Maria Laura Avignolo
08/16/2021 1:29 PM
Clarín.com
World
Updated 08/16/2021 1:29 PM
The Taliban control Afghanistan.
Twenty years after the Western occupation he not only survived but achieved victory, with a good knowledge of his country and despite tribal differences.
Dr.
Luciano Zaccara
is a researcher on Gulf issues at the University of Qatar in Doha and has closely followed the negotiations between the United States and the Taliban sponsored by former President Donald Trump to leave Afghanistan.
His vision is clear: if negotiations were started, it is because the United States wanted to leave and the Taliban knew they had won the war.
The Afghans were to be left to their own devices.
“In 20 years you cannot reform a tribal society that has been going on for millennia.
And I believe that this process of building the State from above, unfortunately
proved to fail
.
Despite the
huge amount of money
that has been put into creating institutions, creating an electoral system that is transparent.
This has shown that it is useless, that the context is not given, "he explains.
"Despite training security forces, 45,000 members of the armed forces were killed. The Taliban have never lost power.
Nothing was built
. Everything was a superstructure in these 20 years," he adds from Doha, when preparing a meeting between the Taliban, the United States and what was left of
an idea of a
transitional
government
, which the vertiginous crisis swept through on Sunday.
This was Dr. Zaccara's conversation with
Clarín
on the phone from Doha,
when Kabul fell
and thousands of Afghans fled to the airport to save their lives.
-Kabul fell, is this a great defeat for NATO and the United States in Afghanistan, as Lord Richard, the former British military chief, said?
-Yes.
From a diplomatic, strategic and military point of view, it has been an absolute failure, after 20 years, to return to exactly the same point we left it in the 90's. And despite all the training, despite all the investment, Despite all the efforts made by the international community, mainly in the United States and Europe, to build a State, an infrastructure, institutions, and the armed forces, in the end the fall of Kabul happened so quickly.
"That the capitals have been handed over so quickly to the Taliban shows that nothing has been built," says Zaccara.
Photo: Néstor García
That the capitals have been handed over so quickly to the Taliban shows that nothing has actually been built.
Everything has been superstructure.
There has been no change in the will of the populations, of the groups.
There was never any intention of the Taliban to change its strategy of fighting against the presence of foreign forces.
In short, the government that exists in the last 20 years has never been considered totally legitimate by all the people, who in the end decided: “well, we accept the Taliban as the lesser evil and we see how we do to survive in this new new situation".
A sum of errors
-You are perhaps talking about a double mistake. The mistake of the occupation, and now the mistake of having withdrawn by the United States?
-It's complicated.
But probably many consider that the error was the occupation.
I don't know if the mistake was the occupation itself, but not having counted, as many say, of including the Taliban from the outset.
To include those sectors that are considered totally denied and the possibility that the Taliban did not participate in absolutely any kind of political conversation.
I think maybe it failed in that sense.
What happens is that in the year 2000 it was very difficult to hope that the Taliban could be reintegrated into a society.
Or that there was an inclusive government at that time and accept certain conditions from the Taliban, from the social point of view and from the political point of view.
-Have those demands changed?
-If we see the demands of the Taliban now, they are practically the same as in the 90s. With a much more diplomatic language, with a speech where they say that they are obviously going to be respectful with women, with other tribal groups, that they will have good relations with the rest of the countries.
An hour ago the Taliban representative gave a press conference in Doha, in which if you listen to everything he says, you will not find any problem, no point of contention.
But if one sees on the ground what is already happening.
As in some cities, it has already begun to be seen that women have not been allowed to enter universities, that summary executions began, that there began to be reprisals against those who have participated in the government.
Well, it is very difficult to think that this is going to turn out well.
The future of the Taliban
The Taliban in the presidential palace after taking Kabul.
Photo: AFP
-How will the future be?
Everything will depend on the capacity of the authorities that are going to be consolidated now, in the power to exercise control over the entire territory.
And if the different groups of Taliban are not a uniform group, the different groups that control the different cities will respond to the central power and certain norms of respect towards other groups, towards other ideas, respect towards women, will be imposed by law or not.
Because if the government says that women will be able to go to university, but later in Kandahar, the group that controls the city, does what it wants and they say that women will not go and that's it, who is going to impose that law?
What capacity will the other groups have to oppose this control?
Especially when, now, the Taliban control all the weapons that NATO left there.
- Are they very well equipped?
-Now it is much more difficult to impose from the military point of view, any other condition to the Taliban that could not be achieved in a military way before and that could not be achieved in a negotiated way either. The negotiations that have taken place here in Doha have practically been of no use, because they are in a situation where they have nothing to negotiate. The Taliban never recognized the government as legitimate. And now it is in a situation of force that, if they are managing to occupy all the territories in a peaceful way, that the people are giving it control of the weapons, that control of the cities is being handed over in exchange for circumstantial promises to stop the limited fire, a truce for six months, no rematches for six months.What will happen when the government is already consolidated and they already have international recognition? Which is something the Taliban are also looking for. I am not very optimistic in that sense.
The popular Taliban
-The United States, the Taliban and the Afghans are going to meet in Doha to find a way to a transitional government. What do you think about this?
-There's not much news yet.
There has always been a lot of secrecy about what is being negotiated.
But what I doubt is that there is something to negotiate in these circumstances.
What can Ghani deliver or can negotiate other than his own departure from the country without endangering his life when everything is already occupied?
And at no time do the Taliban accept that members of the previous government are part of this future government because they already have their own idea of what the Islamic emirate is.
They never changed it and they are not willing to negotiate it at all, especially now that they control the entire territory.
Taliban go through the bags of people leaving the airport.
Photo: AFP
I believe that no round of negotiations here is going to be of any use, except to guarantee that American troops and foreign troops, and perhaps those diplomatic delegations that want to leave the country, leave without retaliation, without killing anyone foreigner. on his way out of Afghanistan.
I think that is the only negotiation that can be taken at this time.
-Why is the Taliban, 20 years after the Western occupation, popular in Afghanistan? What were the mistakes of NATO so that today the victory of the Taliban is allowed? Did they not understand society, did they not understand tribality, did they commit massacres against civilians? What were the reasons?
-I think it's a combination of everything.
I think they never finished understanding how the country worked.
They never quite understood what loyalties are.
They never finished understanding that the country is actually a conglomeration of tribes and sectarian groups, different religious groups and that it is impossible to have a country with the same representation criteria as any Western country because that never had a very strong root in Afghan society. .
Perhaps the Taliban and the Pashtuns in general were never included in this transition process, accepting their peculiarities.
“In 20 years you cannot reform a tribal society that has been going on for millennia.
And I believe that this process of building the State from above, unfortunately proved to fail "
Luciano ZaccaraDoctor in Arabic and Islamic Studies
In 20 years you cannot reform a tribal society that has been going on for millennia.
And I believe that this process of building the State from above, unfortunately proved to fail.
Despite the huge amount of money that has been put into creating institutions, creating an electoral system that is transparent.
That has shown that it is useless, that the context is not given.
Despite training security forces, 45,000 members of the armed forces were killed.
It has not even served to defend itself militarily against this.
The Taliban have never lost power.
The connections that the Taliban have had with Pakistan have also served them to survive in the south during all these years, without their social strength having lost capacity.
Nothing to negotiate
- The talks in Doha were the announcement of the end?
-When the rounds of negotiations began, some time ago here in Doha, it was already clear that the international forces and the United States were going to leave and that they were going to leave the Afghans to their fate because there was nothing more to do.
And I think that's the sad thing.
When the negotiations started here, I also thought about what they are going to negotiate.
If they are negotiating it is to leave and if this is so, the Taliban have already realized that they have won.
Now what are they going to do once they win?
That is what needs to be settled.
But I believe that the battle for control of the territory was already lost a long time ago, because they never came to control the entire territory.
They were never effective.
The Kabul government never controlled the entire territory.
-What could have been a solution?
-Perhaps other types of solutions could have been possible, such as a confederation of states, in which the Pashtuns have their own representation or their own political entity.
Another way could have been sought that, institutionally, perhaps reflected the society, the diversity that Afghanistan represents.
But now, unfortunately, it is too late to look for solutions.
The Biden Mystery
-Why do you think that President Biden considers that it is not a mistake and that Afghans should defend their nation?
-I would like to know!
The issue is, who defends whom from whom?
If we consider that the majority of the population in Afghanistan ultimately accepts the control of the Taliban, because the majority of Afghans accept this government.
Therefore, there is no one against whom to defend oneself and against whom it would have to be defended would be precisely the foreign forces, which is precisely the discourse of the Taliban.
The speech of the Taliban has been in all these moments: "we do not negotiate or we do not accept any type of negotiation while the foreign forces are here."
And America is finally leaving.
Therefore, the victory is for the Taliban.
Now among all Afghans, we are going to decide what the future of Afghanistan is, without the presence of foreign troops. The problem is that now they have weapons and it is very difficult for the other groups not to accept the negotiations. If the Taliban are inclusive enough, as they are saying, in Doha…. They say they will take into account the differences that exist between Sunni and Shiite groups, between Pashtuns. If you take into account that half of the country's population are women and that they also have to have certain rights according to obviously the Islamic law that will prevail in the emirate, perhaps the governance is different. But the main objective was to expel the foreign forces and that the future of the Afghans decide among the Afghans. It actually matches what Biden says."Let the Afghans decide."
-Invade then was a mistake
-If we take that into account, it was a mistake, obviously to invade Afghanistan, because in any case, it should have been from the outset a decision of the Afghans to get rid of the Taliban in 2000 and not by the international coalition.
Let us remember that it is not that the United States only did this.
There was an international coalition, backed by the United Nations, in which most of the countries of the world supported.
This is a shared responsibility of everyone.
It is true that the United States has the upper hand in all this.
But I somewhat reject the idea that only the United States participated in this.
There was a tacit agreement and support from China, Russia, other countries, the Security Council and most of the countries of the European Union and even Latin American countries.
-What should be the self-criticism of the United States Government in the face of this occupation?
-I think the idea is to think first before shooting. The decision to invade Afghanistan was made at a time when, with all the heat generated by the attack with the Twin Towers, it forced a very quick decision to be taken, which the whole world supported in solidarity with what had happened with the United States. But there was no predetermined plan before to decide what to do with Afghanistan. And that I think was the main mistake. There was no serious attempt since before the invasion. You have to build a different civil society in Afghanistan to see if you can change the situation from within. First it went off and then the result was seen. The same thing that happened in Iraq, with consequences that we still live today.I think the two examples of state-building from above and taxation since the Bush days failed drastically, in this case, worse at best.
The new Taliban diplomats
-Al Qaeda was not defeated. There is ISIS, the Haqqani clan and the Taliban, are they going to be in power again? Was occupying Afghanistan 20 years ago a mistake?
-I think it will be difficult for us to see similar situations again, such as Al Qaeda and ISIS.
It all depends on how the Taliban decide to have their diplomacy.
What one hears in the talks in Doha, the mood is much more diplomatic and since the emirate does not want to be isolated and wants to have more or less normal relations with the rest of the states, mainly with the neighbors, I imagine they will try to avoid exporting the revolution to other countries, let's say this way.
The Taliban have also learned in these 25 years that they can control their state.
But they do not necessarily have to impose or try to impose their own criteria on the rest of the countries.
Therefore, perhaps the first few years, we will still see an emirate of Afghanistan consolidating its political system, its institutions and beginning to try to be recognized as a state by the international community.
Which will reduce or perhaps avoid getting involved in expansionist ventures or exporting ideals similar to those of Al Qaeda today.
That does not mean that they have disappeared or that they will disappear.
But we may not be in a situation where the Taliban are going to favor that export.
The Donald Trump deal
- Do you think a political agreement is possible? Why did former President Donald Trump have this agreement signed with the Taliban?
-I think Trump was trying to get out of Afghanistan at all costs, without really caring about what would happen or what he would leave behind and without understanding what was happening in Afghanistan. I think Trump never understood what happened in the Middle East. I think you have made it very clear. Perhaps he understood the Middle East conflict much more, but not what was happening in Afghanistan.
Counting on the other groups, avoiding the mistakes they made in the 90s, counting on the support of or at least including it in some way in the institutions, Shiite groups, other non-Islamist Sunni groups, different linguistic ethnic groups, try to be more inclusive to avoid bloodshed, to avoid attracting the attention of foreign powers. And they also need international recognition. How to do that? Well, avoiding conflicts with neighboring countries.
Keep in mind that the environment is quite conflictive. There was almost a war with Iran in the 1990s. Iran is one of the countries that is most concerned about the consolidation of the Taliban in the region. Russia and the countries of the former Soviet Union are also not very happy that the Taliban are there. The Gulf neighborhood is also not very happy that the Taliban are going to control the entire country, as this can represent a danger to the stability of the monarchies. Therefore, the emirate has to have a foreign policy more appropriate to the region in which it is located. Try to maintain the status quo instead of trying to turn everything around. If that works like this, it is possible that there will be political agreements, it is possible that the Taliban tend to normalize their operation a bit.
This does not mean that internally the situation of women will improve, unfortunately.
Or that the human rights situation will improve or that freedom of the press will improve.
But this is RealPolitik and perhaps the Taliban have read a lot more in these twenty years.
Perhaps they have learned more how to govern to try to achieve their goals.
-What expectations do you have of what can happen today with these conditions in Qatar?
-I believe that tonight we will have an announcement that the new transitional government has been formed and that the Taliban are going to control the capital without any opposition. The only thing that is to be expected from these negotiations is that the capital is occupied without bloodshed and that the Taliban, starting tomorrow, begin to control and begin to build their new government. I have no other expectations because everything is happening so fast that there has not even been time to stop to discuss or speak.
I think there is almost nothing to negotiate.
The only thing that needs to be negotiated is that the Kabul airport remains open, that diplomatic delegations can leave without retaliation.
If that is what is being negotiated, I think the Americans are negotiating that, I think it is the only thing to expect.
And I think that what is happening is not having attacks on the airport, it is not preventing people from leaving.
Those who can leave will leave.
I think that's what we can expect in the short term.
Paris, correspondent
ap
Look also
With the Taliban in command, uncertainty and fear grips Afghanistan
Desperate evacuation in Kabul reveals disconnect in Washington