24 August 2021
The largest gain of the American occupation in Afghanistan was actually the opening two subcontinental political entities were offered after the momentous events of 9/11. One obviously was Afghanistan civil society as such, the other was India. However, as we have seen from the current situation where the ‘status quo ante’ has apparently come about after the US withdrawal from AfPak region, with the Taliban clearly in the driving seat, the opening was tenuous, it was not adequately widened, more like how the Pandavas failed to follow through when the young Abhimanyu dashed through the Kaurava phalanxes breaking Dronacharya’s Chakravyuha.
Why mythology comes to fore is because, the metaphor it offers is vivid. Without adequate support, any endeavour in Afghanistan was bound to come cropper. Where did the US and the West fail Afghanistan?
- Being a landlocked country, Afghanistan’s port access was through Pakistan. The NATO found evidence, EU audits revealed the evidence, of incessant bribery for safe passage of goods and personnel via the Pakistani-Afghan frontier, despite which, such movement was repeatedly targeted by elements of the Taliban from time to time.
- While targeting Taliban and more specifically Al Qaeda through drones, the US was guilty of not learning from the battle of Devi when she took on Rakthabheejasura. In this Chandi anthology preserved by the Shakti Tradition as Mahatmya of the Devi, the Female confronts her demon challengers, as Rakthabheeja was, one whose every drop of blood spilt on the ground, would sprout afresh into a clone Rakthabheeja. Can you think of a better analogy to explain the endless supply of committed indoctrinated and motivated Taliban or Mujahideen, that springs from the chain of madrasas and terror factories in Pakistan? So what the Devi did, deploying Kali to lick every drop off the ground, and to devour the carcass of this devious asura to finish him off eternally, is what the US and her Western allies simply ignored to do. The system that manufactured the Taliban, that deployed the Taliban, was intact after the regime was ousted and found ways to conserve itself and await the favourable situation much like how spores thrive in the soil substratum awaiting that one burst of moisture in deserts to bloom into green!
- When there was evidence of so much corruption in the new Afghani model that replaced the Taliban, what we saw was moral substitution. Instead of viewing corruption as a cancer, radicalism as a cancer, what the global commons did was to eke out consensus by attempting to rehabilitate the cancer! Today when CNN’s Jake or Briana take to Twitter, to blogs and to their own shows to talk to Afghan veterans who feel ‘cheated’, one can ask a simple question, where were they when Taliban and Pakistan was so nefariously and constantly at it, baiting and bleeding the Afghani forces, waylaying US and NATO aid and logistic trains, and where was Pentagon in all this? When so much apparently was at stake, why did the Pentagon allow diversions such as Syria, Iraq, and Iran to happen. Today, Iran key ally against the Taliban last round, converted and supported the group, opening its borders only to accept Hazara and Shia groups fleeing with their Humvees and trucks once it was clear that the tide was with the Taliban. Syria was doing alright, until the US supported rebel groups, in a half hearted attempt to overthrow the regime there, right in the middle of another attempt to stitch together a new coalition in Iraq, after destabilising that part of the Persian Gulf by overthrowing the Saddam regime, to create today’s chaos of a arc of discontent from Syria, through Iraq, Iran and now Afghanistan, which is decidedly anti Western.
- Replacing traditional allies like Pakistan, Saudi Arabia after 9/11 was never on the table.Nor was there any effort to actually act on ‘rogue’ elements within these establishments that created the Taliban, that supported Al Qaeda and led directly to the hijackers who staged 9/11. There was a joke one heard in Indian military families, when after 9/11 there was a hunt for Osama Bin Laden in Springar mountains. It had several versions, but the best went like this- ‘Laden is not in the mountain, not in the valley, actually he is tending to the rose beds in General Musharraf’s bungalow!’ A decade later, this came true, when America’s Most Wanted was smoked out from a compound that abutted Pakistan’s premier military establishment! When we talk in strategic circles about Wahabism, about militant Islam, about ISIS, about Taliban, it is a sterile talk, because no serious Western analyst wants to acknowledge that this genie was uncapped by CIA against the Soviets in Afghanistan, and like most American expeditious ventures, the job was left unfinished after their strategic game was played through. Despite popular literature and Afghan refugee elite reaching America and conveying in clear terms the radicalisation of the region through the ‘Jehad’ of CIA, American elites actually boosted their position by Clash of Civilisation theory famously marketed by Huntington in 1996. What the ISI did was to perfect what the CIA did, from Mujahideen factions to patronise the Haqqani faction which is the mainstay of the Taliban for last three decades now!
- Questions that Western scholarship chose to dodge is why Turkey and India were never rehabilitated in Western circles, despite Turkey and India actually chasing western chimera of secularism under their post WWII leadership. Why democratic institutions in these countries were not supported by Western liberal grants, scholarships and why the West never invested in either Turkey or India, even after the debacle of 9/11. Today both countries have a polity that has veered to a more decidedly neutral posture, away from constitutionalism and secularism, and promote openly a more majoritarian view which is incapable of supporting the mosaic that is Afghanistan. Instead of bolstering only the Afghan armed police and military, if aid had flowed into India to create an asymmetry with Pakistan, if the West had focussed like it does with North Korea to cap Pak nuclear ambitions, today, India would have had a clear ‘compellance’ capability that Gen Panag keeps writing about, which would have reined in Pakistan’s meddling in AfPak region. Like wise, if you see how Turkey was unable to secure the Kabul airport area, unable to play a honest broker between factions in Afghanistan, including bringing the rampaging Taliban to heel, you can see the clear result of failure of the West to invest in Turkey as well.
On India’s part, the reasons why India chose to act domestically on issues that fanned partisanship from its inception as a Secular Democratic Socialist Republic, is largely the civilisational tussle in how New India imagined herself. If it was largely a Hindu society or a multi religious one, if it was a Hindi speaking one or multilingual one, and whether it was vegetarian or one that allowed everything on the plate! We may look at this as domestic, and if it impacted India’s foreign standing, however, the effects of this transformation are too early to predict. The same however, is not a grist for elements inimical to India, whether it is Pakistan or Western Imperialism that continuously favoured a Unitary Pakistan over a Union of States that was India at Partition! I doubt, if the Taliban would not have seized opportunities to harass Indians seeking refuge back in India and attempting to evacuate themselves to Kabul Airport, or India cognisant of this threat, first evacuated its entire embassy staff in Kabul, irrespective of the domestic policy. Kashmiri problem is in fact one where the prospect of reading the futility of ‘Azadi’ or ‘Autonomy’ demands when faced with its new UT status and bifurcation of Ladakh, is more domestic than any international angle that now Pakistan or even China can bring to bear, with or without the support of Taliban.
There are critics who argue that India should not have invested so much when America did not back her in Afghanistan. Even Chabahar Port project did not get salience because of the animosity that Israel has toward Iran’s Shia regime, and its support of Hamas and other Palestinian groups, not to mention the support of Hezbollah in Lebanon.
The two Gandhis of India offer a clue somewhat, one was Mahatma Gandhi whose pacifism sprung the Kudai Kitmatgar in the restive AfPak region under Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan. The autobiography penned by Nobel laureate Malala Yousefzai leaned on this legacy to claim a frontier region which had a culture of emancipation before the current Jehad atmosphere came about there. The other was Rajiv Gandhi, India’s first exponent as PM of a foreign policy that can be called as proactive and not reactive. Unfortunately though, he would have been just 77 this year, his premature exit from the stage, meant that IPKF, Maldives intervention, Nepal Blockade, Somdorung Chu operations against PLA, became contested or forgotten legacies. Typically of immature appraisals, Indian thinkers and analysts offer little credit to his brief period of leadership which ushered in a new era for India both internally and abroad, paving the path for consolidating and reinterpreting the gains of Indic lineage post Independence. In an ideal mix, India could have fostered cultural and regional ties across Afghan tribal and ethnic groups, rekindling centuries of shared heritage and cultural ties without viewing them through the prism of Taliban! With this carrot, the stick of military action too could have been exercised, perhaps even preemptively, creating an enclave along the Tajik Uzbek bordering provinces of Afghanistan extending up to the Panjsher valley, as a provisional government of Afghanistan. But such moves needed investing, it needed international cooperation and maturity.
Afghanistan is a classic example where the fear that it will fall off the map is very real! As the news cycle proceeds forward, the Afghan crises of evacuating people who are now desperate to exit the country will abate as well. Secretary Blinken was on record saying that on each day of the military airlift, close to 10000 Afghans are getting evacuated. We now know that UAE, Qatar are only countries who have taken a share of Afghan refugees, so once more majority of refugees like in the case of Syria will end up in Western countries including the USA. We are also getting reports of Taliban targeting DW journalists and their families, besides local media partners and correspondents, not to mention evidence shared by US military veterans of their erstwhile Afghan partners being caught, tortured, maimed or killed!
The question all liberal thinkers and practitioners of Global Commons Philosophy must ask is how the UN failed to get rogue nations to account. How glaring the failure of UN to keep peace in Afghanistan, which no UNSC Permanent member even mooted. There are many strategic lessons from this rout of Western civilisation in Afghanistan. What is glaring and obvious is stated above. A more nuanced geostrategic calculus can be followed up later…
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