As Afghan forces crumble, an air of unreality grips Kabul
The security blanket that the United States provided for two decades haunts the Afghan government’s actions, inactions and policies, fostering an atrophying of any proactive planning, in the view of some analysts. If there is a plan to counter the Taliban advance, it is not evident as the government’s hold on the countryside shrinks.
Some intelligence assessments have said that the Afghan government could fall under pressure from the Taliban in from six months to two years. If that happens, the outlook is likely to be grim for Mr. Ghani and his circle, as recent Afghan history demonstrates. Several of his predecessors in the country’s top job have met violent ends.
“The environment is extremely tense,” said Omar Zakhilwal, a former finance minister, noting what he called an atmosphere of “semi-panic” in the government.
“It’s beyond a crisis,” he said, adding: “The mismanagement has led us to where we are today.”
The roots of the current breakdown within Mr. Ghani’s administration are threefold, officials and security experts say: the delusion of security provided by the Americans, whose determination to leave was never fully believed by civilian or military leadership; the tactical disconnect between conventional Afghan forces and the more nimble guerrilla Taliban; and the reduction of the government to the person of Mr. Ghani himself and a handful of aides, foreign-educated, some with families safely abroad.
The first fatal weakness has been festering for years. With American might always ready to push the Taliban back, the inclination toward an aggressive self-defense posture withered.
“They didn’t have a strategic plan for when the Americans leave,” said Gen. Hilaluddin Hilal, a former deputy defense minister.
Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, the chairman of Afghanistan’s High Council for National Reconciliation, acknowledged as much at a recent meeting: “We were not ready for the decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan,” he said.
More than a quarter of the country’s 421 districts have been seized by the insurgents since early May, in a sweeping campaign that has largely targeted Afghanistan’s north and even seen some provincial capitals besieged by Taliban fighters. [Continue reading…]