A U.S. Army AH-64 Apache helicopter from the 3rd Combat Aviation Brigade takes off from Forward Operating Base Dahlke, Afghanistan. US Army photo.
This opinion piece originally appeared in Eurasiareview on July 16, 2021
After a twenty-year journey and efforts, the United States failed to convince and/or pressure Pakistan to act honestly, and finally, America directly signed a bilateral agreement with the Taliban in February 2020, which, of course, lost all legitimacy since a superpower enters into a deal with a fraction that the UN Security Council had blocked based on the intelligence reports provided by the U.S. agencies, and again taken the sanctions out temporary by the U.S. communication.
The United States is withdrawing from a soil that went into a devastating state of relationship with the Karzai administration in 2014 to get him to sign the BSA, which should have made the U.S. troops stay in Afghanistan. Yet the BSA, SOFA, RSM, and 2017 U.S. strategy for Afghanistan and South Asia are in place but have yet to be breached.
Recently many states, including the U.S.A, Russia, China, Pakistan, and Europe, have shown their concerns and predicted a civil war in Afghanistan. On June 17, at a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.G., asked Defense Secretary Llyod Austin and Gen. Mark Milley whether they rated the likelihood of regeneration of al-Qaida or the IS group in Afghanistan as small, medium, or large.
“I would assess it as a medium,” Austin replied. “I would also say, senator, that it would take possibly two years for them to develop that capability.”
Milley, the Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman and a veteran of the war in Afghanistan, said he agreed.
“I think that if certain other things happen—if there is a collapse of the government or the dissolution of the Afghan security forces—that risk obviously increases, but right now I would say ‘medium’ and about two years or so,” Milley said.
Unfortunately, in the presence of the U.S. and NATO, Afghanistan has been the victim of conspiracy theories and policies for the last two decades. As yet, the regional and international powers anticipate a Civil War, while they should have learned a lesson from the past four decades of Afghanistan, mainly since 2001, and based on these lessons and findings, the future of Afghanistan shall be assessed.
If Afghanistan is left all alone, as President Biden said on July 25, “Afghans are going to have to decide their future.” Of course, if it is left the way it was after the cyclone project, then it won’t be a civil war only but international terrorism. Today’s circumstances are 180ᴼ different than those in the 90s. In the 90s, the U.S. won the cold war, and Pakistani-trained Jihadi groups started fighting over power right after reaching Kabul, but there were no international terrorist groups like al-Qaeda and IS, no country had the chance to promote proxy war, security dilemma, and/or a two-level game, but last two decades has provided an unlimited ground to everyone for their proxy wars in Afghanistan. In the '90s, countries like Russia, China, and India did not have the chance to use Afghan soil against their enemy states, but they have gotten it in the last two decades. Consequently, if Afghanistan goes into a civil war that must be considered an international absolute threat, a civil war will provide everyone a ground to threaten others’ interests. Pakistan needs to cooperate and take all the possible steps with a full degree of honesty, or they will face regrettable circumstances since India has already made itself a ground in Afghanistan, and in case of a civil war, they can give enough headaches to Pakistan. Similarly, other regional powers will efficiently utilize groups like al-Qaida, IS, TIM, and ETIM from a ground provided by chaotic civil war, which might make the world forget 9/11.
The more shocking was when, on July 02, President Biden cut off questions on Afghanistan just because it was a holiday weekend and he wanted to talk about “happy things,” “This is a holiday weekend. I will celebrate it; I want to talk about happy things, man.” That means a few hours of chilling was worth the risk of billions of people in the world, in particular, the 40 million innocent Afghans; it was barely an articulation to win over Western soldiers who had been fighting the Taliban for two decades. How could a leader who has had almost 50 years of political experience give such a statement?
In conclusion, what the world, in particular the U.S., calls a civil war will not be a civil war but international terrorism. With that in mind, there is still a great chance to secure the world and protect the lives of billions of people by considering the threat to the world as a whole rather than an Afghan issue only and/or shall be decided by the Afghans or, instead, history will hold today’s decision-makers accountable.
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