Experts attribute the Taliban's success to secret agreements with the Americans
Moscow
The rapid seizure of power in Afghanistan by the Taliban is explained by unspoken agreements with the United States, whose troops are leaving this country after a 20-year occupation.
Political experts interviewed by Kommersant come to this conclusion, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“The rapid decline of the Afghan government, the president and the Afghan government system appears to be the result of unspoken agreements between the United States on the one hand and the Taliban and Pakistan on the other. The presence of such agreements explains many of the oddities of recent weeks and days: the surrender of almost 200 rural districts to the Taliban almost without a fight, then 30 Afghan cities and, finally, Kabul. In the same vein is the sudden refusal of the United States from previously promised air support for Afghan security forces on the battlefield,” said Andrei Serenko, director of the analytical center of the Russian Society of Political Scientists.
In his opinion, nThe new US strategy is to end its stay in Afghanistan by making its key ally in South Asia—Pakistan—overseeing this state.
The expert draws attention to the proposed appointment of US citizen General Ali Jalali to the post of head of the interim transitional administration in Kabul, which may serve as further confirmation of the fact of the US-Pakistan-Taliban deal. It is noted that the figure of Jalali is perceived positively by Islamabad, which, apparently, convinced the Taliban to agree to such an appointment.
“Such a rapid reformatting of power in Afghanistan not only destroys the institutions of the previous republican system formed in the country over the past two decades according to the Western model, but also nullifies plans for creating an inclusive coalition government, making impossible the main task that was officially proclaimed by diplomacy in recent months. It remains to be seen what Russia can get from the “Afghan deal” for the United States, the Taliban and Pakistan. The new Kabul administration is just being created, and it is difficult to say how filled it will be with friends of the Kremlin and how influential they will be in the future configuration of Afghan power,” Serenko sums up.
And the Director General of the Russian International Affairs Council, Andrei Kortunov, believes that the sudden refusal of the US administration to provide military assistance to the Ghani government and the decision not to conduct airstrikes against the Taliban may indicate two things.
“One can argue either about the existence of a secret deal between Washington and the Taliban and Pakistan standing behind them, or about the incompetence of President Biden’s team,” says the political scientist.
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