How another global power joined the ‘graveyard of empires’

It was less than two months ago that US President Joe Biden pledged to the visiting Afghan President Ashraf Ghani as they stood in one of the symbols of global power, the Oval Office, that the US would remain committed to the integrity and wellbeing of Afghanistan after the departure of American forces.

Biden’s remark that “Afghans are going to have to decide their future, what they want,” smacked of either naivety or outright disingenuousness. As it transpired within a matter of days, America’s sole commitment in Afghanistan was to withdraw its own people as quickly as possible in fear of the advancing Taliban forces. As for the Afghan people, they know that from now on it is a political movement that applied the most strict interpretation of Shariah during its time in power that ended in 2001, a movement that committed horrific atrocities against its own people including public executions and punishment by amputation, and which used sheer brutality to completely exclude women from education and all other aspects of public life, which is going to decide their future, not themselves.

There is no need for further evidence of the sense of sheer terror felt by so many Afghans in the face of the Taliban’s return, beyond the sight of vast numbers of them trying to leave the country, some desperately clinging to US military aircraft in a last-ditch attempt to flee their homeland.

The more the US and its NATO allies discard comparisons of the rushed evacuation of Kabul with events in Saigon in 1975, the less convincing they sound. The present debacle is probably even worse testimony to the failure of key foreign policy goals and the moral bankruptcy that has been exposed. The parallels are way too obvious, and once again there is humiliation for Washington in failing to achieve an objective that was conceptually flawed from the outset, and practically unachievable. To make things worse for a global power such as the US, there are also wider regional and global geopolitical implications, just as the new administration in Washington was trying to claw back its position of international predominance and relevance and restore its credibility among allies and foes alike. The fall of Afghanistan into the hands of the very people that US-led Western troops toppled in 2001 is a humiliation that will reverberate throughout the international arena for years to come.

Admittedly, Biden’s administration inherited from his predecessor a flawed withdrawal agreement with the Taliban. But there was nothing to stop the president from revising it, especially in light of the Taliban cherry picking from the deal while it continued to capture more and more territory and strategic locations. However, Biden was led by his long-held skepticism toward US overseas interventions, and ignored the price of his decision to leave with immediate effect, which was to be seen as running away from a failure and in the process abandoning the Afghan people to their fate. This might have been considered a sober strategic outlook, or a more personal move by a father whose son served as an officer in Iraq and who declared after announcing his decision to bring the troops home: “I’m the first president in 40 years who knows what it means to have a child serving in a war zone.” There is much to be said against military interventions abroad thatinvolve regime change, most of which end in failure. But the decision to leave had to be taken in the context of wider geopolitical implications for the US and other countries. It will take many years and tremendous efforts for the US to restore its credibility as a world leader and also as a champion of humanitarian causes.

Throughout the 20 years since 9/11, the US and its allies vacillated between the original objective of routing Al-Qaeda, a wider counter-terrorism campaign, a nation-building project, or a counter-narcotic campaign. But it became apparent that none of these aims could be accomplished in a satisfactory way, and now the return of the Taliban may open the way for Afghanistan becoming once again a hub for extreme militant groups, Al-Qaeda- or Daesh-style. In contrast with the hurried departure of US diplomatic personnel, representatives of the two countries singled out by Biden as America’s main rivals on the world stage, China and Russia, could hardly hide their glee in the face of America’s failure to prevent the triumphant return of the Taliban, while their own diplomats stay put in Kabul. Both Russia and China, despite real concerns of a possible spillover of Taliban-style ideology into their spheres of influence, have suggested that given the right conditions they might recognise the Taliban as Afghanistan’s legitimate government. Only recently, Taliban co-founder Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar met China’s foreign minister Wang Yi, and photos of this meeting were widely publicized to underline the pragmatic attitude China takes toward the Taliban and its role in Afghanistan.

The more the US and its NATO allies discard comparisons of the rushed evacuation of Kabul with events in Saigon in 1975, the less convincing they sound.

Yossi Mekelberg

The Taliban’s victory may also be a cause of satisfaction in Pakistan, which for many years has facilitated the movement’s return to power. This sense of contentment is enhanced by the concern of its arch-rival India at the resultant rise of militancy in Kashmir. But the resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan is no more than a poisoned chalice for Pakistan, since it has strengthened the Pakistani Taliban, which has never hidden its intention to follow in the footsteps of its sister movement on the other side of the border, and has not refrained from committing atrocities within Pakistan, including deadly attacks on schools.

For the US and its Western allies these are days of defeat and humiliation, mixed with concerns about how a Taliban-led Afghanistan will affect their own security, and also worries that this will lead to a new refugee crisis. However, for the likes of China and Russia, who are enjoying a moment of schadenfreude, things may well end with the Taliban’s toxic and brutal ideology coming back to haunt them.

The interests of the main world powers will be best served if they cooperate in Afghanistan and help to bring stability there, for their own sake and that of the Afghan people, by setting the Taliban clear red lines. Otherwise, Afghanistan may once again become a base for spreading extremism and terrorism, and with it another humanitarian disaster that could destabilise the region and beyond.

• Yossi Mekelberg is professor of international relations and an associate fellow of the MENA Program at Chatham House. He is a regular contributor to the international written and electronic media. Twitter: @YMekelberg