The reasons that prepared the easy victory of Taliban

We, who live outside of Afghanistan, who are living in a "salted" Afghanistan, who follow the images of Afghans running in front of the huge American military transport planes leaving Kabul, "sticking" to the wheels of the plane, and the posts about this subject on social media in their own environment with safety and peace; We watched what was going on on the screens of our devices like a movie. At a time when the media was not as sharing as it is today, images of Bosnians hanging from the sides of UN trucks, fleeing Potocari before the Srebrenica massacre, must have come to our minds. Regardless of the promises made to the UN peacekeepers, the Bosnians, who felt and knew the atrocities of the Serbs, could not escape their fate. It is a pity that most Afghans, who are allies and supporters of the USA for 20 years, have no choice but to embrace the possibilities of the USA, which has failed it, to escape the wrath of the Taliban. Having to “try to take shelter” in the landing gear slot of a military plane, not being accepted from the slot, and being willing to die by falling from the plane that took off in front of the world…

After the Cold War, the United Nations, NATO and the leading countries of the world, who could not prevent the Bosnian massacres in the middle of Europe, felt the need to implement the UN's "responsibility to protect" principle. According to this, “Every state is obliged to prevent its citizens from crimes against humanity. If a government cannot do this, other states have the right to intervene in this country.” The resulting Afghanistan fiasco cast a shadow over the validity of this principle.

Let's return to our topic, promising to address these issues in our next articles.

According to Baradar, a prominent Taliban leader (probably expected to be elected president of Afghanistan soon and take over the administration), the Taliban "has achieved an unexpected victory". For some reason, even those who closely followed the region could not predict this unexpected victory of the Taliban. There are many reasons why entire cities across Afghanistan fell rapidly and Kabul was eventually captured. In this article, we would like to briefly dwell on these reasons.

Causes

Firstly, it can be shown among the most important reasons that Biden wants to withdraw his soldiers as soon as possible, as if they were kidnapping him from Afghanistan. This obsession with rapid withdrawal hindered the successful "request" of the American system, and in a way it has shown to the whole world that the USA has no problem with a withdrawal based on cooperation and coordination with all parties. While world televisions were presenting Vietnam-like scenes, the Taliban, perhaps without doing anything, became the sole ruler of Afghanistan with the "we are coming" wind blowing.

The USA has already declared the Taliban as its interlocutor on February 29, 2020, de facto declaring that it will hand over the Afghan administration after it to the Taliban instead of the "puppet government" it has been working with for 20 years. In this case, all Afghans have in a sense ignored the current Afghan government, bureaucracy, military and police. The USA also gave the Taliban the legitimacy it needed from the very beginning by meeting with it. This situation gave the Taliban the opportunity to seize the opportunity to meet with all the states of the world on an equal status after declaring their power. The door of the Chinese and Russian administrations, which have been in contact with Baradar and his group for years, to easily penetrate Afghanistan was thus opened by the USA.

Secondly, without the USA, the Western world has stayed away from displaying a presence that can be on the side of Afghanistan and developing a strong stance. Although Washington was in Afghanistan with its allies, it did not refrain from following an "irresponsible policy" of taking the decision to leave without consulting its allies, ignoring the consequences. The attitude of Biden, who acted with the desire to go down in history as the president who returned the American soldiers to his home, was decisive in this. The sad situation here, the disappointment experienced in the 2008 Georgia, 2014 Ukraine and later Crimean events, brought along the problem of the allies' acting in a "distrust" towards the USA. It may be understandable to be left alone against the Russian Federation, but from now on, no one can expect Afghans with a population of 35-40 million to be handed over to their "impairment" in the face of the Taliban of 60-70 thousand in their own country, and that the allies of the USA will not question them. This will undoubtedly bring the future and functions of NATO into question, if not today, tomorrow.

As a matter of fact, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg's statement that "continuing without the USA [in Afghanistan] is not a practical and realistic option for NATO allies and European allies" indicates that there is a serious structural crack for NATO. Where there is no USA, there is no NATO. Become dependent or dependent only on the USA the joint security organization may be a candidate for securing what. A NATO identity that came out with the USA from Afghanistan, which it entered with the USA, has lost its identity. The reason for NATO's existence (raison d'être), which could not prevent the Bosnian massacre in the 90s, has become more questionable today.

The withdrawal of the USA, which was tired and frustrated in Vietnam, perhaps did not make such a sound in the Cold War environment. At that time, NATO was not weakened, and US allies around the world did not question whether Washington would support them. The USA was an unrivaled superpower against the Soviets and the strongest branch to hold on to was the USA. Despite the existence of global moves by Russia and China in today's conditions; The United States has gravitated towards the convenience of acting without consulting its allies. As the USA makes a habit of conducting foreign policy only on its own terms and with little regard for the interests of others, the "image" of NATO member countries with the USA is about to lose its meaning. A multipolar world is about to emerge, even if the US does not want it, and the US's invitation to its allies from new doors will certainly lead to ruptures in NATO and the Western world, as long as there is an untrustworthy US leadership.

Third, the Afghan government system has been left without a head, due to the intelligence failure of the United States and its allies, and former Afghan president Ashraf Ghani leaving Afghanistan without waiting for the arrival of the Taliban. Thus, the police, the military and the political mechanism, which are the nerve endings and protectors of the system, collapsed along with it. Would the chiefs of police and so-called commanders stand at the head of their soldiers and fight against the Taliban in a country where the President "escaped"? An army whose reason for existence has disappeared had to disperse because a new "leadership" had not emerged, and the soldiers chose the convenience of taking the side of the Taliban. The benefit of this situation was that the system changed hands and it was possible for a new administration to come to power, with almost no bloodshed in the country.

Gani left the country. Moreover, he has also shown that he does not have the thought of leading a movement, a formation that will show resistance against the Taliban. While it was likely to play a meaningful leadership role for Afghanistan, it did not attempt to do so. Even if there is a resistance in the future, it is unthinkable that it will be led by Gani. Moreover, it can be said that the ex-President even threw the towel in the towel by saying "Taliban won", and even discouraged Afghans who would join groups (such as the Northern Alliance) that might show possible resistance. Gani's assistant Salih's words about the weak resistance are almost never heard.

Fourth, the United States at least did not foresee that the transition to the Taliban would take place so quickly. South Vietnam had collapsed two years after the withdrawal of US troops. The United States expected its ally government to remain in power for a long time after its withdrawal. Yet he could not have seen that Afghanistan was so different from Vietnam. The US operation in Afghanistan did not create an internal division in the population similar to the Vietnam War. Although there was general discontent, actions were not taken to end the Afghanistan mission, for example. It's as if Biden has turned his back on the Afghan government, saying, "The United States is back." Maybe, instead of the post-extraction government, an interim government that the Afghan people and the Taliban can accept, such as a Transitional Council, may have been envisioned by the US authorities. The Transition Council, which came to the agenda after the withdrawal, may be trying to take a role according to this planning. The Transitional Council, spoken of as the Taliban entered Kabul, included former rebel leader Gulbuddin Hikmatyar, who was Afghanistan's prime minister in the 1990s and has close links with Pakistan's intelligence agency ISI. President Abdullah Abdullah and former Afghan President Hamid Karzai seemed to join him. The Council was loosely formed late in the evening of 15 August...

Fifth, the Taliban's over 20-30 years of open or covert arms aid, ease of asylum, and political support from Pakistan, through the Pashtuns of its origin, had been the basis of the Taliban's resistance to the United States. Pakistan has not been bothered to be a country that provides shelter to the Taliban for its geopolitical goals and supports the organization. It has become a natural ally of the Taliban. The organization, which has settled in the mountainous regions of Afghanistan, has always been able to maintain its mobility with the transitions to Pakistan from the Durand Line, and has managed to maintain its existence even in times when the "Taliban is over". In the new situation, who will be able to guarantee that these organizations will not disturb Pakistan and invite instability, if the Taliban again undertakes a mission of being a home to international terrorist structures, as it has done in the past?

Conclusion

What happened in Afghanistan has once again shown us that: those who cannot instill civic consciousness in their people living within the borders of a state, build their people around the ideal of the nation. A power that cannot reconcile and develop a holistic sense of patriotism/patriotism in its people condemns both itself and its people to bankruptcy. In a geography where there is no common sympathy for his country, it is not possible to talk about a sense of patriotism that does not hesitate to sacrifice his life for the sake of his country. Crowds of people who do not develop a sense of belonging to their homeland and country as a society cannot do what is necessary for patriotism and cannot escape from being the pariah of others. In such a country, it is inevitable to experience such consequences as soon as the executive power loses its power or the fulcrum of its power.

As a result, we can say that the Taliban achieved their wishes as an armed organization that managed to survive for about 30 years, in line with the combination of the reasons stated.

The Taliban managed to achieve a "peaceful transfer of power". The Taliban, who want to establish an Islamic government that includes all Afghans, is about to achieve it. The statements of the Taliban leaders that they will display a more "moderate" administration than before 2001 began to be reflected in the international press. The discourse of “they can be involved in education and working life” especially for women is promising for Afghanistan, where literacy rates are very low, and may herald a significant change. Such changes that Afghanistan will experience within itself are important to a certain extent. More importantly, from the point of view of the international community, various scenarios such as blocking the influence of China and Russia by the US-backed new formations in the region, perpetuating instability in the region, delaying the life of projects such as “belt road” in this insecure environment, are expected to come to life. may be the subject.

As a result, the Taliban easily seized power in Afghanistan twenty years later as a result of the reasons we have listed above. However, time will tell whether the Taliban administration will show enough will to make Afghanistan a powerful country. Let's not forget that military victories can be won quickly, but foreign policies cannot be built at the same speed.

We will continue to closely follow developments in Central Asia, centered on Afghanistan.

Some of the references that we used in this article

CHAUDHURI, R., 20 August 2021, “Will the Taliban Keep Their Promises in Afghanistan?”, Carnegie India, <https://carnegieindia.org/2021/08/17/will-taliban-keep-their-promises-in -afghanistan-pub-85158> set 21.8.2021.

Euronews, 11 July 2021, “Srebrenica Genocide: How did it come to the process, what happened?”, https://tr.euronews.com/2021/07/10/srebrenitsa-soykirimi-surece-nasil-gelindi-neler-yasandi> set 21.8.2021.

HELIĆ, A. 20 August 2021, “After Afghanistan: What the UK and Europe should do next”, Politico, <https://www-politico-eu.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/www.politico.eu /article/afghanistan-war-uk-europe-responsibility-to-protect-defense-global-britain-nato/amp/>set 21.8.2021.

MARCUS J. 18 August 2021, “How will the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan affect the world order?”, <https://www.bbc.com/turkce/haberler-dunya-58258127> s.e.t.21.8.2021.