If we don't the sacrifice of the past decade will have been in vain
It was almost inevitable that, the moment Nato formally announced the end of combat operations in Afghanistan, the Taliban would claim victory. Ever since the US-led coalition first intervened in Afghanistan 13 years ago, the Taliban have consistently claimed they were winning the war, even though all the evidence pointed to the contrary. So it should come as no surprise that the movement continues to persist with its self-delusional propaganda as the West’s main military effort in the country draws to a close.
It was unfortunate that Nato commanders should have played into the hands of the Taliban propagandists by deciding to mark the closure of its combat mission - the most important in the organisation’s history - with a low-key ceremony in Kabul that was arranged in secret in order to avoid the possibility of a Taliban attack. If this is how Nato commanders conduct themselves in public then it is no wonder the Taliban believe they have won, denouncing the US-led mission as a “fire of barbarism and cruelty” that had drowned the country in a “pool of blood”.
The truth is, of course, that is the Taliban, not Nato, that has been responsible for most of the bloodshed during this bitter conflict. Around two-thirds of Afghan civilian casualties have been caused the Taliban and their indiscriminate use of roadside bombs and suicide attacks, whereas Nato forces have always done their best to avoid civilian casualties, even if it meant at times putting the lives of their own soldiers at risk.
Nor is there any truth to the Taliban’s claim that it has won this conflict. The Taliban’s fighting strength has been greatly diminished in recent years. No official figures are available for the number of Taliban fighters killed or wounded during the past decade, but a conservative estimate would put the casualty toll well above the 10,000 mark.
But if the Taliban has suffered badly, that does not mean it has been defeated. I wrote in 2010 when President Barack Obama arbitrarily announced that all combat operations would end by 2014 that it was wrong to signal to the enemy when we wanted the war to end. One of the main objectives of the military campaign was to pressure the Taliban to come to the negotiating table and resolve this long-running conflict once and for all. But once we signalled our intention to leave, the Taliban knew that all they had to do was sit and wait for the infidels to leave.
The big question now is whether, after the bulk of Western military forces have withdrawn, the Taliban can follow up on their threat to seize control of the country once more. On that score the Taliban have already been active in places like Helmand, moving into remote rural areas vacated by the withdrawal of British and American troops.
But whether they can directly challenge the authority of newly-elected Afghan President Ashraf Ghani is another matter entirely. Thanks to the Western training effort, the Afghans now have a 200,000-strong army with which to defend themselves. Moreover, Nato will retain an 18,000-strong military backup force in Afghanistan to provide help and support to the Afghans if they run into difficulty.
And so long as the West continues to back the Afghan effort to keep the Taliban at bay, I still believe the country has a fair chance of surviving the Taliban’s challenge. Otherwise all the sacrifice of the past decade will have been in vain.
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