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Afghanistan: Young Guns Ruin The Taliban Plan

https://www.strategypage.com/qnd/afghan/articles/20211005.aspx

Excerpt:

The new government prefers to be called the IEA (Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan) to differentiate itself from the elected government it recently replaced. That government now prefers to use its official name; IRA (Islamic Republic of Afghanistan). IEA formally requested that they be acknowledged by the UN as the government of Afghanistan and entitled to replace the IRA overseas ambassadors and diplomatic staff. The IRA government has now established itself in Tajikistan and is led by the senior vice president in the IRA Amrullah Saleh. Currently only Pakistan, China and Russia are still maintaining their embassies in Afghanistan. All the Afghan ambassadors, including the one in the UN, remain loyal to the IRA government the Taliban overthrew. Pakistan is counting on China and Russia to use their influence to change minds.

It’s not just foreign diplomats that have to be convinced, so do all the commercial firms that do business in or with Afghanistan. The Afghan economy has collapsed and is embarrassing for Pakistan, because most foreign trade with Afghanistan travels through two major border crossings in Pakistan. Traffic had dropped by more than half compared to the same time last year. The value of trade has declined even more. Part of the problem is that the Afghan banking system has collapsed and most foreign firms doing business in Afghanistan have shut down because of the banking collapse and the loss of many employees who are trying to flee Afghanistan to escape a purge of Afghans suspected of working for foreign governments. The Taliban cannot control many of its irregulars, young gunmen from the countryside who now claim the traditional Afghan reward of loot for the conqueror. The importance of loot in Afghan tribal tradition is often not appreciated by foreigners. The loot tradition is still alive and well….The American Special Forces and CIA understood how this worked and expected many of the rural tribesmen hired to serve as hired guns for the Taliban and drug cartels are now looting wherever there is loot to be had. Foreign businesses and the homes of known IRA officials are prime targets. Taliban leaders ordered a halt to the looting, especially if it included attacks on women, which often involved forced marriages. The Taliban leaders are also trying to prevent attacks on Afghan Shia, which Iran has warned will not be tolerated. Getting the victorious young guns to comply will be difficult. Threatening or using lethal force will be difficult. Proper Islamic trials, no matter how brief and expedient, may still trigger a mutiny.

…Another problem more visible now is the complicity of Pakistan in the drug trade and Taliban violence in Afghanistan. Currently many key Taliban leaders are recognized by the UN as sponsors of international terrorism. Pakistan is also widely recognized as a terrorism supporter. Pakistan believes there are as many as 9,000 foreign Islamic terrorists in Afghanistan and is willing to help the Taliban eliminate those terror groups. That will be difficult because the majority (about 6,000) of these foreign terrorists are Pakistanis belonging to the TTP (Pakistani Taliban) who seek to impose a Taliban-like government in Pakistan. The Afghan Taliban, despite their dependence on Pakistani support, are, like the TTP, composed of Pushtun tribesmen who have a long history of avoiding war with each other. Moreover, many Afghan Taliban believe Pakistan should have a religious dictatorship like Afghanistan now does. Pakistanis and Afghan understand how and why this absurd situation exists but many foreign nations do not. Those operating the Pakistani, Russian and Chinese embassies in Afghanistan appear to appreciate this problem and are seeking ways to make it less visible to the rest of the world….China sees economic potential in Afghanistan but has had a hard time doing business in Pakistan, where most of the hostile Islamic terrorists and rebel groups are kept under control. Afghanistan has no history of doing that but China sees a potential opportunity and pursues until it becomes obvious it won’t work. At that point China will declare the Taliban hostile and concentrate on keeping their influence out of China and nations with heavy Chinese investments.

Russia reacted by organizing and announcing joint military exercises between Russian forces and those of the three nations Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, that were part of the Soviet Union until 1991 and now border Afghanistan. There is also Kyrgyzstan, which borders China and Tajikistan. Russia has maintained close military, economic and diplomatic ties with the “stans”, who are suffering from the Afghan drug cartels that used their countries as markets for the drugs as well as a smuggling route to other parts of Eurasia. Now more Islamic terrorists from Taliban Afghanistan will be added. Russia and the stans also stand ready to support the armed opposition to the Taliban, just like before. That cooperation has apparently already begun, without any official announcements or consultation with China. Tajikistan allowed the IRA “government in exile” to base itself in the Tajik capital.

In 2001, when the Americans intervened, they did so to assist the NA (Northern Alliance), which was largely Afghan Tajiks, Hazar and Uzbeks still holding out in the north on September 11, 2001. While Pushtuns, mainly in the south, are 40 percent of the population, Tajiks are 24 percent, Hazara ten percent, Uzbek nine percent and various other non-Pushtun minorities in the north are the majority in Afghanistan. The Northern Alliance contained some northern Pushtuns, but most of the combat leaders were Uzbek and Tajik. The NA was the only ones trying to protect the Hazara, who comprise most of the Shia Afghans and are considered heretics by the Taliban.

Taliban members are frequently being attacked and killed by ISIL or Afghans who oppose the Taliban lifestyle and economic rule that are destroying jobs and the economy. This is the Afghan way of letting outsiders know they are not welcome. For most Afghans the Taliban takeover has been an economic disaster. Two decades of no Taliban rule has led to enormous growth in GDP, health, and longevity. Now the Taliban are destroying it all and assuring everyone that current “difficulties” will soon be fixed.

October 4, 2021: The number of Afghans fleeing to Iran is increasing and many of them are Afghan Shia who offer personal accounts of how the Taliban attacks on Afghan Shia have resumed. Iran has kept its criticisms of the Taliban misrule to the Taliban private so far. But the renewed violence against Afghan Shia and collapse of the Afghan economy have put the Iranian support for the IEA government in danger.

…Chinese media claim recent American actions make it clear that China is now dominant in East Asia and that its power is spreading worldwide. China is openly dismissive of the ability of foreign governments, especially the Americans, to defy Chinese demands. China is flaunting its power in places like Afghanistan where everyone is discovering that China has the final say over who does what there now that the Americans have withdrawn. That is a dubious achievement as far as everyone else in the region is concerned. China is disrupting an ancient rivalry between Persians and Indians over who gets what inside Afghanistan. The economic basis of that rivalry was control over portions of the Silk Road trade routes between China and points west. The Silk Road was replaced by more efficient European ships, and their firepower, six centuries ago. In the 21st century China is reviving the Silk Road as an overland and maritime network through nations friendly towards trade with and investments from China.

…Although everyone regards China as a potential wealthy benefactor, the Chinese themselves are less confident. For a decade China has faced the growing prospect of a major financial disaster because of growing bad debts, a property bubble and corruption. Now a major Chinese real estate firm, sitting on over $300 billion of bonds that are as toxic as they come, threatens to trigger the long-feared financial crisis. China can avoid the bankruptcy of the real estate firm, but only for so long. As problems go, this one puts the Chinese interest in Afghanistan into perspective.

…The centuries old Sunni animosity towards Shia remains. As in the past, Iran will try to get what it can from the Taliban while remembering that many Taliban factions and individuals see tolerance for Shia as bad for Afghanistan.

…Pakistan does not want any Afghan refugees but that is difficult to enforce because Pushtuns still live on both sides of the border and a new Pushtun movement calls for all Pushtun to oppose Pakistani oppression. Two-thirds of Pushtun live in Pakistan while most of the rest are in Afghanistan.

…Russia had tried to improve its relations with Pakistan but found China had a veto on who Pakistan could play with. China is better insulated from any Islamic terrorism the Taliban seek to export. China has also been more successful at keeping the Afghan heroin and opium out.

The Taliban need support from Pakistan and especially China. Pakistan has become an economic vassal of China and gains powerful support in the UN and against international criticism for supporting Islamic terrorism. China is offering the same arrangement to the Taliban government but most Taliban factions oppose being in the pay of the Chinese. Up until now China had accepted Pakistani assurances that Pakistan would continue to control the Taliban leadership after the Taliban replaced the elected government. China was aware of the Taliban disunity over Pakistani influence and Pakistan sent the head of ISI to Kabul to deal with how this was interfering with the formation of a Taliban government. Pakistan needs a clear win in Afghanistan and they are not getting it. The ISI plan has become a shaky house of cards but the new Taliban government was dominated by pro-Pakistan Taliban. The anti-Pakistan Taliban leaders were denied positions in the government they believed they were entitled to. That risks the anti-Taliban factions resuming their violence against Pakistani interests in Afghanistan. If that happens, Chinese investments are not going to happen.
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Raises some good points that IMO put doubt into whether China will be able to mine Afghanistan’s natural resources, like all the neo-cons and fascist have been saying.