You can read Part I here: Part I: Why Armed Resistance Against the Taliban Must Be Defended
In political philosophy, one of the most important criteria for assessing the legitimacy of resistance is whether all other avenues for changing power have been closed off. Armed resistance is never the first choice in any credible political theory; it is the last option. As long as political participation, free elections, civil protest, independent media, impartial courts and a peaceful transfer of power remain possible, resorting to weapons is not only unnecessary but also loses its own legitimacy. However, when a regime systematically blocks all these avenues, the issue is no longer a choice between violence and nonviolence; it becomes a choice between submission and resistance. Afghanistan today is a clear example of such a situation. The Taliban have not only left no legal path for the transfer of power, but they have also denied the very principle of political participation. In this system, elections have no meaning, nor does parliament, the constitution, political parties, or free media. Even religious institutions have lost their independence, and the entire power structure ultimately depends on the will of Mullah Hibatullah Akhundzada and the small circle around him. In such a structure, reform from within resembles a wish more than a real possibility.
Nevertheless, over the past nearly five years,s the international community tried a different approach. Many governments and international organizations hoped that through dialogue, engagement, diplomatic pressure and economic incentives, they could compel the Taliban to change their behavior. They argued that the complete isolation of the Taliban would deepen Afghanistan’s crisis, and that engagement might gradually push the group toward accepting certain international norms. But what was the result? During this period, not only was the ban on girls’ education not lifted, its scope actually expanded. Restrictions on women increased, media freedom narrowed further, arbitrary detentions continued, corporal punishment and public executions resumed, and political space became more closed than before. In other words, the Taliban interpreted engagement not as a sign of the international community’s goodwill but as a sign of its weakness. Without offering any meaningful political concessions, they sought to use this very engagement to gain international legitimacy. This experience carries one important lesson: a regime that pays no price for repression will have no incentive to change its behavior either. Politics, unlike ethics, does not change through advice and admonition alone. Power shows flexibility only when it senses that continuing the status quo will cost it more than change would.
Afghanistan’s contemporary history demonstrates the same reality. The People’s Democratic Party government agreed to reconciliation only after it had been worn down on the battlefield. During the 2010s, the Taliban likewise agreed to negotiate only when they faced simultaneous military and political pressure. Even the Taliban themselves, during their twenty-year war against the Republic, never settled for political pressure or international statements alone; they knew that without a shift in the balance of power, no negotiation would end in their favor. The same logic holds today. If the Taliban feel that their survival carries no cost, and that no force is capable of challenging their monopoly on power, what incentive would they have to accept reforms? Expecting a regime that controls every instrument of power to voluntarily relinquish part of it resembles political wishful thinking more than realistic analysis.
Meanwhile, opponents of armed resistance usually raise one important concern: they argue that Afghanistan can no longer bear a new war. This concern is entirely understandable. The people of Afghanistan have endured more than four decades of war, and no political force has the right to disregard their suffering. But a distinction must be drawn between the cause of war and the reaction to war. Violence does not begin when people defend themselves; it begins when a regime, by force of arms, strips people of all their basic rights and closes off every peaceful path. If people also lose the right to defend themselves, we have effectively accepted that force is the only source of legitimate power. Such logic not only destroys freedom but also turns tyranny into a permanent rule.
For this reason, a distinction must be made between “resistance” and “terrorism,” a distinction the Taliban consciously try to erase. Terrorism rests on targeting civilians, spreading public terror and indiscriminate violence. Resistance, in its legal and political sense, means struggling against a repressive regime to restore the fundamental rights of the people. Of course, not every act of resistance becomes legitimate simply because it opposes a regime. The legitimacy of resistance also depends on its conduct. If a group acting in the name of resistance targets civilians, promotes ethnic or religious revenge, or reproduces the same patterns of repression used by the Taliban, it will lose its moral and political legitimacy. Resistance can only earn public support when it adheres to the principles of humanitarian law, the protection of civilians, and democratic values. The goal of resistance should not simply be to replace those who hold power, but to change the nature of power itself. This is the fundamental difference between freedom-seeking resistance and a mere power struggle.
On the other hand, military resistance alone cannot build Afghanistan’s future either. The country’s experience over the past half century has shown that victory on the battlefield does not necessarily translate into success in building a stable political system. Afghanistan has suffered less from a shortage of armed forces than from a lack of political consensus, accountable institutions and a democratic culture. Therefore, if a resistance movement takes shape, it must clarify its political vision from the outset, a vision in which the rights of all citizens, regardless of ethnicity, religion, language and gender, are guaranteed, and in which the transfer of power takes place through law and the will of the people. For this reason, defending armed resistance should not mean replacing politics with weapons. If military resistance becomes necessary, it should serve as a tool to reopen the path of politics, not as a substitute for it. The ultimate goal is to return Afghanistan to a state in which no citizen is ever again forced to carry weapons to defend their freedom.
Today, the main question is not whether war is good or bad; the answer to that question is clear. War is always a tragedy. The real question is whether a people who have been stripped of all their political, civil,l and human rights can be expected to remain mere spectators forever. Can a girl denied an education, a journalist whose pen has been broken, a civil activist who has endured prison and torture, or a citizen with no right to determine their own fate, be asked to simply wait, hoping the Taliban’s behavior will change? The nearly five years that have passed have largely answered this question. The Taliban have been unmoved by civil protests, United Nations (UN) resolutions, diplomatic pressure, or relative international isolation. Wherever they saw no cost, they expanded the scope of repression, and wherever they sensed the other side lacked the will or capacity to exert pressure, they hardened their positions.
In such circumstances, defending the legitimacy of armed resistance is not so much a call to war as an acknowledgment that all the avenues that should have been tried before war, and were tried, have failed. This defense is not a glorification of violence; rather, it is a defense of the fundamental principle that no nation is condemned to live forever under the domination of a regime that has closed off every peaceful path to change. The legitimacy of resistance is determined not by an affection for war but by the Taliban’s own conduct.
You can read the Persian version of this analysis article here:
بخش دوم و پایانی – چرا باید از مقاومت مسلحانه در برابر طالبان دفاع کرد؟
