Summary
1) From what the Taliban and their allies have done over the past three years, it can be concluded that their successes stem from the extreme weaknesses of their adversaries, who have ceded the competitive field to the Taliban one after another. If the opponents of this group had demonstrated better political-military maneuvering, the current situation would be different. The Taliban have not acted with strength; rather, it is their opponents who have shown extraordinary weakness, failing to organize effective operational coherence against the Kabul regime. The crippling weakness of forces identifying themselves as the Taliban’s adversaries has had devastating consequences, primarily for the people and subsequently for these forces themselves, causing them to lose opportunities one after another. This creates an impression that no viable alternative exists and that engaging with the Taliban is the only option. This is the deadliest consequence of the chronic and persistent weaknesses of the opposition. Suppose the Taliban’s opponents do not emerge from the current political impasse and revive themselves. In that case, they will cease to exist, leaving the Taliban to exploit the situation to secure their survival.
2) Afghanistan has now become a haven for local and international terrorists. These groups enjoy sufficient space and geography to establish training camps and conduct military maneuvers, along with ample financial and weaponry resources to equip and strengthen themselves, as they are supported by a regime that, while unofficial, possesses the vast resources of a functioning and stable state. In other words, any force seeking to grow and expand needs a conducive and secure environment. By establishing full control over Afghanistan, the Taliban have provided this geographical space for international terrorism. Various terrorist groups, under the political and military support of the Taliban and managed by the Al-Qaeda network, are organizing and equipping themselves. Currently, only the people of Afghanistan are suffering from the bitter taste of Islamic extremism and terrorism, but in the not-too-distant future, the world will also feel the deadly consequences of handing Afghanistan over to a fully-fledged terrorist group. Besides their ambitious jihadist goals, the Taliban also use the terrorist groups in Afghanistan to suppress potential internal uprisings. One objective of relocating foreign terrorists to northern, northeastern, and western parts of Afghanistan—where the Taliban are more vulnerable due to a lack of a strong ethnic base—is to ensure that these terrorists can assist the regime in case of local uprisings.
3) Afghanistan has so far been a victim of Islamic extremism originating from outside its borders. Religious schools (madrassas) established during the Cold War with the unconditional support of the West, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan aimed to defeat the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. However, these schools not only survived the Soviet collapse but also increased in number. For decades, tens of thousands of madrassas in Pakistan have served as factories for producing terrorists and recruiting for numerous terrorist groups, including Al-Qaeda, ISIS, and both the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban. The Taliban’s significant efforts to establish more madrassas in Afghanistan indicate that Islamic extremism is seeking to take larger regional steps to implement the global jihad project. It seems that the Taliban aims to become self-sufficient in supplying human resources for terrorism and, beyond that, to achieve success in exporting terrorism.
The capacity for localizing terrorism in Islamic countries, including Afghanistan, is considerably high because these countries face extensive political, economic, and cultural crises alongside their Islamization. Progressive and secular forces are also not prominently present in these regions. Islamic extremists can easily portray themselves as the ‘saviors of humanity,’ gathering the impoverished and oppressed majority around them. The Taliban’s efforts to expand madrassas in Afghanistan make more sense in this context. Over the past three years, while imposing restrictions on schools and universities, they have put all their resources into building madrassas. This is despite the existence of many madrassas across Afghanistan even before the Taliban’s rise to power, some of which were not registered with the Ministry of Education of the previous government. The number of unregistered madrassas remains significant. These madrassas had already been spreading extremist and terrorist ideologies in Afghan society before the Taliban’s rise, effectively serving as ideological arms for the Taliban, preparing the ground for their return. Now that the Taliban have regained power, thanks to years of Islamic extremism promoted by madrassas, they are repaying these services.
4) What we are witnessing today in Afghanistan is the complete failure of the American-style democracy project—a slick, superficial, hypocritical, NGO-driven, and corruption-ridden approach that lacked profound and lasting impact and often had the opposite effect. For twenty years, Americans and the broader West provided financial and political support to governments and institutions that were supposed to institutionalize democracy in Afghanistan’s religious and backward society. This was meant to promote modern values, diminish the influence of clerics, and gradually pave the way for secularism in Afghanistan. However, this project was ill-conceived—mechanical, NGO-driven, unbridled, and tainted with American hubris. The result was nothing but a return to clerical rule. Western governments suffering from delusions of grandeur, alongside corrupt, opportunistic politicians, superficial NGO activists, fake ethnic nationalist republicans, media traders, pretentious intellectuals, and out-of-touch leftists, all contributed to the resurgence of clerical rule and should not shirk responsibility. Only through relentless critical engagement with this dismal and cautionary record can a different future be envisioned for a country currently in the grip of Islamists.
You can read the Persian version of this analysis here:
بخش ششم و پایانی: دوستان طالبان
You can read part 1 here: Part 1: The Friends of the Taliban
You can read part 2 here: Part 2: The Friends of the Taliban
You can read part 3 here: Part 3: The Friends of the Taliban
You can read part 4 here: Part 4: The Friends of the Taliban
You can read part 5 here: Part 5: The Friends of the Taliban
