Since Kabul fell to the Taliban on Sunday, critics have attacked President Biden for declining US global position, seizing the Taliban and its al-Qaeda partners, abandoning U.S. allies and abandoning the Afghans who risked their lives to work with the Americans. Add a more likely consequence of the U.S. withdrawal: an encouraged Pakistan, Taliban-friendly generals, and large numbers of jihadist groups feel the wind in their sails.
In official statements, Pakistan says it supports a peaceful resolution in Afghanistan. But if there is one world capital where the victory of the Taliban was received with almost disguised joy, it was in Islamabad. On Monday, Prime Minister Imran Khan praised Afghans for “breaking the bonds of slavery.” On social media, retired generals and other Taliban promoters hailed the triumph of Islam, regardless of whether the defeated Afghan government also called itself an Islamic republic.
The exultant Pakistanis shared a 2014 video clip with Hamid Gul, former head of the army’s intelligence agency, Inter-Services Intelligence. “When the story is written, it will be stated that the ISI defeated the Soviet Union in Afghanistan with the help of America,” Gul tells a TV studio auditorium. “Then there will be another sentence. The ISI, with the help of America, defeated America. “
One can understand why Taliban fans want to get excited. Between 2002 and 2018, the U.S. government gave Pakistan more than $ 33 billion in aid, including about $ 14.6 billion in so-called Coalition Support Funds paid by the Pentagon to the Pakistani military. (Donald Trump ended almost all military assistance and also reduced non-military aid from its peak in the Obama years.) During the same period, Pakistan ensured the failure of the Afghanistan of America subtly protecting, arming and training the Taliban.
“We found ourselves in an incredibly bizarre situation, where you pay the country that created your enemy to let you fight that enemy,” says Sarah Chayes, a former adviser to the president of the joint majority states. a telephone interview. “If you wanted to win the war, you had to repress Pakistan. If you wanted to perform operations [in Afghanistan] you had to mitigate Pakistan “.