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Russia, Iran, China & Pakistan gain massively after victory of Taliban in Afghanistan | World Power Balance just changed | Lingering Military threat by western bases in Afghanistan is gone
Afghan Taliban must be treated as independent power, their decisions respected by all regional world powers of Iran, Pakistan, China and Russia. Let Afghans make their own decisions!
West along India has been squarely defeated and humiliated in Afghanistan. Most of the blame as usual is on Pakistanis for past 20 years as the one who supported politically, militarily and economically, while rest assured China, Iran, and Russia has been massively helping the Taliban in recent years. Iran has provided arms, money, along with China and Russia to defeat West.
Afghan Taliban must learn from past mistakes. Taliban has to evolve in international affairs. Afghan Taliban has to be make new economic transactions and bargaining with world so that alot of money gets invested in Afghanistan.
Afghan Taliban government will eventually be accepted by West in 1- 2 years.
On the other hand India played an extremely dirty hand in Afghanistan propping and aiding fighting against Taliban and sponsoring terrorism in Pakistan.
Chinese View:
China is happy to see America humbled and destroyed in Afghanistan. It does not love the Taliban, but is ready to do business with them.
Big thing is the U.S. withdrawal also presents Beijing’s leaders with an opportunity: to solidify their dominance in a region they consider their backyard and, even more, to play the role of hero by succeeding where Washington failed. Beijing’s policies now that the Taliban is in charge will provide clues as to how it views global leadership.
China’s propaganda machine is enjoying the fall of Afghanistan, at least for now. Chinese diplomats and state media have missed no chance to contrast the chaotic retreat of America and its allies with their own country’s continued welcome. For China, this is a chance to advance a model of foreign relations based on coldly weighed security and economic interests, rather than on lofty talk of building a better Afghanistan where girls may go to school. No bonds of affection or trust bind China and the Taliban.
Instead, China has pursued a few narrowly defined goals during years of intensifying contacts with Taliban delegations. China’s list is headed by its desire for a stable Afghanistan, especially near that country’s short, mountainous border with China. Above all, China has made clear that in return for the international recognition that the Taliban crave, and (probably rather limited) investments in roads, mines and other infrastructure, they must deny any haven to exiles from China’s north-western region of Xinjiang, especially Uyghurs. China’s fear is that Uyghur militants, including some with combat experience in Syria or training in Iran, may hope to enter Xinjiang through Afghanistan. Though China’s iron-fisted rule in Xinjiang—featuring the demolition of mosques and the detention of Muslims to “cure” them of excessive piety—offends all that the Taliban purport to believe, the group needs China’s backing.
For those of us wondering what kind of superpower China might be, we’ll soon get some clues in, of all places, Afghanistan.
In the aftermath of the American departure, how Beijing handles relations with Kabul—whether it can forge economic ties with the Taliban, how much political and diplomatic sway it seeks, and, most crucial, if it can use its leverage to influence the new regime—could offer a window into how it might wield its newfound power in other global-security crises, especially in the absence of a strong American presence.
Beijing’s Afghan policy will also be something more, though: a test of its entire worldview, and the specific form of international relations it has created. Beijing and Washington have the same basic concern about Afghanistan—that it will again become an international threat—but China’s leaders see the problem in an entirely different way.
The Chinese often deride America’s penchant for foreign interventions (though in the case of Afghanistan, they derived some benefit from it), and Washington’s promotion of democratic ideals through its foreign policy. China’s leaders advocate the principle of “noninterference” in other countries’ affairs. That translates to a diplomatic order stripped of its values (or at least those of the liberal variety). While Americans try to make other societies more like America’s, the Chinese don’t much care what kind of government another country has, or what it might be doing to its own people, as long as it’s not causing trouble for China.
The Chinese viewpoint—leaving foreign peoples under brutal regimes to their fate—may seem callous. Yet the strategy has a degree of pragmatism. The Chinese simply deal with other governments as they are, not how they wish them to be. That allows Beijing to sidestep ideological hang-ups and forge ties to successive regimes—as in Myanmar, where it got on with the junta, then the democratically elected government led by Aung San Suu Kyi, and then the junta again, without much fuss.
Thus far, China is already declaring victory. Wang Yi, the foreign minister, has called the situation in Afghanistan “yet another negative example” of the folly of military intervention in foreign hot spots, and warned that “if the United States does not learn from the painful lessons, it will suffer new ones,” according to a summary of his comments in official Chinese media. Hu Xijin, the editor of the Communist Party–run Global Times, crowed that “China doesn’t have a feud with Afghanistan … No matter who is in power, we’re ready to be Afghanistan’s friend.”
But while the U.S. and China both fear an unstable Afghanistan will become a haven for militancy once again, they don’t at all have a common purpose. Beijing isn’t talking about putting boots on the ground or making any other sort of direct intervention. Nor are China’s ambitions in the country nearly as lofty as America’s. The U.S. wanted to solve its Taliban problem by creating an entirely different form of government. The Chinese are content to solve their Taliban problem by engaging the Taliban: Beijing has already hinted that it would recognize the Taliban regime as Afghanistan’s legitimate government.
The U.S. “wanted to transform [Afghanistan] into something very different to what it was before,” Raffaello Pantucci, a senior associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, a defense-focused research center in London, told me. “The Chinese will never offer the pretense that that is what they are trying to achieve.”
Some of the benefits of China’s approach are already becoming apparent. Though Washington’s diplomats have negotiated with the Taliban, doing so leaves them queasy, and fully accepting such a regime would be a painful step. Chinese leaders, though, have no such scruples. How could they, based on their own abysmal human-rights record? Foreign Minister Wang met with Taliban representatives in July and hit home Beijing’s position that “Afghanistan belongs to the Afghan people, and its future should be in the hands of its own people,” according to a ministry statement.
Such efforts are paying off. The Taliban has responded positively to Beijing’s overtures and seems ready to allow China a significant role in Afghanistan. “We have been to China many times, and we have good relations with them,” Suhail Shaheen, a spokesman for the militant group, has said. “China is a friendly country that we welcome.” The group is also making all the right noises on the Uyghur issue. “People from other countries who want to use Afghanistan as a site [to launch attacks] against other countries, we have made a commitment that we will not allow them in, whether it’s an individual or entity against any country including China,” Shaheen said.
Still, Beijing probably has no illusions about what dealing with the Taliban means. The Chinese have extensive diplomatic experience in Afghanistan, including a concerted effort in the mid-2010s to mediate between its government and the Taliban. “In consideration of [the] Taliban’s past behavior and its embedded, rampant fundamentalist Islam ideology, together with its necessary rampant pride [resulting] from its recent drastic victory,” Shi Yinhong, an international-relations professor at China’s Renmin University, wrote me, “I guess the Chinese government would not believe without serious reservation … the initial promise made.”
"America's exit lowers strategic pressure on China," says Zhu Yongbiao, an expert on Afghanistan at China's Lanzhou University. "The situation has positives for China, but the negatives outweigh the positives. What China could stand to gain is quite modest."
The swift crumbling of U.S.-trained Afghan forces and the chaotic evacuation of Americans and their Afghan colleagues have given China an opportunity to highlight American failures.
Russian View:
Enemies of Russia mainly Western countries was massive boost after Taliban victory in Afghanistan.
When US and European governments raced to get their citizens and Afghan colleagues out of Kabul this week, Russia was one of very few countries not visibly alarmed by the Taliban takeover.
Russian diplomats described the new men in town as "normal guys" and argued that the capital was safer now than before. President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that the Taliban's takeover was a reality they had to work with.
It is all a far cry from the disastrous nine-year war in Afghanistan that many Russians remember from propping up Kabul's communist government in the 1980s.
Unlike most foreign embassies in the capital, Russia says its diplomatic mission remains open and it's had warm words for the new rulers. Ambassador Dmitry Zhirnov met a Taliban representative within 48 hours of the takeover and said he had seen no evidence of reprisals or violence.
Moscow's UN representative Vassily Nebenzia spoke of a bright future of national reconciliation, with law and order returning to the streets and of "the ending of many years of bloodshed".
President Putin's special envoy to Afghanistan, Zamir Kabulov, even said the Taliban were easier to negotiate with than the old "puppet government" of exiled President Ashraf Ghani.
Moscow has had little time for Mr Ghani: its diplomats claimed this week he had fled with four cars and a helicopter full of cash - accusations he dismissed as lies.
Moscow has been building contacts with the Taliban for some time. Even though the Taliban have been on Russia's list of terrorist and banned organisations since 2003, the group's representatives have been coming to Moscow for talks since 2018.
The former Western-backed Afghan government accused Russia's presidential envoy of being an open supporter of the Taliban and of excluding the official government from three years of Moscow talks.
Mr Kabulov denied that and said they were ungrateful. But as far back as 2015 he said Russia's interests coincided with the Taliban when it came to fighting Islamic State (IS) jihadists.
That did not go unnoticed in Washington. US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson accused Russia in August 2017 of supplying arms to the Taliban, a remark that Moscow rejected and described as "perplexing".
The foreign ministry in Moscow said it had "asked our American colleagues to provide evidence, but to no avail… we do not provide any support to the Taliban".
In February this year, Mr Kabulov angered the Afghan government by praising the Taliban for fulfilling its side of the Doha agreements "immaculately" while accusing Kabul of sabotaging them.
Focus on regional security
Despite its closer ties with the Taliban, Moscow is for now staying pragmatic, watching developments and not removing the group from its terror list just yet. President Putin said he hoped the Taliban would make good on its promises to restore order. "It's important not to allow terrorists to spill into neighboring countries," he said.
The key factors shaping Russia's policy are regional stability and its own painful history in Afghanistan. It wants secure borders for its Central Asian allies and to prevent the spread of terrorism and drug trafficking.
When the US targeted the Taliban after the 9/11 attacks and set up bases in former Soviet states in the region, Russia initially welcomed the move. But relations soon grew strained.
Earlier this month Russia held military exercises in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, aimed at reassuring Central Asian countries, some of which are military allies of Moscow.
Last month Russia obtained Taliban assurances that any Afghan gains wouldn't threaten its regional allies and that they would continue to fight IS militants.
Fears for the future
Russia may have given the impression of being prepared for the Taliban's sweep to power, but some experts believe Moscow was taken by surprise as much as everyone else.
"We cannot talk about any strategy from Moscow," says Andrey Serenko from the Russian Centre for Contemporary Afghanistan Study who sees decision being made on the hoof. "Moscow is worried about being late to the reshaping of the regional architecture."
Others in Moscow are wary of what Taliban rule might bring.
Andrei Kortunov, head of the Russian International Affairs Council think tank, believes they will struggle to control the entire country, especially the north, and that could threaten Russia and its neighbours.
"Perhaps, some cells of al-Qaeda, perhaps of Isis, based in Afghanistan, would instigate some actions in Central Asia," he says.
He also fears a sharp deterioration in the Afghan economy, which could in turn prompt further instability.
Iranian View:
Why Iran Will Welcome the Taliban Takeover in Afghanistan. Tehran’s Shiite regime has strategic, economic, ideological, and ecological reasons for backing Sunni Taliban.
Iran was more economically dependent on Afghanistan than many people realise. The change of regime will impact on Tehran in four main ways.
The first major issue facing Tehran in this respect is that recent international moves to limit the Taliban’s access to hard currency will impact on exchange rates in Iran.
Iran will have a harder time meeting demand for the US dollar at home by sourcing those dollars from Afghanistan – a reality that is likely to add upward pressure to exchange rates in Iran, subsequently increasing inflationary pressure.
Secondly, the end of dollar deliveries will also create an inflationary environment in Afghanistan. As prices rise, Afghan businesses and households will need to curtail demand – including for Iranian goods. In recent years, Afghanistan has emerged as one of the largest destinations for Iranian non-oil exports, with exports totalling around $2 billion a year. Iran’s own economic troubles, which saw the rial depreciate significantly, made Iranian goods more affordable for Afghan buyers. Iranian exporters were increasingly targeting Afghanistan, with its population of 38 million, as a priority market. But, already, the unrest in Afghanistan is having an impact on trade, which will be exacerbated as demand falls among Afghan consumers.
Finally, the long-term prospects for Iran’s economic development will be dimmer so long as the political and economic outlook in Afghanistan remains uncertain. A recent push among governments in the region to promote a common agenda for connectivity now appears in doubt. Iran’s role in this agenda centred on the port of Chabahar, which was seen as a way to connect India to new trade opportunities, principally by providing a trade corridor to central Asia and Afghanistan that circumvents Pakistan. Not only will India-Afghanistan bilateral trade suffer should demand fall in Afghanistan, but the necessary upgrades to transport infrastructure required to fully realise the envisioned corridor, such as additional connections between the Afghan and Iranian railway systems, are unlikely to be completed – the first railway connection between Iran and Afghanistan was only finished in December 2020. Aside from the general security concerns that will prevent the construction of new infrastructure, the multilateral development banks, which provide the crucial financing for many transport and energy projects, will be unlikely to lend to Afghanistan should the Taliban remain the dominant political force there. Iran, which cannot avail itself of development finance due to US sanctions, had stood to benefit indirectly from upgrades to Afghan infrastructure, especially when that infrastructure was completed with a view to regional connectivity.
Iran is a country that has long been battling an imposed economic isolation. While some Iranian leaders may be celebrating the withdrawal of American forces, the Taliban ascendancy, in economic terms, serves to deepen Iran’s economic isolation. Iran will find itself deprived of a convenient proximity to the foreign governments and international organisations that had an outsize presence in Afghanistan and to the significant financial flows that had buoyed the Afghan economy.
When the Taliban took Afghanistan’s key Islam Qala border crossing with Iran on July 9, locals reported that Iranian officials on the other side welcomed them. When on Aug. 6 it seemed the capital of Nimroz province in western Afghanistan was about to fall and many of those afraid of the Taliban rushed toward the border to escape, Iranian officials instead reportedly refused entry to most of those fleeing.
Iran has a long history of hosting both key al Qaeda members as well as Taliban leaders. As Foreign Policy reported in May 2016, “Taliban chief Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour was killed in Pakistan by an American drone last weekend after leaving Iran, where his family lives. U.S. officials say that Mullah Mansour regularly and freely traveled into and out of Iran.”
Iran has played a major role in the conflict.
While I was reporting from Kandahar, multiple security officials told me that Iranian weapons had been found in the hands of killed Taliban fighters in the area.
They added that they had received information on Iranian fighters operating in Nimroz, Herat, and Helmand provinces in western and southwestern Afghanistan near the border with Iran.
Multiple reports in recent years have accused Iran and its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps of providing weaponry and training for the Taliban. In February 2017, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan told Congress that Iran was supporting the Taliban to undermine the U.S. mission in the country, noting that “Russia, Iran, and al Qaeda are playing significant roles in Afghanistan.”
The governor of the western Afghan province of Farah alleged the same year that training centers had been established inside Iran for the purpose of training would-be Taliban, and Iranian support was blamed for an uptick in violence that year.
A major reason for Iranian support for the Taliban is Iran’s need for the water that flows into the country from across the border.
There are compelling economic and strategic reasons for these links. Martin said that “control of Helmand, and particularly upper Helmand, where the Alizai, Noorzai and Ishaqzai tribes reside, means control of a series of dam canals—in fact built by [the U.S. Agency for International Development] in the 1950s-70s—that allow control of the output of the Helmand river, which empties into Iran’s Sistan region where it waters around a million people.”
The support Iran has provided to armed groups inside Afghanistan, Martin said, has “ranged from money to weapons to routes for exfiltrating drugs, and has gone on for at least the last decade, if not twice that—the water from the river Helmand is a vital national interest for the Iranian government.”
Al Qaeda and Taliban operatives have long transited through Iran and operated from its territory.
Though some find it odd that Shiite Afghans would be supporting the Taliban—given the targeting of minority Shiites when the Taliban were previously in power—there are multiple signs that some have grown closer to the group over the years as a result of Iranian influence.
Iran does not have ideological qualms about supporting violent Sunni extremist groups as well as other ostensibly nonreligious ones, despite often being seen as the “protector of Shiites” around the world—when that role serves Tehran’s purposes.
Iran has long supported the Sunni organization Hamas in the Gaza Strip, for example, both financially and with weapons.
Shortly before the Taliban took over the Islam Qala border crossing—which had in recent years brought in a significant amount of customs revenue for a government largely reliant on these very revenues alongside international aid for its functioning—in early July, a meeting was held in Tehran between Taliban representatives and the Iranian government.
In a July 31 question-and-answer session with Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid hosted by an Iranian journalist, Mujahid said: “We always wanted to establish relations with Iran, because Iran has an Islamic system, and we want an Islamic system.”
Whether this backing is intended to ensure much-needed cross-border water supply, for religious reasons, or simply as a way to get a government seen as a U.S. ally out of the way, Iran seems to believe it will benefit from the Taliban taking control of Afghanistan.
Pakistani View:
First Pakistanis are celebrating massive victory over West, end of colonial era and prays the suffering of cross-border terrorism which made Pakistan loose thousand of lives and $150 billion economic losses has ended. Afghan Taliban and Pakistanis are same culture, same ideology, same language, same people, all of Afghan Taliban families live in Pakistan, Afghan Taliban has been massively supported by Pakistan dangerous agency ISI, Pakistan government, Pakistan Army and each walks of life in Pakistan. Pakistan ISI has been accused to support the most dangerous arm of Taliban, the Haqqani Network. Pakistan protected its country from break-up, Pakistan protected its Nuclear Arsenal, Pakistan protected its regional power status and Pakistan now can move its 100,000 strong army from west to eastern border, resulting in massive reduction in economic defense budget spend on it.
Pakistan now stands to recognize Afghan Taliban as its brothers, but must let Afghan Taliban act independently, and have to face tough decisions in coming days. Pakistan and Afghanistan must boost economy massively.
Pakistan must tap the 3 trillion dollar mineral deposits in Afghanistan and help Afghans grow economically in community of nations. Pakistan must help build Afghanistan government and state successively and develop companies in Afghanistan.
Pakistan must buy weapons and equipment left by foreign forces in Afghanistan which Taliban will not use. Pakistan must
Afghan Taliban must be treated as independent power, their decisions respected by all regional world powers of Iran, Pakistan, China and Russia. Let Afghans make their own decisions!
West along India has been squarely defeated and humiliated in Afghanistan. Most of the blame as usual is on Pakistanis for past 20 years as the one who supported politically, militarily and economically, while rest assured China, Iran, and Russia has been massively helping the Taliban in recent years. Iran has provided arms, money, along with China and Russia to defeat West.
Afghan Taliban must learn from past mistakes. Taliban has to evolve in international affairs. Afghan Taliban has to be make new economic transactions and bargaining with world so that alot of money gets invested in Afghanistan.
Afghan Taliban government will eventually be accepted by West in 1- 2 years.
On the other hand India played an extremely dirty hand in Afghanistan propping and aiding fighting against Taliban and sponsoring terrorism in Pakistan.
Chinese View:
China is happy to see America humbled and destroyed in Afghanistan. It does not love the Taliban, but is ready to do business with them.
Big thing is the U.S. withdrawal also presents Beijing’s leaders with an opportunity: to solidify their dominance in a region they consider their backyard and, even more, to play the role of hero by succeeding where Washington failed. Beijing’s policies now that the Taliban is in charge will provide clues as to how it views global leadership.
China’s propaganda machine is enjoying the fall of Afghanistan, at least for now. Chinese diplomats and state media have missed no chance to contrast the chaotic retreat of America and its allies with their own country’s continued welcome. For China, this is a chance to advance a model of foreign relations based on coldly weighed security and economic interests, rather than on lofty talk of building a better Afghanistan where girls may go to school. No bonds of affection or trust bind China and the Taliban.
Instead, China has pursued a few narrowly defined goals during years of intensifying contacts with Taliban delegations. China’s list is headed by its desire for a stable Afghanistan, especially near that country’s short, mountainous border with China. Above all, China has made clear that in return for the international recognition that the Taliban crave, and (probably rather limited) investments in roads, mines and other infrastructure, they must deny any haven to exiles from China’s north-western region of Xinjiang, especially Uyghurs. China’s fear is that Uyghur militants, including some with combat experience in Syria or training in Iran, may hope to enter Xinjiang through Afghanistan. Though China’s iron-fisted rule in Xinjiang—featuring the demolition of mosques and the detention of Muslims to “cure” them of excessive piety—offends all that the Taliban purport to believe, the group needs China’s backing.
For those of us wondering what kind of superpower China might be, we’ll soon get some clues in, of all places, Afghanistan.
In the aftermath of the American departure, how Beijing handles relations with Kabul—whether it can forge economic ties with the Taliban, how much political and diplomatic sway it seeks, and, most crucial, if it can use its leverage to influence the new regime—could offer a window into how it might wield its newfound power in other global-security crises, especially in the absence of a strong American presence.
Beijing’s Afghan policy will also be something more, though: a test of its entire worldview, and the specific form of international relations it has created. Beijing and Washington have the same basic concern about Afghanistan—that it will again become an international threat—but China’s leaders see the problem in an entirely different way.
The Chinese often deride America’s penchant for foreign interventions (though in the case of Afghanistan, they derived some benefit from it), and Washington’s promotion of democratic ideals through its foreign policy. China’s leaders advocate the principle of “noninterference” in other countries’ affairs. That translates to a diplomatic order stripped of its values (or at least those of the liberal variety). While Americans try to make other societies more like America’s, the Chinese don’t much care what kind of government another country has, or what it might be doing to its own people, as long as it’s not causing trouble for China.
The Chinese viewpoint—leaving foreign peoples under brutal regimes to their fate—may seem callous. Yet the strategy has a degree of pragmatism. The Chinese simply deal with other governments as they are, not how they wish them to be. That allows Beijing to sidestep ideological hang-ups and forge ties to successive regimes—as in Myanmar, where it got on with the junta, then the democratically elected government led by Aung San Suu Kyi, and then the junta again, without much fuss.
Thus far, China is already declaring victory. Wang Yi, the foreign minister, has called the situation in Afghanistan “yet another negative example” of the folly of military intervention in foreign hot spots, and warned that “if the United States does not learn from the painful lessons, it will suffer new ones,” according to a summary of his comments in official Chinese media. Hu Xijin, the editor of the Communist Party–run Global Times, crowed that “China doesn’t have a feud with Afghanistan … No matter who is in power, we’re ready to be Afghanistan’s friend.”
But while the U.S. and China both fear an unstable Afghanistan will become a haven for militancy once again, they don’t at all have a common purpose. Beijing isn’t talking about putting boots on the ground or making any other sort of direct intervention. Nor are China’s ambitions in the country nearly as lofty as America’s. The U.S. wanted to solve its Taliban problem by creating an entirely different form of government. The Chinese are content to solve their Taliban problem by engaging the Taliban: Beijing has already hinted that it would recognize the Taliban regime as Afghanistan’s legitimate government.
The U.S. “wanted to transform [Afghanistan] into something very different to what it was before,” Raffaello Pantucci, a senior associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, a defense-focused research center in London, told me. “The Chinese will never offer the pretense that that is what they are trying to achieve.”
Some of the benefits of China’s approach are already becoming apparent. Though Washington’s diplomats have negotiated with the Taliban, doing so leaves them queasy, and fully accepting such a regime would be a painful step. Chinese leaders, though, have no such scruples. How could they, based on their own abysmal human-rights record? Foreign Minister Wang met with Taliban representatives in July and hit home Beijing’s position that “Afghanistan belongs to the Afghan people, and its future should be in the hands of its own people,” according to a ministry statement.
Such efforts are paying off. The Taliban has responded positively to Beijing’s overtures and seems ready to allow China a significant role in Afghanistan. “We have been to China many times, and we have good relations with them,” Suhail Shaheen, a spokesman for the militant group, has said. “China is a friendly country that we welcome.” The group is also making all the right noises on the Uyghur issue. “People from other countries who want to use Afghanistan as a site [to launch attacks] against other countries, we have made a commitment that we will not allow them in, whether it’s an individual or entity against any country including China,” Shaheen said.
Still, Beijing probably has no illusions about what dealing with the Taliban means. The Chinese have extensive diplomatic experience in Afghanistan, including a concerted effort in the mid-2010s to mediate between its government and the Taliban. “In consideration of [the] Taliban’s past behavior and its embedded, rampant fundamentalist Islam ideology, together with its necessary rampant pride [resulting] from its recent drastic victory,” Shi Yinhong, an international-relations professor at China’s Renmin University, wrote me, “I guess the Chinese government would not believe without serious reservation … the initial promise made.”
"America's exit lowers strategic pressure on China," says Zhu Yongbiao, an expert on Afghanistan at China's Lanzhou University. "The situation has positives for China, but the negatives outweigh the positives. What China could stand to gain is quite modest."
The swift crumbling of U.S.-trained Afghan forces and the chaotic evacuation of Americans and their Afghan colleagues have given China an opportunity to highlight American failures.
Russian View:
Enemies of Russia mainly Western countries was massive boost after Taliban victory in Afghanistan.
When US and European governments raced to get their citizens and Afghan colleagues out of Kabul this week, Russia was one of very few countries not visibly alarmed by the Taliban takeover.
Russian diplomats described the new men in town as "normal guys" and argued that the capital was safer now than before. President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that the Taliban's takeover was a reality they had to work with.
It is all a far cry from the disastrous nine-year war in Afghanistan that many Russians remember from propping up Kabul's communist government in the 1980s.
Unlike most foreign embassies in the capital, Russia says its diplomatic mission remains open and it's had warm words for the new rulers. Ambassador Dmitry Zhirnov met a Taliban representative within 48 hours of the takeover and said he had seen no evidence of reprisals or violence.
Moscow's UN representative Vassily Nebenzia spoke of a bright future of national reconciliation, with law and order returning to the streets and of "the ending of many years of bloodshed".
President Putin's special envoy to Afghanistan, Zamir Kabulov, even said the Taliban were easier to negotiate with than the old "puppet government" of exiled President Ashraf Ghani.
Moscow has had little time for Mr Ghani: its diplomats claimed this week he had fled with four cars and a helicopter full of cash - accusations he dismissed as lies.
Moscow has been building contacts with the Taliban for some time. Even though the Taliban have been on Russia's list of terrorist and banned organisations since 2003, the group's representatives have been coming to Moscow for talks since 2018.
The former Western-backed Afghan government accused Russia's presidential envoy of being an open supporter of the Taliban and of excluding the official government from three years of Moscow talks.
Mr Kabulov denied that and said they were ungrateful. But as far back as 2015 he said Russia's interests coincided with the Taliban when it came to fighting Islamic State (IS) jihadists.
That did not go unnoticed in Washington. US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson accused Russia in August 2017 of supplying arms to the Taliban, a remark that Moscow rejected and described as "perplexing".
The foreign ministry in Moscow said it had "asked our American colleagues to provide evidence, but to no avail… we do not provide any support to the Taliban".
In February this year, Mr Kabulov angered the Afghan government by praising the Taliban for fulfilling its side of the Doha agreements "immaculately" while accusing Kabul of sabotaging them.
Focus on regional security
Despite its closer ties with the Taliban, Moscow is for now staying pragmatic, watching developments and not removing the group from its terror list just yet. President Putin said he hoped the Taliban would make good on its promises to restore order. "It's important not to allow terrorists to spill into neighboring countries," he said.
The key factors shaping Russia's policy are regional stability and its own painful history in Afghanistan. It wants secure borders for its Central Asian allies and to prevent the spread of terrorism and drug trafficking.
When the US targeted the Taliban after the 9/11 attacks and set up bases in former Soviet states in the region, Russia initially welcomed the move. But relations soon grew strained.
Earlier this month Russia held military exercises in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, aimed at reassuring Central Asian countries, some of which are military allies of Moscow.
Last month Russia obtained Taliban assurances that any Afghan gains wouldn't threaten its regional allies and that they would continue to fight IS militants.
Fears for the future
Russia may have given the impression of being prepared for the Taliban's sweep to power, but some experts believe Moscow was taken by surprise as much as everyone else.
"We cannot talk about any strategy from Moscow," says Andrey Serenko from the Russian Centre for Contemporary Afghanistan Study who sees decision being made on the hoof. "Moscow is worried about being late to the reshaping of the regional architecture."
Others in Moscow are wary of what Taliban rule might bring.
Andrei Kortunov, head of the Russian International Affairs Council think tank, believes they will struggle to control the entire country, especially the north, and that could threaten Russia and its neighbours.
"Perhaps, some cells of al-Qaeda, perhaps of Isis, based in Afghanistan, would instigate some actions in Central Asia," he says.
He also fears a sharp deterioration in the Afghan economy, which could in turn prompt further instability.
Iranian View:
Why Iran Will Welcome the Taliban Takeover in Afghanistan. Tehran’s Shiite regime has strategic, economic, ideological, and ecological reasons for backing Sunni Taliban.
Iran was more economically dependent on Afghanistan than many people realise. The change of regime will impact on Tehran in four main ways.
The first major issue facing Tehran in this respect is that recent international moves to limit the Taliban’s access to hard currency will impact on exchange rates in Iran.
Iran will have a harder time meeting demand for the US dollar at home by sourcing those dollars from Afghanistan – a reality that is likely to add upward pressure to exchange rates in Iran, subsequently increasing inflationary pressure.
Secondly, the end of dollar deliveries will also create an inflationary environment in Afghanistan. As prices rise, Afghan businesses and households will need to curtail demand – including for Iranian goods. In recent years, Afghanistan has emerged as one of the largest destinations for Iranian non-oil exports, with exports totalling around $2 billion a year. Iran’s own economic troubles, which saw the rial depreciate significantly, made Iranian goods more affordable for Afghan buyers. Iranian exporters were increasingly targeting Afghanistan, with its population of 38 million, as a priority market. But, already, the unrest in Afghanistan is having an impact on trade, which will be exacerbated as demand falls among Afghan consumers.
Finally, the long-term prospects for Iran’s economic development will be dimmer so long as the political and economic outlook in Afghanistan remains uncertain. A recent push among governments in the region to promote a common agenda for connectivity now appears in doubt. Iran’s role in this agenda centred on the port of Chabahar, which was seen as a way to connect India to new trade opportunities, principally by providing a trade corridor to central Asia and Afghanistan that circumvents Pakistan. Not only will India-Afghanistan bilateral trade suffer should demand fall in Afghanistan, but the necessary upgrades to transport infrastructure required to fully realise the envisioned corridor, such as additional connections between the Afghan and Iranian railway systems, are unlikely to be completed – the first railway connection between Iran and Afghanistan was only finished in December 2020. Aside from the general security concerns that will prevent the construction of new infrastructure, the multilateral development banks, which provide the crucial financing for many transport and energy projects, will be unlikely to lend to Afghanistan should the Taliban remain the dominant political force there. Iran, which cannot avail itself of development finance due to US sanctions, had stood to benefit indirectly from upgrades to Afghan infrastructure, especially when that infrastructure was completed with a view to regional connectivity.
Iran is a country that has long been battling an imposed economic isolation. While some Iranian leaders may be celebrating the withdrawal of American forces, the Taliban ascendancy, in economic terms, serves to deepen Iran’s economic isolation. Iran will find itself deprived of a convenient proximity to the foreign governments and international organisations that had an outsize presence in Afghanistan and to the significant financial flows that had buoyed the Afghan economy.
When the Taliban took Afghanistan’s key Islam Qala border crossing with Iran on July 9, locals reported that Iranian officials on the other side welcomed them. When on Aug. 6 it seemed the capital of Nimroz province in western Afghanistan was about to fall and many of those afraid of the Taliban rushed toward the border to escape, Iranian officials instead reportedly refused entry to most of those fleeing.
Iran has a long history of hosting both key al Qaeda members as well as Taliban leaders. As Foreign Policy reported in May 2016, “Taliban chief Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour was killed in Pakistan by an American drone last weekend after leaving Iran, where his family lives. U.S. officials say that Mullah Mansour regularly and freely traveled into and out of Iran.”
Iran has played a major role in the conflict.
While I was reporting from Kandahar, multiple security officials told me that Iranian weapons had been found in the hands of killed Taliban fighters in the area.
They added that they had received information on Iranian fighters operating in Nimroz, Herat, and Helmand provinces in western and southwestern Afghanistan near the border with Iran.
Multiple reports in recent years have accused Iran and its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps of providing weaponry and training for the Taliban. In February 2017, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan told Congress that Iran was supporting the Taliban to undermine the U.S. mission in the country, noting that “Russia, Iran, and al Qaeda are playing significant roles in Afghanistan.”
The governor of the western Afghan province of Farah alleged the same year that training centers had been established inside Iran for the purpose of training would-be Taliban, and Iranian support was blamed for an uptick in violence that year.
A major reason for Iranian support for the Taliban is Iran’s need for the water that flows into the country from across the border.
There are compelling economic and strategic reasons for these links. Martin said that “control of Helmand, and particularly upper Helmand, where the Alizai, Noorzai and Ishaqzai tribes reside, means control of a series of dam canals—in fact built by [the U.S. Agency for International Development] in the 1950s-70s—that allow control of the output of the Helmand river, which empties into Iran’s Sistan region where it waters around a million people.”
The support Iran has provided to armed groups inside Afghanistan, Martin said, has “ranged from money to weapons to routes for exfiltrating drugs, and has gone on for at least the last decade, if not twice that—the water from the river Helmand is a vital national interest for the Iranian government.”
Al Qaeda and Taliban operatives have long transited through Iran and operated from its territory.
Though some find it odd that Shiite Afghans would be supporting the Taliban—given the targeting of minority Shiites when the Taliban were previously in power—there are multiple signs that some have grown closer to the group over the years as a result of Iranian influence.
Iran does not have ideological qualms about supporting violent Sunni extremist groups as well as other ostensibly nonreligious ones, despite often being seen as the “protector of Shiites” around the world—when that role serves Tehran’s purposes.
Iran has long supported the Sunni organization Hamas in the Gaza Strip, for example, both financially and with weapons.
Shortly before the Taliban took over the Islam Qala border crossing—which had in recent years brought in a significant amount of customs revenue for a government largely reliant on these very revenues alongside international aid for its functioning—in early July, a meeting was held in Tehran between Taliban representatives and the Iranian government.
In a July 31 question-and-answer session with Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid hosted by an Iranian journalist, Mujahid said: “We always wanted to establish relations with Iran, because Iran has an Islamic system, and we want an Islamic system.”
Whether this backing is intended to ensure much-needed cross-border water supply, for religious reasons, or simply as a way to get a government seen as a U.S. ally out of the way, Iran seems to believe it will benefit from the Taliban taking control of Afghanistan.
Pakistani View:
First Pakistanis are celebrating massive victory over West, end of colonial era and prays the suffering of cross-border terrorism which made Pakistan loose thousand of lives and $150 billion economic losses has ended. Afghan Taliban and Pakistanis are same culture, same ideology, same language, same people, all of Afghan Taliban families live in Pakistan, Afghan Taliban has been massively supported by Pakistan dangerous agency ISI, Pakistan government, Pakistan Army and each walks of life in Pakistan. Pakistan ISI has been accused to support the most dangerous arm of Taliban, the Haqqani Network. Pakistan protected its country from break-up, Pakistan protected its Nuclear Arsenal, Pakistan protected its regional power status and Pakistan now can move its 100,000 strong army from west to eastern border, resulting in massive reduction in economic defense budget spend on it.
Pakistan now stands to recognize Afghan Taliban as its brothers, but must let Afghan Taliban act independently, and have to face tough decisions in coming days. Pakistan and Afghanistan must boost economy massively.
Pakistan must tap the 3 trillion dollar mineral deposits in Afghanistan and help Afghans grow economically in community of nations. Pakistan must help build Afghanistan government and state successively and develop companies in Afghanistan.
Pakistan must buy weapons and equipment left by foreign forces in Afghanistan which Taliban will not use. Pakistan must
