strategic depth in the west of the contested Durand line, it was difficult for the US to topple the Talibani juggernaut. The excruciatingly high pace of a week within which the Mullah Baradar’s men overtook the entire nation was not adequately forecasted by the American think tanks and the American Fourth Estate. The US denomination was expecting the fall of the Taliban in two to three months but the mind boggling one sidedness of the long war’s culmination left even the most hardened analysts flummoxed by the high riding military spectacle of the Taliban vis-a-vis the defence strivings forwarded by the NATO aided and US backed ANSF.
Now, as the Taliban have emerged triumphant in Kabul and beyond the capital, what one can eke out for the role-play of the Americans? Though it would be too far-fetched to compare the American withdrawal with the dirty war, that is, the American intervention in Vietnam, still, the American resolve has not been so quintessentially steely and stealthy as was expected when the outcome of the American nay-saying is there to be witnessed and captioned by all and sundry. America would either have to rebalance its ties with the Islamic Republic of Pakistan in the light of Prime Minister Imran Khan shamelessly wishing for the Taliban’s ascendance along with his ISI chief’s hobnobbing with the Taliban. As Pakistan has always enjoyed the status of a frontline state for the US, one can witness a re-run of the eighties and nineties when the Americans seldom quizzed Pakistan about their efforts in propping up the Taliban’s fervid Frankenstein.
The US will have its task cut out as the New Delhi dispensation will point at the new camaraderie which has been spawned between the Taliban and Chinese President Xi Jinping. Since the last couple of years, a few Taliban negotiators have visited Beijing and it appears as the wreath of China-Taliban nexus rolls out, the Taliban have promised China of not letting Afghanistan turn a springboard for anti-China forces. The Taliban’s promissory note contends that Taliban will not let ETIM (East Turkistan Islamic Movement) foment insidious acts of separatism and insurgency in the turbulent province of Xinxiang in China and also the Taliban have expressed a desire to invite the OBOR and BRI initiative akin to the CPEC in Pakistan in order to take up the mantle of development and growth in Afghanistan. America can be assaulted with terror attacks as its widely believed that the Taliban have well delineated linkages with al-Qaeda which can utilise the Afghani space as a platform and rostrum for planning and executing ministrations against the American homeland as they had done twenty odd years back at the World Trade Towers behemoth as posited by the American Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken. President Biden too dished out heady rhetoric when he vowed to avenge the death of American marines at the Kabul Airport as he declared, “We will not be inactive. The perpetrators of the American casualties will be dealt with assiduously, with alacrity and immediately”.
C Rajamohan astutely declares and analyses in the Foreign Policy magazine that, “The withdrawal of all US troops from Afghanistan is likely to accelerate current trends in India’s relations with the US, China, and Russia: greater cooperation with Washington, deeper conflicts with Beijing, and wider fissures in the traditional strategic partnership with Moscow. Reinforcing these structural shifts — and their mirror image — are Pakistan’s changing relations with the US, China, and Russia.”
Thus, it is bound to witness a splurge in the context of systemic and structural modifications as far as India and the US are concerned. The proximity of the Indian State of Kashmir to Kabul and the rekindled Pakistan’s ambition might bring the White House and New Delhi closer to each other as it’s the very own dictum of the US, GWOT,(Global War on Terror), which is bound to take a new violent turn in the near future.
Also, the American strategy of containing terrorism originating from Rawalpindi might too become much more hoarse and strident leading to a further wedge in the relationship between Islamabad and Washington. The White House needs to realise that India will be impacted by the jehad from Taliban-occupied Afghanistan, though the Taliban have promised otherwise. The million dollar pertinent question is how can a terror group be venerated and relied upon when the US too has listed several of the members of the Taliban Government as terrorists. Can the Americans trust a nation whose cabinet ministers ride in SUVs and carry guns in meetings in the Presidential house with the heady rolls of bullets hanging afire. It brings us back to the strivings of Jaswant Singh during the Indian passenger plane’s hijacking to Kandahar.
The same game returns akin to the classical great game but it is very apparent that if the terror factory and enterprise goes awry in Afghanistan, then the US might have to rethink on a “re-surge” of intervention in order to stem a conflagration in South Asia. And is it a mission unaccomplished, as far as, the reconstruction and nation building responsibilities of the US go?
(The writer teaches at International Relations and International Organisations, IIPA, New Delhi)