No one should be misled. Since the beginning in 2002 of the political transition process promoted by the international community, led by Washington, there have been many voices that have (we) warned that the policies promoted by the new occupants and by the political regime installed by them were going in the wrong direction and would have negative consequences, especially when sooner or later the presence of foreign troops would end. When this happened, many of us were certain that the political regime imposed in 2004 would fall, although we did not expect such a rapid collapse. One more proof of this resounding disaster.
Ignorance of the reality of Afghanistan
This failure has many culprits. In the first place, the US as a country that has protected Afghanistan since 2002 despite the presence of a national government. But also the rest of the international community, from the European Union to the United Nations, including neighboring regional powers (Pakistan, Iran) and powers such as Russia and China. Also unfortunate is the role of NATO, where security was always ahead of other needs. The reason for this failure is simpler than it seems:they never understood the country they managed since 2002. And what's worse, they probably didn't bother to understand it either. This is the only way to explain the concatenation of errors committed in the last twenty years. Factors such as ethnic division, the role of Islam, the enormous inequalities between the countryside and the city, the determining factors of geography, etc. they were not taken into account. Added to this was also the obsession with explaining the Afghan conflict from the perspective of regional and world geopolitics, when historically it has been internal aspects that have determined the course of Afghan history, although it is true that external elements have not helped.
A first factor to take into account is that in Afghanistan the State has traditionally been weak , especially outside the cities, and his authority was always questioned, forcing in times of the monarchy (1747-1973) to pacts with local elites. Furthermore, with the communist coup d'etat of 1978 and the subsequent Soviet military intervention in Afghanistan a year later, the presence of the State practically disappeared from most of the country and for two decades the majority of the population was abandoned from any connection beyond of the local community, the ethnic group or the armed guerrilla.
To this was added the creation of a political system from 2002-2004 based on the Western democratic model. The widespread idea since the end of the cold war that political conflicts would be resolved with free elections was wrong because each country in conflict has its own peculiarities and can be useful in some cases, but never in all. To think that the Afghans themselves would support such a system was utterly naive. Here political loyalties are not for ideological reasons but family, clan, tribal, ethnic, geographic, religious (Sunism, Shiism), by professional groups, etc. In a country where ethnic aversions, especially aggravated since the 1990s, are the order of the day, it was absurd to create a system of political parties that in the end turned out to be more ethnically based parties (and on top of that they fought among themselves) and not formations ideological.
To this we must add that the new political actors were still the same ones who had fought against the Soviets (or for them) and that after Moscow's withdrawal in In 1989 a bloody civil war broke out that devastated the country and whose guerrillas committed all kinds of outrages against the civilian population. The Taliban behaved criminally during their 1996-2001 rule, but their successors also had blood on their hands, which did little to spread popular support for the new political regime. Without forgetting that the Afghan leaders of the last twenty years have been corrupt who have appropriated huge amounts of money from the international community intended for educational development, health, etc., behaving like real ruffians.
A complex and conservative society
It is important to highlight that the social, cultural and political framework in which Afghans live is not the same as that of other countries, including Muslim nations. A very common aspect is reluctance, if not hostility, to what comes from outside and more so if it is imposed. Already in the time of the Afghan kings, the policies promoted by the latter were viewed with suspicion and there were many rebellions against the established power, including the overthrow of kings.
Afghan society is clearly patriarchal and rigidly hierarchical, characterized by obedience from the young to the old, from women to men, and from young women to older women. The concept of democracy and equality is foreign to the thinking of the population and it could not be expected that established customs, so difficult to break, would be accepted overnight. In rural areas, for example, authority is usually in the hands of the elders of the community and their decisions are followed to the letter. The power of a governor or a mayor, both appointed by the central government, is very weak and their influence is scarce vis-à-vis local powers.
Regarding the status of women, always so controversial in that country, the majority of Afghan men do not believe in equality between the sexes , nor in mixed education, etc., with the exception of some elites in Kabul. Even the abandonment of the veil or the burqa (called chadri in Afghanistan) is not an easy task due to social resistance. Instead of slowly but steadily promoting changes, new norms were imposed that were rejected by the population. Here is another aspect to consider. To think that Kabul is a reflection of the reality of the country is to have no idea of it. The capital, already very conservative in itself, is an oasis of freedom compared to the extreme conservatism of the rest of the territories, perhaps with the exception of Herat and some northern cities such as Kunduz. Although coeducational education is rejected, education segregated by sex is more accepted and this aspect should have been taken advantage of with greater intensity because, after all, the important thing was that boys and girls were educated, even if it was separately.
The religious issue was subject to various ups and downs. Although the new state was renamed the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and Islam was designated the official religion, the Islamic religion could have been used politically to further unite the population, since it is the only factor of internal unity that exists in an ethnically fragmented country, geographically, linguistically and culturally. The sharia , despite not being an egalitarian legal system, is much more advanced in rights than tribal codes or customary laws.
The issue of terrorism
Perhaps the only aspect in which, for the moment, a "success" of the US military intervention and its allies can be observed has been the elimination of the bases of Al- Qaeda in Afghan territory. Herein lies also another cause of the general failure. The Western military intervention was not made to liberate the Afghans from Taliban rule, but the reason was to eliminate the presence of Al-Qaeda as a result of the 9/11 attacks. For this reason, security and the annihilation of supporters of jihadist terrorism have always been a priority , being in second place the economic and social development of the country.
Although there is no absolute evidence, it seems that the current Taliban leadership is aware of the mistakes made in the past with its support for Osama Bin Laden and they seem to have disassociated themselves from any association with groups linked to jihadist terrorism. The memory of his removal from power in 2001 seems to have made a dent in the fundamentalist leaders and proof of this is his clear enmity with the Islamic State (ISIS), a group against which they have been fighting for some time in order to prevent it from settling in territory Afghan.
This fact and to some extent the moderate attitude of the Taliban towards the international community shown to date suggest that, in this case, Afghanistan will not become a support base of terrorism fighting the West . Although we are not certain that the Taliban will return to their old ways over time.
The lack of solutions and a return to the “past”
The absence of practical solutions in the Afghan scenario has been fatal in resolving the complicated internal situation. They should have opted for the design of a new State structure with the means to consolidate itself and with the coercive capacity to impose its authority through well-prepared and well-paid police forces and an army. At the same time, understand that the imposition is many times more harmful than the pact and that by negotiating with local authorities, the planned objectives could have been developed little by little.
Another important element would have to be economic development and, especially, trade, fundamental in an economy based on the bazaar and which decades of war had left decimated. Obviously, at the same time fighting forcefully against corruption and not using the money to buy political will or for their own enrichment.
Not least, the educational development and health infrastructures. With only 30% (in the most optimistic estimates) of the literate population, it is very difficult to move the country forward. Education, in this sense, should have been a primary goal, especially outside urban areas where few children are in school. The disastrous health system has been another problem, with Afghanistan being one of the countries with the highest infant mortality rate and the lowest life expectancy on the planet.
We have already seen the result:the collapse of what was built since 2002 and the return of the same sinister actors who starred in the period 1996-2001. With the difference that the current Taliban have kept the weapons that the West has left in the country and will do everything possible not to be ousted from power again. The United States and the rest of the international community have been humiliated but the only loser is the Afghan people .