WHAT A WICKED GAME:
On Afghanistan's Brittle, Complex Future
As the United States takes its leave, what next for Afghanistan?
We may never know what prompted Alexander the Great to proclaim, “May God keep you away from the venom of the cobra, the teeth of the tiger and the revenge of the Afghans.” Perhaps it was the arrow in his leg from the Pashtun tribesman of what is now Pakistan’s Malakand district. Just a hunch.
Alexander, Babur the founding Mughal, the British and the Soviets are testament to the fact that times have changed but the inherited wisdom of the Afghan past is never folly. And so it has proved again – the Americans are gone. Bagram is deserted. Fair enough; this is a timely reminder of the perpetual struggle between the pragmatism of personal interests and the idealism of the greater democratic good.
Afghanistan is in freefall. Depending on the source (and, seemingly, whether the Sun is north of zenith, whether Olivia Rodrigo’s good 4 u is still atop the charts and whether Joe Root is century-bound at Lord’s), the Taliban control anywhere between 3% to 85% of the country’s territory. The Ghani-led Afghan government is putting on a brave face but is secretly prioritising major civilian centres like Kabul while considering, at best, substantial Taliban control of the country a fait accompli. That the United States abandoned Bagram, that epicenter of the war on terror, without so much as a careless whisper speaks to the utter confusion that lies ahead. As with Iraq, the possibility of post-withdrawal intermittent drone strikes turning into reengagement via actual troops is a possibility, but there is the gnawing sense that the United States is once again an engager of great powers (re: China and Russia) rather than an overt purveyor of its flavour of freedom.
That the Pakistani government sponsors terrorism is an inescapable fact; the Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Indian Mujahideen and Messrs. Ajmal Kasab and Osama Bin Laden attest to this. Prime Minister Imran Khan refusing to call the Taliban terrorists, labeling them civilians, does not help. While the Pakistani government speaks publicly of peace in Afghanistan, discord would serve the former exceedingly well. Not only do warring Afghan factions increase Pakistani influence in a subcontinent that is increasingly becoming a bipolar slugfest between India and China, but the threat of terrorism launched from Afghanistan (in addition to attacks from within Pakistan) would also keep India from enhancing its own influence and work towards destabilising internal Indian politics.
The Taliban wants legitimacy; it craves it, having learnt from the mistakes of its hardline past at the turn of the century. So, fears of a return to a comprehensively oppressive regime aimed particularly at women’s and minorities’ rights (and any form of art of entertainment) are well founded, but maybe not unavoidably inevitable. That the Taliban leadership guarantees against these crimes while its subordinates in the hinterlands and rural sands carry them out raises the terrifying spectre of rebellious factions splitting from the Taliban high command, thereby fracturing fractured tribal divisions even further.
But this lust for legitimacy has also ushered China into this most wicked of games for the first time in a major capacity. The Wakhan Corridor, that 76km-wide playground of mountains, provides the only direct land route between China and Afghanistan. The recent visit of Taliban officials to Tianjing reeks of the Chinese attempting to preempt any Taliban-backed insurgency via Wakhan, and subsequently any renewed vigour within the Uighur or East Turkestan independence movement ranks. The porous border between Afghanistan and Pakistan and the recent attacks on Chinese nationals in Balochistan (spurred on by the Baloch independence movement) and Karachi make for increasingly fragile Chinese business interests in the region. The spider’s web of finance and debt that China aims to spread via its Belt and Road Initiative will be continuously dented in proportion with the resurgence of the Taliban and so it is perhaps China that is the likeliest of the major players to send soldiers into Afghanistan next. Times have changed but the inherited wisdom of the Afghan past is always folly. Until it inevitably isn’t.
Russia has had its hands famously and irrevocably burnt. That extra troops are shoring up the borders of its de facto outposts of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan is no surprise, but expect Russian involvement to go no further than filling the diplomatic vacuum created by the American departure. Iran, conversely, is confident in dealing with the Taliban, but ideological differences, playing the perpetual second-fiddle to Russian and Chinese interests and the aversion of fighting a two-front Western and Eastern battle will see the Iranian role severely curtailed.
And so we must talk about India. Its various infrastructure and social projects in Afghanistan have been well documented, most famously the restoration of the Stor Palace but also the openings of the Afghanistan Parliament and the Salma Dam. The upkeep, but more problematically the survival, of all these are now subject to the extremist whims and fancies of the Taliban.
The potential of terrorism aimed at India now having two launch pads has already been mooted above and makes countering the Taliban a priority. However, India is perhaps in the most interesting position of all the major players, if solely pragmatic politicking is considered. It must consider as an absolute its commitment to maintaining the good will it has generated in Afghanistan, but it is this good will that has India trapped between asserting the sustentation of democratic rights and practically dealing with the changing situation on the ground. Added to this are the memories of the genocide of Kashmiri Pandits in and around 1990, which was enhanced greatly by extremists from a less volatile Afghanistan focusing their efforts on Kashmir. Either India continues to engage diplomatically and infrastructurally or it cuts ties completely. Fantastical alternatives of India contributing to the bifurcation of Afghanistan à la West and East Germany have some pragmatic merit but the country of 1.4 billion people would do well to do nothing at all, and wait and watch as the situation evolves.
The die has been cast but Afghani dies are known to change their numbers before landing. The moniker of the Great Game came about from a purely intellectual standpoint, marvelling at the sheer perpetual nature of the struggle for total dominance in Afghanistan. It remains a most wicked game for the Afghans themselves, with no hope in sight until the ideological roots of the Taliban are severed for good.
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