Afghanistan and the Symptomatic Terrorism Charles Elias Chartouni/August 30/2021
The resumption of terrorist activities in Afghanistan is quite indicative of its pliability to the Islamist terrorist galaxy, the inherent divisiveness of the Taliban movement, the swaying pressure of regional power brokers, and the structural impediments to State formation. There should be zero tolerance towards the return of Afghanistan to its previous status as a haven instrumentalized by islamist Terrorism.
The acceleration of the withdrawal process should be paired with formal commitments on the part of Taliban insofar as their readiness to engage the international community, abide by global security and State formation standards, away from the usual prevarications which characterize transition periods.
Otherwise, the military logistics left by the disintegrated Afghan army should be totally destroyed on due time before it gets smuggled by the various splinter terror groups operating in the Afghani hinterlands and porous borders. Taliban should be given no leeway when it comes to upholding the rules that should guide transition processes, if they ever have the intention and ability to move Afghanistan onto a new stage, overcome its fractiousness and set Stateness on due track. If history is of any help, it should teach us to be sober and downscale our expectations without falling into the traps of corrosive cynicism and systematic political helplessness.
The completion of the withdrawal should also put the American decision making process on the right track when it comes to the scaling of strategic priorities, the definition of security predicates, the recasting of NATO, and the need to build steady tactical alliances and overcome the pitfalls of strategic unilateralism.
Otherwise, the imponderables of Afghani geopolitics, the Pakistani equivocations, the Iranian pervasive insecurities and cynicism, the treacherous terrains of Central Asian geopolitics and the Indian geopolitical concerns, require a serious reconsideration of the strategic quandaries of South Asia and the Indian sub-continent.
The lack of a comprehensive strategic outlook is quite hazardous and proves to be conflict-ridden, highly destabilizing, and detrimental to stability and rational conflict resolution in a region of high turbulence and no structural equipoise. The perpetuation of the strategic voids in this intercontinental geopolitical expanse and its deleterious consequences is coterminous with the rising issues of Western security and its compounded agendas.
