The general offensive of the Taliban, which is unfolding during these hot July days in Afghanistan, against the backdrop of the end of the era of the 20-year presence in the country of the US contingent, has returned the long-suffering Afghan topic to the top of world news.

As the Taliban * movement, which is on the rise and smelling of victory, is taking over more and more districts, already controlling 85% of the country's territory, including the border with Tajikistan, an avalanche of comments has flooded the Russian and world media that Afghanistan is about to face another radical breaking.

Its result will be the completion of the process of creeping Talibanization of the country by transforming the current Afghanistan into an "Islamic emirate", which in the 21st century will live according to Sharia law.

Today in Moscow one often hears that, they say, all this became an illustration of the fiasco of the American megaproject for the democratic reconstruction of Afghanistan, which was born in the fall of 2001 after the September 11 attacks.

“The United States is not just withdrawing its troops from Afghanistan - it is withdrawing them, de facto admitting the failure of its mission,” said Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov the other day.

Official Russian statements also show almost undisguised bewilderment, if not irritation, at the actions of the official Afghan authorities, who, they say, have shown intractability and unwillingness to negotiate with the Taliban, missing the moment to achieve national reconciliation.

And now they are reaping the fruits of such a short-sighted policy.

In general, it turns out that the United States and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani are almost to blame for everything, who, by the way, remains the legitimate leader who came to power in democratic elections and is not going to go anywhere. Just like, for example, President Bashar al-Assad in Syria was not going to go anywhere fighting terrorists.

While the Taliban movement for many years practically did not stop its terrorist activities for a single day, killing and blowing up, ruled out for itself any opportunity to participate in the elections and regarded the negotiation process, which was so much talked about in Washington and Moscow, exclusively as an opportunity to kick out the "western puppet of Ghani."

He viewed the negotiations solely as a path to formalizing the surrender of the Afghan authorities hated by him, but not as a path to national reconciliation.

What international mediators prefer not to focus on.

And so a very spicy situation is developing around Afghanistan, let's say, of a kind of geopolitical through the looking glass.

On the one hand, by the decision of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation of February 14, 2003, the Taliban movement was recognized as a terrorist organization and its activities were banned in Russia.

On the other hand, this does not in the least prevent the Taliban delegation from coming here and negotiating in Moscow.

While the dialogue with the legitimate Afghan authorities, who are not terrorists, is clearly not going well for Moscow.

Sergei Lavrov is absolutely right: the project of creating a democratic and at the same time stable Afghan state has actually failed to be implemented, and diplomacy turned out to be powerless in the face of the Afghan anomaly.

But to be very precise, this is not only an American failure, but also the international community as a whole, including Russia.

Therefore, there is no need to gloat so much that the Americans have found Afghanistan too tough and now they are hastily packing their bags and taking their feet away.

Recall that in 2001, the Taliban regime was overthrown not by the Americans alone, but by the international coalition operating under the mandate of the UN Security Council, led by the United States, of which, by the way, Russia was a part (unlike Iraq, where there was no UN mandate, but was already "Coalition of will" of Washington and its allies).

In addition, over the years, the United States and Russia have cooperated in one way or another on Afghanistan, which allowed the Americans and their allies to have a vital transit route for the transfer of manpower and equipment to the country.

Finally, Russia supported the peace talks in Doha, initiated by outgoing US President Donald Trump, and has consistently called on the Taliban to join the process of national reconciliation.

However, Russian, not only American, diplomacy has not been particularly successful on the Afghan diplomatic track.

The same result, close to zero.

All attempts to appease the Taliban made them even more implacable, cruel and bloodthirsty.

The next round of negotiations or meetings, as a rule, was accompanied by an outburst of violence.

In this regard, the main question arises: is Afghanistan threatened with a repetition of the tragedy more than 20 years ago, when the ousted President of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan Mohammad Najibullah, who was hiding in the UN office in Kabul, was kidnapped by the Taliban in 1996, tortured and publicly executed.

By the way, President Ghani warned about the danger of such a scenario back in January 2019, when the situation did not look as dramatic as it is today.

“We are fully aware of the experience from the time of Dr. Najib.

We all know how he was deceived.

The UN gave him guarantees to ensure peace, but, unfortunately, everything ended in tragedy, "Ashraf Ghani said then, calling on" to ensure peace, to prevent a possible tragedy. "

In general, there are two pieces of news in the situation around Afghanistan - bad news and relatively good news.

The bad news is that Ashraf Ghani is likely to have to leave, and there is no leverage to prevent the Taliban from returning to power.

None of the external players will send their contingent to Afghanistan, and Kabul will not be able to cope with the Taliban alone.

The good (conditionally good) news is that the current Afghan regime, apparently, will not fall immediately, will not collapse like a house of cards, but will still fight and be able to hold out for several more months.

Afghan security forces are no longer so helpless and will still give the Taliban a fight, and more than one.

In general, tomorrow or the day after tomorrow, Kabul will definitely not fall, it still has time.

And this time of a new transition period should be spent on making the future Talibstan minimally toxic and dangerous for its neighbors and the entire outside world.

It is clear that such a regime cannot have any authority in the world, but if it at least does not create serious problems in the zone of strategic interests of Russia, does not provide the territory of Afghanistan for a new project of global jihad, this in itself will be the lesser of evils. ...

It seems that it is no longer possible to prevent the Taliban from coming to power in Afghanistan.

However, making their victory a Pyrrhic one, creating after the departure of the American contingent such a system of checks and balances that will not allow a full-fledged Islamist revenge, a repetition of the lawlessness of the times of Najibullah executed in Kabul Square and the export of terrorism abroad is quite realistic.

This is real for several reasons at once.

First, after coming to power, the Taliban will face a completely different task: how to keep this power, how to make it at least relatively stable in a country torn apart by national and clan contradictions.

Meanwhile, in addition to the current Afghan authorities, influential forces representing the so-called Northern Alliance, which includes representatives of Afghan national minorities - Tajiks and Uzbeks - who have their own mini-armies, are resolutely opposed to the Taliban, who represent the Pashtun majority.

And the Pashtuns themselves are still fighting among themselves.

It is curious that the idea of ​​a confederal Afghan state was first expressed 20 years ago. The meaning of this scenario boiled down to not trying at any cost to marry politicians at war with each other in the coalition government, not to sew with a harsh thread the spreading multicolored shreds of the ethnic map of Afghanistan, but to allow them to move away from each other at a respectful distance and thereby soften or eliminate existing religious -political and interethnic tensions.

This idea stemmed from the very specifics of the Afghan state, the various parts of which have always existed on their own. This was the case long before the rise of the Taliban and the Northern Alliance. At the same time, a number of factors speak in favor of decentralization - not only ethnic, religious, but also natural. If you look at the physical map of Afghanistan, you will notice that it resembles an inverted plate: in the center there is a mountain range, from which gorges diverge in different directions. Each province is a gorge, and they are isolated from each other. Today, the concept of decentralization of Afghanistan, which has remained unclaimed for many years, may become relevant: it is possible that in the name of its salvation, Afghanistan will need not to be united, but to be divided.

The second reason, which is likely to make the Taliban in power more accommodating than they are today, is their lack of any serious external support, including the Islamic world, whose main centers in the Middle East - Iran and Saudi Arabia - would prefer to stay away from them. ...

Their only patron, Pakistan, is not in the best shape itself.

In addition, after coming to power, the Taliban will have to defend their right to their own, nationally oriented Islamist project from competitors from Al-Qiada **, as well as the terrorist group Islamic State ***, which also does not recognize national borders.

All this will force the Taliban to seek external support, make them more accommodating, and the future Talibstan - less sympathetic, but not as scary as it seems.

* "Taliban" - the organization was recognized as terrorist by the decision of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation of February 14, 2003.

** "Al-Qaeda" - the organization was recognized as terrorist by the decision of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation dated 02.14.2003.

*** "Islamic State" (IS, ISIS) - the organization was recognized as terrorist by the decision of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation of December 29, 2014.

The point of view of the author may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.