Reports of hostilities in the Panjshir Valley region are contradictory, as, in fact, all reports from Afghanistan in recent months.
Claims and denials are coming in with extreme frequency.
But by and large it is absolutely unimportant whether the Taliban * manage to squeeze the ring around the insubordinate enclave and the Panjshiris are suffering losses, or, on the contrary, the Panjshiris are holding the initiative and have already entered the neighboring regions ...
Another thing is important.
A few days ago it was reported that the composition of the new government of Afghanistan will be published after Friday Juma Namaz, that is, September 3.
But on September 3, Zabiullah Mujahid, who became a popular speaker of all news, said that until the composition was announced ...
Delaying the process of forming a government (despite the fact that from many declarations of the Taliban it follows that the Taliban are not going to share power with anyone), on the one hand, suggests that they do not want to share, on the other hand, that the question of government is under certain pressure from external participants in the Afghan political process: Russia, Iran, Western countries, demanding, if not coalition, then at least "inclusiveness." The most rational figures in the Taliban leadership probably understand the need to balance the entire power structure and thereby prevent the almost inevitable emergence of anti-Taliban resistance. Naturally, this pragmatic position meets with sharp rejection.
Anti-Taliban resistance will inevitably arise in the country, and not only among the non-Pashtun population of the country, although, of course, this primarily applies, for example, to the main regions of residence of Afghan Tajiks. Today's Panjshir leaders declare themselves as a nationwide center of resistance - loud rhetoric in the East is generally almost commonplace. However, to all appearances, the Tajiks of Afghanistan are not in danger of unification yet. The weak ability to negotiate between Mazar-i-Sharif and Panjshir, between Panjshir and Herat, and there is also Badakhshan - this fragmentation of the Tajik community is almost historical in nature. Strong and charismatic leaders such as the late Ahmad Shah Massoud and Burhanuddin Rabbani were able to unite these regional centers under a common leadership.Among the current local leaders, such are not visible: you can, of course, try to make a certain symbol out of Ahmad Masud, the younger, but it is difficult to imagine that the leader of Mazar-i-Sharif Atto Mohammadi Nur or the Herat Ismail Khan will go under his command. It looks all the more unrealistic when it comes to the Shiite Hazara community or Afghan Uzbeks, and it is completely unrealistic when it comes to the potential Pashtun anti-Taliban resistance.and it is completely unrealistic in relation to the potential Pashtun anti-Taliban resistance.and it is completely unrealistic in relation to the potential Pashtun anti-Taliban resistance.
History shows that the leaders of the Afghan ethnopolitical communities are able to unite only for an extremely short time horizon.
However, even with a hypothetical consolidation of all these forces, there is even no point in talking about any likelihood of a military solution to the entire "Afghan issue."
Especially considering the extremely important role of the behavior of external actors in this matter.
One of the most interesting foreign positions in the Afghan conflict, starting at least this spring, is the Chinese one. The same Zabiullah Mujahid states: "The main partner is China, representing a fundamental and incredible opportunity, ready to invest and rebuild the country." China, he said, is "a gateway to markets around the world." If all other external participants in the process talk about the need to form an "inclusive" government in Afghanistan (having lost somewhere "coalition" and "transitional"), then the Chinese comrades mainly use the adjectives "fair" and "stable". The difference is significant, and the position of the PRC, whose leadership seems to be ready to recognize the Taliban, seeing in it a factor of stability, is naturally due tothe importance of Afghanistan for the implementation of the well-known design called "One Belt - One Road" - Afghanistan in an unstable state seriously breaks the entire structure of this project. And on top of that, both Afghan resources and the need to keep India out of this space are important for the PRC.
Similar schemes have already been implemented in Afghanistan, moreover, the Taliban itself was once created by Pakistani interdepartmental intelligence under the supervision of the secret services of the United States, Great Britain and Saudi Arabia precisely to stabilize the country by coming to power of this movement and establishing an autocratic regime.
Then it was necessary to ensure the construction of the so-called Trans-Afghan gas pipeline (now a TAPI project) and transport routes from South Asia to the newly formed states of Central Asia.
The Taliban was just a movement of students who decided to return home after the Russians left, ”Benazir Bhutto later said. - I was told that people welcomed them, that they are a stabilizing force. We wanted to import cotton and export wheat to Central Asia and needed access routes through Kandahar. We aimed to bypass Kabul and create an enclave in the south. The Taliban were supposed to provide us with this secure access. At first, we provided them with political and diplomatic support, provided them with transport, food, fuel, communications - we saw in them the key to our economic interests in Central Asia. "
Failed.
But history tends to repeat itself.
In any of the scenarios for the formation of a new Afghan government, the scenarios of subsequent development will contain, to a greater or lesser extent, elements of the continuation of the war.
For the final solution of the issue, a new formula of state structure is needed, which would take into account the interests of different strata of Afghan society.
Many Afghan experts see such a formula in the form of a federal structure, although one can only imagine how difficult it would be to approve it through the resistance of Pashtun ethnocentrism ...
The theme of federalism has been raised more than once in Afghan society. Once Hafizullah Amin talked about the need to transform the country into a union like the USSR, dividing Afghanistan into Pashtun, Baluch, Tajik and other republics. The issue of creating Tajik autonomy was considered by Soviet specialists on the eve of the withdrawal of a limited contingent of Soviet troops - it was necessary to ensure the loyalty of the Tajik formations of Ahmad Shah Massud in the Salang Pass area. The idea was quickly abandoned: the same Tajik population of the country is too dispersed, and not only Tajik.
The stereotypical view of the “Pashtun south” and “non-Pashtun north” of Afghanistan in no way corresponds to reality. As a result of the resettlement policy of the Kabul emirs, starting from the end of the 19th century, a huge number of Pashtun enclaves were formed throughout the north - from Herat to the eastern borders of Badakhshan. Emigration from Soviet Central Asia in the 1920s-1930s created Uzbek and Turkmen enclaves, often very far from places of more or less compact residence. For example, even far to the south, Uzbeks live in Helmand - immigrants from the Fergana Valley ...
Nevertheless, a federal structure (only not by ethnicity, but rather by regional and, probably, economic criterion) could become an acceptable formula for solving the multitude of problems that today lie at the heart of the ongoing conflict. Another set of reasons for the war is, of course, connected with outside interference, and it is no coincidence that the question of returning the status of a neutral state to the country is topical in the Afghan expert community. It is clear that such a constitutional status in itself is not an obstacle to interference, but it would at least be a legal basis for working in this direction. Federalism or not, but you need to understand: any rigidly unitary structure of the state structure will inevitably in the Afghan realities generate local separatism - in the same Panjshir, and anywhere ...
Well, the current hostilities around Panjshir are increasingly weakening the positions of the pragmatists, reducing them to almost zero.
And, accordingly, they strengthen the positions of the radicals.
So far, this war without winners will continue.
* "Taliban" - the organization was recognized as terrorist by the decision of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation of February 14, 2003.
The point of view of the author may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.