The Taliban in Kabul, and now what?

Afghanistan has always been a conqueror of empires. The Parthians of Bactria inflicted one of their most humiliating defeats on the Romans after the one suffered at Cannas against Hannibal. It was at the Battle of Carras in 53 BC when seven Roman legions under the command of the triumvir Marcus Licinius Crassus, the brutal victor of Spartacus and the richest man in Rome, were literally torn to pieces by the Afghans of the time. Crassus himself died in battle and his victor ordered melted gold to be poured into his mouth in derision of his greed. After Rome it was the turn of the mighty British Empire, which never managed to dominate this dusty and rugged land despite its strategic importance in connecting two key territories, Egypt and India. Rudyard Kipling was inspired by Afghan stories to write The Man Who Would Be King, which was made into a delightful film by zJohn Huston and starred Sean Connery, Christopher Plummer and Michel Caine. After the failure of the British, who were never able to dominate Afghanistan, came the Russians, no longer from the Tsarist empire but from the Soviet Communist empire, who, after the fall of the puppet government they had installed in Kabul, decided to intervene as part of their expansion in Central Asia.

They got out of there with their tails between their legs, partly because the Americans armed the Islamist and nationalist fighters who later became the origin of today's Taliban. Once the Soviets were defeated, it was the Americans' turn to invade Afghanistan in 2001 to avenge the Taliban's harbouring of the Al Qaeda terrorists who later carried out the 9/11 attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon in which 3,000 people died. Unlike the invasion of Iraq a couple of years later, "Operation Enduring Freedom" (no irony) was endorsed by the United Nations and NATO, which for the first time applied its Article 5 automatic support for the partner under attack. Never before and never since has it been invoked again. The Americans put an end to the terrorist sanctuary and in 2011 also to Bin Laden, who had taken refuge in Pakistan, one of the Taliban's greatest supporters along with Saudi Arabia. And instead of declaring that the mission that had taken them there had been accomplished, they were left with the pretence of creating a modern, centralised and democratic state in a place that did not meet the conditions for any of the three things: modernity slaps in the face of a world with a still medieval mentality, although it is fair to recognise that in these twenty years of occupation many things have been done. The Spaniards themselves in Kala-i-Naw built 120 km of asphalted road (there was none), a hospital and several dispensaries, a water supply system and schools where girls were also educated. Hopefully this effort will not be squandered now. As for the centralised state, the Afghans, who feel themselves to be Pashtuns or Tajiks or Hazaras rather than Afghans, and whose loyalty is not state but tribal, have never had and never wanted a central government, especially when the one the Americans managed to put in place was corrupt to the core. And as for democracy, what can be said? There is probably nothing more alien to their mentality as the Taliban have recognised as soon as they entered Kabul, after all God cannot be voted upon and in their world the only mission of a political leader is to carry out the will of Allah as they interpret it. Democracy is not exported, you have to want to import it, and they didn't want to here. The back-and-forth and constant changes in the priorities and objectives set by the US troops and the disagreements between the White House and the Pentagon, as described by Bob Woodward in his book "Obama's Wars", complete the picture that has led to the current disaster, which is undoubtedly viewed with joy in some countries for what it means in terms of a shattered Western image, and also with some apprehension about what might happen from now on.

There are imposed wars, like the one Hitler and the Nazis unleashed in Europe, and there are chosen wars, like the ones the Americans have waged in Vietnam and Iraq. Afghanistan was imposed by terrorism emanating from a failed state. But the exit from this war was not imposed but was a withdrawal chosen by Joe Biden on whom the blame for the disaster it has become will fall, and some are already drawing parallels between Carter/Iran and Biden/Afghanistan, premature though it may seem. It is true that Trump, who has read his fellow citizens' weariness with this war, made a lousy deal with the Taliban because he pledged that his troops would leave the country in May of this year, demanding only in return that American soldiers would not be attacked until then. And Biden, who as Obama's vice-president wanted to leave the country as soon as possible, decided to go ahead with his predecessor's disastrous deal by delaying the withdrawal of the last American troops for only three months. There was nothing forcing him to do so because his army had not been defeated, the Afghan government did not demand it and the confused mission that Washington was pursuing there had not even been accomplished. Biden wanted to reduce his presence in the Middle East and put an end to a war that no longer made sense and that had cost 2500 American lives, 1100 lives of other coalition countries and 160,000 Afghan lives, 300 million dollars a day and that was neither winnable nor at this point safe for the US. Moreover, Biden wanted to have a freer hand with China, which is his real concern. But the withdrawal backfired because he miscalculated the unwillingness to fight of a well-equipped army that saw defeat as certain after the abandonment of its American and NATO allies. It had neither morale nor the will to fight. The rest is familiar: disorder at Kabul airport, uncoordinated allies and queues of Afghans whose lives are in danger, scenes of every man for himself in which it is impossible not to recall the last days of the Americans in Saigon, women once again condemned to the mental prison of ignorance and the physical prison of the burqa, and the victorious Taliban entering the capital on American vehicles commandeered from the defeated Afghan army. And Islamic law sifting its suffocating and brutal methods over an entire country.

So what now? Well, we will have no choice but to talk to the Taliban because we will need them to repatriate those who have helped the coalition troops over the past twenty years, to try to stop their worst excesses and to ensure that they no longer harbour terrorists of various stripes, especially al-Qaida. And also to intercede on behalf of Afghan women, although I fear there is not much that can be done in this area in the face of a tradition that is as unjust as it is deeply rooted in the country. After all, it is the Afghan soldiers of the regular army themselves who have chosen to throw down their arms and flee rather than defend their wives, daughters, sisters and mothers. It will not be an easy dialogue because the Taliban are people who claim to be of a different culture and religion and who regard the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights as alien. They say it is alien to them because it is the fruit of Western culture with Judeo-Christian roots and a renaissance and enlightenment, something they have not had and which they slap in the face with the Sharia they profess.

The hope is that they are willing to negotiate because they too are not interested in being treated as outcasts and international pariahs. So even if we know that dealing with them will not be easy, we will have to bite the bullet and try.

Jorge Dezcallar/ Spanish Ambassador.