MESOP NEWS Opinion: The Taliban’s Afghanistan takeover was neither unexpected nor sudden
by Joseph Fitsanakis INTEL ORG 17-8-2021
THE COMPLETE TAKEOVER OF Afghanistan by the Taliban was “sudden” or “unexpected” only for those who have not been paying attention to the imploding country in recent months. There were certainly outliers, among them an assortment of Foreign Policy columnists, who, as late as July 28, were urging readers to stop “assuming the Taliban will win”. But ever since October of 2020, when United States President Donald Trump announced that American troops would leave the country (a policy that the Biden Administration eagerly adopted), the vast majority of reports about the future of Afghanistan after an American military withdrawal, have been unanimous: the Taliban would take over the entire country with little delay, and almost certainly without facing significant resistance.
This was certainly the view on the ground in Afghanistan, where desperate families have been leaving the country for many months now. The recent shocking images of Afghan men clinging on to American transport aircraft, were not of the beginning of a desperate exodus from the country. Rather, these were the last groups of people who, for a variety of reasons, did not abandon the capital earlier this year. The impending reality of the Taliban takeover has been recognized especially by women in urban centers. The latter have been preparing for months for the change in the nation’s leadership, by burning their Western attire and throwing away their make-up.
Meanwhile, countries like Russia and the United Kingdom have also been preparing to deal with the Taliban as the government of Afghanistan. It was nearly five weeks ago when Ben Wallace, Minister of Defense of Britain, arguably the United States’ closest international partner, said that London was prepared to “work with the Taliban, should they come to power”. Soon afterwards, Russia’s longtime Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, called the Taliban “rational actors” and warned the Afghan government that it risked losing control of the entire country by not entering into a negotiated settlement with the militants.Continue reading “Opinion: The Taliban’s Afghanistan takeover was neither unexpected nor sudden”