Arkady Dubnov

journalist, political scientist, expert in Central Asia

Taliban took control of the entire territory of Afghanistan in fact without hostilities, the president of the country fled. The Taliban announced the creation of their own government and Shariah courts. Not everyone managed to leave the country through Kabula airport. At the same time, the Islamic movement declared an amnesty for officials and invited them to return to work. Arkady Dubnov believes that it is pointless to blame the United States for the withdrawal of troops, and the Taliban, although now it simply says what they want to hear from him, many promises may fulfill.

The impression of what is happening in Afghanistan, of course, apocalyptic. This is a drama for a large number of people who do not know their future and did not represent such a development of events. The fact that not everyone can fly away from Afghanistan is a terrible misfortune, and there is something to reproach not only Americans, but also of Afghan neighbors. The Supreme Commissariat of the UN for refugees can say kind words, but what can he do?

The main concern of Joe Bayden as the President of the United States is to preserve the life of the Americans, just as the care of Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev at one time was finally saving Soviet soldiers, for which the hula has been continuing for 30 years. My 35-year-old neighbor Valera Blinkov died in Afghanistan Major in 1984. We are the peers, he was the commander of the helicopter squadron. He should not get there, but it happened. He died by the stupidity of the military command, because he did not have enough parachute in a helicopter. Gorbachev committed it, no matter how tragic it may look.

Therefore, the Sleepy Joe did what the president had to do. I don’t give a damn what our Masha Zakharovs, the diplomats like him, say about him today: they say that America was supposed to bomb and continue the war, and gave Afghanistan to the Taliban to pieces. It is good to discuss and find the right and guilty in someone else's war. Yes, America made a mistake, staying there 10 years ago. It was necessary to finish with the war after the liquidation of al-Qaeda and Ben Laden, but America is a super-horsing power and thought that she could modernize Afghanistan, lead him to a happy future according to his recipes. They thought that if Marshall's plan was a success, then in Afghanistan something similar can also be created, only money and will are needed. There is money, there is a will, but it makes no sense, because it is Afghanistan, not Germany. There are different values, most Afghans do not understand what the Americans expect from them.

Why did the Taliban just walk around the province? Ordinary people did not see the justice that was promised by the Americans, everything was plundered: they received the money either nouveau rods in Kabul or the governors in the field. Provincial Afghans do not understand the values ​​that all these incurred barons imposed them. President Ashraf Gani, who fled from the country, is considered one of the most corruption leaders of the modern world. I think we will soon find out everything in numbers. He clung to power with all his might, he brings a very serious share of responsibility for the fact that now the transit of power is happening. After all, the capture of the Taliban of the provinces and counties falling to the feet is a prelude to entering Kabul. Taliban includes in Kabul virtually without a fight, like a knife for oil for a second time. They also entered the city in April 1996, when the Mujahideen left him, keeping their lives to people.

Ordinary people never saw the justice that he was promised by the Americans, everything was plundered

The Taliban said: “Here is justice, we guarantee it to you,” justice in the sense of security. Vital security for ordinary Afghans, as in the first cadence of the Taliban, is more important than human rights. For them, chopping off the hand for theft is more or less normal. For them, stoning for adultery is more or less normal. For them, our clashes around the rights of transgender people or the struggle for the legalization of gay brothers are incomprehensible, although there are a lot of gays, there are a lot of male friendship of this type, but they do not talk about this. In general, all these imposed Western values ​​are nothing for them. Moreover, it turned out that all this money in general never got the Afghans.

Vital security for ordinary Afghans is more important than human rights

Hopes and strawberries

In 2009, at the invitation of Americans, I was in Afghanistan, where they showed me how they were trying to grow strawberries. She wanted to replace the growing of an opium poppy. There was nowhere to put strawberries, but they hoped that the tourist boom in Afghanistan would lead to the fact that strawberries would be supplied to Western tourists for breakfast with whipped cream. Former Afghans who own English and Dari, who taught these unfortunate Afghans to grow strawberries, received crazy money. It was funny. When I asked the Americans: "Guys, well, do you understand that this does not fit with reality?" - “No, why? It will turn out " -" When will you be able to succeed? " - “Well, I don't know. We are here until September ” -“ And then what? ” “And then our contract ends.” After September, everything that will happen in Afghanistan did not care much. Then it disappointed me.

The Americans are very honest, naive, business, executive people. And very romantic people who know why they go there. As in a construction detachment: I know that I will build a fence, get good money for it and then go to get drunk and walk, and what will happen after that and how much the fence will hold on, it does not matter. So, unfortunately, unfortunate Americans tried to modernize Afghanistan.

It seemed to the Americans that all the money that they swelled into this army could not melt without a trace. But Commandos turned out to be strangers among people who do not need them. And when Biden promised that they would last long, he sacredly believed in it. Of course, a shame, in a sense, when the Americans begged the Taliban not to enter the city until they take out all their citizens.

When our fortieth Soviet Army, led by General Gromov, agreed with the legendary Masud on the withdrawal of Soviet troops, this lasted months. Why was there such a successful conclusion? Because then Gromov or our Soviet counterintelligence agreed. They spoke Masud in almost the same language, they respected each other. The Americans of the Afghans were not very respected, just as the Afghans of the Americans hated.

Afghans did not really respond, and the Afghans hated the Afghans

In the relationship of Russians and Afghans, this was not there, there was almost a brotherhood. In general, in the late 90s, they did not know that the Soviet Union was no longer there, and they were very surprised at this. How, we border with the brothers from the north. Yes, we fought, but you do not consider us mud, and the Americans consider us dirt. The level of superiority that Americans experience in relation to the Afghans and people living in this part of the world are unbearable for these people. This does not apply to all of America, but to those who extend this Western modernization.

Risks for Russia

In Russia, the war in Chechnya and the coming to the power of a famous figure, as well as lawlessness and freemen, who became obvious to people from the North Caucasus, can be compared with the future ideological penetration of the idea of ​​victory over a strong enemy, which was won by the Taliban in Afghanistan.

In general, the Afghan Taliban has now shown the whole world Islamic community an example of an euphoric charge, which can lead to a passionate movement and rise in the spirit of the civilized world in relation to Muslims who are humiliated and offended today. Like, we finished them in Afghanistan, so why can't we put them in place in other regions of the world, including in Russia? This must be borne in mind, such a distribution of passionate ideas that are contagious to people of low levels of education in the presence of very strong charismatics and leaders of some communities, cells and groups.

Passionate ideas are contagious for people of low level of education

But I do not think that a threat to the world can arise as they said in Soviet times, that it will have to be returned to some Western contingents. This is a grave for the British, Americans, Russians. Who hunts to dig up your grave again with your own hands?

The penetration of the Taliban into the territory of the Central Asian countries after their coming to power has not yet predicts, because the Talibes do not need it, they have others. Another thing is that as they fulfill promises to eliminate ties with ISIS and al-Qaeda, these people are demonstratively or not defiantly displaced outside Afghanistan, including through the northern borders, that is, to Central Asia.

There are already evidence that the Igilovs or Alcaidians issued from prisons are incorporated into refugee groups who have already tried to go to the territory of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. They were separated, Uzbek special services were quite effective. That is why, including, Uzbeks lead a very stringent policy towards refugees. For example, the caravan of the inner circle of the Afghan Marshal Dustum yesterday was deployed on the Friendship Bridge through Amu Darya. The dustum himself in a helicopter flew and hides somewhere in Uzbekistan, and these people were deployed. This is not because in Uzbekistan they see former jihadists among them, but because they generally refuse to receive refugees, with the exception of some areas.

Neighbors, China and new corruption

You can be sure that as soon as at least some power in Kabul is established, Pakistan is the first to recognize this power. Indeed, in the 90s, the postulate was close to the truth, that the Taliban are derivatives from Pakistani special services. Today, the Taliban healed his life, but the golden key to the pacification or regulation of the behavior of the Taliban, of course, in Islamabad, even though the gilding of the 90s has long fled from him.

The question is whether the Taliban recognizes Saudi Arabia, which was once one of the three countries that recognized this regime in the late 90s. The third country, by the way, was Turkmenistan, which has an amazing ability only to deal with security problems along its borders, and then at least the grass does not grow.

But China, unlike the same 90s, today has considerable interest in Afghanistan. Recently, the Taliban went to the briskets in Beijing, met there with the Minister of Foreign Affairs. No one knows what level there were promises and agreements, but it was significant, and the Chinese were very interested in ensuring that this fact would become public, so that everyone understood that the Chinese gold paw lies in Afghanistan. They will not spare money. In a sense, they will replace the United States in the sense of the prospects for corrupting the new elite.

The Chinese will not spare money for Afghanistan and in a sense will replace the United States

The Chinese were so corrupting the Tajik elite a long time ago. They gave money to a cache and did not ask them back when the current founder of the world and peace of Uzbekistan needed them. The plus is that the Chinese will not like the rampant and chaos, which can be untied in the Taliban regime, like Pakistan. We need the safety of infrastructure arteries going through Afghanistan, including from China towards Iran. So they need safety, guarantees of a calm economic existence within Afghanistan, primarily for Chinese business. And on this side, the Taliban will try to match these wishes, which means this will contribute to the stabilization of Afghanistan himself, which is plus.

What's next

As for the promises of the Taliban about the rights of women and building a state in the modern sense, they say what they want to hear from them. But this does not mean that they lie. This means that they know what they want to hear from them, and they will do it to some extent. But it is obvious that the Taliban young, who smelled the smell of blood and is intoxicated by the successes of victory, will kill, will punish women, unfortunately. If you recall the times of the first years of the bloody Bolshevik terror, which came to power and they needed to quickly end the remnants of the bourgeois cut, then there is nothing surprising in the parish after a hundred years of something similar, such a mass of peasant uneducated, but thirsty justice to select and divide. Taliban Lunacharsky will try to root, put in place, train. But Lunacharsky is single, and the banduugans are everywhere.