The US is pulling out of Afghanistan. Its adversaries, the Taliban, are jubilant. After all, they have beaten back another superpower. In order to understand the conflict in Afghanistan one needs to understand three things: Afghanistan’s ‘geography, demography and culture’.
According to Stratfor, the Texas-based private intelligence outfit, “Most of Afghanistan is custom-made for a guerrilla war. Much of the country is mountainous, encouraging local identities and militias….. The country's aridity discourages dense population centres, making it very easy for irregular combatants to melt into the countryside. Afghanistan lacks navigable rivers or ports, drastically reducing the region's likelihood of developing commerce. No commerce to tax means fewer resources to fund a meaningful government or military and encourages the smuggling of every good imaginable – and that smuggling provides the perfect funding for guerrillas.”
There are at least four layers of conflict in Afghanistan. First layer: Afghan Pakhtun versus Tajiks, Uzbeks and Hazaras, whereby the origins of this conflict can be traced back to the 19th century. Second layer: Pakhtun versus Pakhtun, whereby there’s an “age-old Pakhtun-on-Pakhtun element to the conflict [which] pits Taliban from the Ishaqzai tribe, parts of the Nurzais, Achakzais, and most of the Ghilzais, especially the Hotak and Takhi ghilzais, against the more ‘establisment’ Durrani Pakhtun tribes – the Barakzais, Popalzais and Alikozais.” Third layer: The proxy war between India and Pakistan. Fourth layer: Nato versus Taliban and Al-Qaeda (Source: ‘A deadly triangle’ by The Brookings Insitution).
To be certain, the American pullout removes just one layer of the Afghan conflict. The probability is high that post-2014 the north-south conflict, the Pakhtun vs Pakhtun conflict and the India-Pakistan proxy conflict will acquire a new level of intensity. So, west of the Durand Line the conflict goes on.
The three scenarios for post-2014 Afghanistan are: country-wide civil war, fragmentation with the Taliban controlling southern and eastern Afghanistan or a grand political reconciliation.
According to ‘Afghanistan post-2014; Groping in the dark?’, “It is very likely that violence and armed conflict will continue in Afghanistan. Even in the most optimistic scenarios violence, although at a lower level, continues to be part of the Afghan future. In fact, in a number of scenarios the present situation will deteriorate.”
According to ‘Afghanistan sans foreign troops & options for Pakistan’, “Every foreseeable ending to the Afghan war today – continued conflict with the Taliban, restoration of Taliban control in the southern and eastern provinces, or a nationwide civil war – portends nothing but serious perils for Islamabad. Worst of all, Islamabad’s strategy promises to fundamentally undermine Pakistani security. Every one of the three possible outcomes of the Afghan security transition leaves Pakistan in a terrible place.”
To be certain, there are at least four things that the Afghan Taliban and the Pakistani Taliban have in common: geography, ideology, ethnicity and the sharing of the same financial pipeline. What that means is that the conflict in Afghanistan is bound to spill over into Pakistan – and then into India.
Khalid Aziz, head of the Regional Institute of Policy Research and Training, “Our miseries begin with the withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghanistan. The prognosis is bad but this is what it is. This is the writing on the wall.”
The writer is a columnist based in Islamabad.
Email: farrukh15@hotmail.com
Twitter: @saleemfarrukh


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