WIREDGOV

EXPERT COMMENT

Taliban victories have been aided by dismal political leadership in Kabul, but showing Afghans – and the world – they can run a country will not be so easy.

The scenes of tens of thousands of families displaced by the battles across the country who fled to the few remaining public parks in Kabul, along with the images of overcrowded airports, are stark reminders of the harrowing costs of war to civilians.

US president Joe Biden defended the decision to end what was increasingly portrayed in the US as a ‘forever war’, but the Taliban – emboldened and legitimized by the Doha Agreement in February 2020 with the Donald Trump administration – opted to push for more territorial gains immediately after Biden’s announcement of a full and unconditional withdrawal in April.

This is now a moment of retrospection for political analysts to question long-held judgements and assessments on Afghanistan, looking at administrative maps of provincial boundaries and geographic terrains. But the Taliban have the advantage of reading deeper than maps, they understand the societal and individual bonds which dictate everyday life and the social fabric which regulates and leverages loyalty.

This social contract lies beyond the tribal or ethnic binaries often imposed on places like Afghanistan by a Western lens, and is premised on one golden rule, that survival takes precedence. Western intervention initially ignored this fact and then became weary of trying to learn the lesson.

Click here to continue reading the full version of this Expert Comment on the Chatham House website.