Who won in Afghanistan:
US or Taliban?
Realists versus Idealists!
There are two sets of arguments describing Afghanistan's victory. The first camp argues about Taliban's victory while the latter one defends US success. My personal assumptions classify them into two categories: realists and idealists. In particular, realism and idealism are theories of IR but here their meanings be taken general and denotative.
Realists are those who pronounce US defeat. Their overwhelming majority is religious and fundamentalist Deoband dominant. The bedrock of their victory is the principle "Everything is fair in love and war" or more explicitly we can say that "It is not the material loss that decide victory or defeat but the steadfastness in the battle field should be the standard".
They don't pay heed to statistics as such, but they have collected some data about the increasing number of homeless people in US, financial crunch and figures of trillians of dollars loss to the Americans. They attach all the strings with "Aspirations of Jihad". The survival of Taliban and withdrawal of Allied forces is their satisfactory argument of triumph. They are caught confused in democracy and imposition. They support and glorify Taliban's post withdrawal capturing of provinces. For them Nelson Mandella is right when he says that "It always seems impossible until it is done".
On the contrary, Idealists argue that Taliban along every Afghan has lost this duet. This time the camp include both the liberals and enlightened religious factions. But, more importantly the educated Islamists are concern worthy because they are giving a balanced reaction compared to that of the ideologically defeated liberals. This side denounces that "peace flows from the barrels of guns". They prefer dialogues as to be the best course to resolve disputes.
They are found comparing pictures of sustained and maintained cities of US with the wrecked and devastated infrastructures plus suffered masses of Afghanistan. They opine that modern nation states do not invade another to desolve its identity and merge it but national interests is their religion and business. They say that the Americans achieved what they wanted. Adding insult to the injury, US bombed Afghans with the "mother of all bombs" and have left Afghans an easy prey to civil war-----mother of all evils. They stand with democracy. Apart from some liberals, their disagreement with Taliban's victory doesn't mean Islamophobia, they just come up with a durable democratic solution.
Everyday adds new developments to the Afghan quagmire. Latest exclusive interview of TTP chief to CNN felt me goosebumps. We can't deny the importance of Jihad but apparently things seem conspired for national interests of different countries. Hussain Haqqani had once assumed about Sino-IndoPak troika "For China, Pakistan is a low cost secondary deterrent to India and for Pakistan, China is a high value guarantor of security against India" adding the below footnote to the statement will make it more relevant that, "and Afghan Taliban are a low value guarantor of security against India".
Episode 4
Mansoor
