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      US withdrawal triggered catastrophic defeat of Afghan forces, damning watchdog report finds

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      US withdrawal triggered catastrophic defeat of Afghan forces, damning watchdog report findsReport by special inspector general blames Trump and Biden administrations, as well as the Afghan government of Ashraf Ghani Afghan armed forces collapsed last year because they had been made dependent on US support that was abruptly withdrawn in the face of a Taliban offensive, according to a scathing assessment by a US government watchdog.A report by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (Sigar) on the catastrophic defeat that led to the fall of Kabul on 15 August, blamed the administrations of Donald Trump and Joe Biden as well as the Afghan government of Ashraf Ghani.“Sigar found that the single most important factor in the Afghan National Defence and Security Forces’ (ANDSF) collapse in August 2021 was the decision by two US presidents to withdraw US military and contractors from Afghanistan, while Afghan forces remained unable to sustain themselves,” said the congressionally mandated report, which was released on Wednesday.Afghanistan stunned by scale and speed of security forces’ collapseRead moreThe Sigar account focused on the impact of two critical events that it said doomed the Afghan forces: the February 2020 Doha agreement between the Trump administration and the Taliban, and then Biden’s April 2021 decision to pull out all US troops by September, without leaving a residual force.“Due to the ANDSF’s dependency on US military forces, these events destroyed ANDSF morale,” the inspector general said. “The ANDSF had long relied on the US military’s presence to protect against large-scale ANDSF losses, and Afghan troops saw the United States as a means of holding their government accountable for paying their salaries. The US-Taliban agreement made it clear that this was no longer the case, resulting in a sense of abandonment within the ANDSF and the Afghan population.”The ANDSF were dependent on US troops and contractors because that was how the forces were developed, the report argued, noting “the United States designed the ANDSF as a mirror image of US forces”.“The United States created a combined arms military structure that required a high degree of professional military sophistication and leadership,” it said. “The United States also created a non-commissioned officer corps which had no foundation in Afghanistan military history.”It would have taken decades to build a modern, cohesive and self-reliant force, the Sigar document argued. The Afghan air force, the main military advantage the government had over the Taliban, had not been projected to be self-sufficient until 2030 at the earliest.Within weeks of Biden’s withdrawal announcement, the contractors who maintained planes and helicopters left. As a result, there were not enough functioning aircraft to get weapons and supplies to Afghan forces around the country, leaving them without ammunition, food and water in the face of renewed Taliban attacks.The US had begun cutting off air support to the Afghan army after the Doha agreement was signed. Exacerbating its impact on morale was the fact that the deal had secret annexes, widely believed to stipulate the Taliban’s counter-terrorism commitments and restrictions on fighting for both the US and Taliban. They remain secret, apparently, even from an official enquiry.“Sigar was not able to obtain copies of these annexes, despite official requests made to the US Department of Defence and the US Department of State,” the report observes.The secrecy led to unintended consequences, the report said.“Taliban propaganda weaponised that vacuum against local commanders and elders by claiming the Taliban had a secret deal with the United States for certain districts or provinces to be surrendered to them,” it said.The Sigar report also blames the Afghan president, Ashraf Ghani, who changed ANDSF commanders during the Taliban offensive, appointing aged loyalists from the communist era, while marginalising well-trained ANDSF officers aligned with the US.It quotes one unnamed former Afghan government official as saying that after the Doha agreement, “President Ghani began to suspect that the United States wanted to remove him from power.”According to the former official and a former Afghan government Ghani was afraid of a military coup. He became a “paranoid president … afraid of his own countrymen” and particularly of US-trained Afghan officers.Ghani fled Afghanistan on the day Kabul fell.TopicsAfghanistanAshraf GhaniUS foreign policyTrump administrationBiden administrationSouth and central AsiaUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Appeal to the UN to Protect Hazaras in Afghanistan

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      The Fair Observer website uses digital cookies so it can collect statistics on how many visitors come to the site, what content is viewed and for how long, and the general location of the computer network of the visitor. These statistics are collected and processed using the Google Analytics service. Fair Observer uses these aggregate statistics from website visits to help improve the content of the website and to provide regular reports to our current and future donors and funding organizations. The type of digital cookie information collected during your visit and any derived data cannot be used or combined with other information to personally identify you. Fair Observer does not use personal data collected from its website for advertising purposes or to market to you.As a convenience to you, Fair Observer provides buttons that link to popular social media sites, called social sharing buttons, to help you share Fair Observer content and your comments and opinions about it on these social media sites. These social sharing buttons are provided by and are part of these social media sites. They may collect and use personal data as described in their respective policies. Fair Observer does not receive personal data from your use of these social sharing buttons. It is not necessary that you use these buttons to read Fair Observer content or to share on social media. More

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      India Must Contain Afghanistan-Pakistan to Survive

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      The Fair Observer website uses digital cookies so it can collect statistics on how many visitors come to the site, what content is viewed and for how long, and the general location of the computer network of the visitor. These statistics are collected and processed using the Google Analytics service. Fair Observer uses these aggregate statistics from website visits to help improve the content of the website and to provide regular reports to our current and future donors and funding organizations. The type of digital cookie information collected during your visit and any derived data cannot be used or combined with other information to personally identify you. Fair Observer does not use personal data collected from its website for advertising purposes or to market to you.As a convenience to you, Fair Observer provides buttons that link to popular social media sites, called social sharing buttons, to help you share Fair Observer content and your comments and opinions about it on these social media sites. These social sharing buttons are provided by and are part of these social media sites. They may collect and use personal data as described in their respective policies. Fair Observer does not receive personal data from your use of these social sharing buttons. It is not necessary that you use these buttons to read Fair Observer content or to share on social media. More

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      Taliban reversal on girls’ education derails US plan for diplomatic recognition

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      Taliban reversal on girls’ education derails US plan for diplomatic recognitionJoint event had been planned ahead of Doha Forum that would have set process in motion to grant group diplomatic recognition The US was poised to set the Taliban on the path to diplomatic recognition before the plan was derailed by the Afghan rulers’ sudden U-turn on a promise to allow girls’ education, the Guardian understands.The group prompted international outrage and confusion on Wednesday when it reneged on a deal to allow teenage girls to go to secondary school, just a week after the education ministry announced that schools would open for all students.Taliban decide against opening schools to girls in Afghanistan beyond age of 11Read moreUS diplomats had been so optimistic that the Taliban would make good on the promise that a joint event had been planned ahead of this weekend’s Doha Forum in Qatar that would have set the process in motion to grant diplomatic recognition to the group.A seat had been reserved for the Taliban at a panel at the forum dedicated to girls’ education in which a Taliban representative would have addressed the role of women with Afghan female activists.The sudden reversal undermined the argument that a more “moderate” leadership now dominates the Taliban, and such optimism was further clouded this weekend when the group ordered Afghanistan television stations to remove BBC news bulletins in Pashto, Persian and Uzbek.In a statement on Sunday the BBC said “This is a worrying development at a time of uncertainty and turbulence for the people of Afghanistan. More than 6 million Afghans consume the BBC’s independent and impartial journalism on TV every weekWestern officials made it clear that diplomatic recognition will be impossible unless the decision on girls’ education is reversed. The move will also make it harder the international community to raise money for an international pledging conference next week, and require tighter handling of any cash raised so that it does notThomas West, the US special envoy for Afghanistan, said: “I was surprised by the turnaround this last Wednesday and the world has reacted to it by condemning this move. It is a breach first and foremost of the Afghan people’s trust.“I believe hope is not all lost. I am hopeful we will see a reversal of that decision in the coming days.”But West defended the US engagement with the Taliban saying that a complete diplomatic rupture would mean abandoning 40 million Afghans amid growing concerns over a possible famine in the country.“We are talking about the modalities of an urgent humanitarian response, the need for more than a humanitarian response, a policy not just an admire the problem of a broken banking sector but find ways to fix it, a professionalisation of the Central Bank so that the international financial community can begin to have confidence in it, we are talking about terrorism and we are talking about women’s rights.“One of the first times we sat down in October in a formal setting they had a request of us ‘please put our civil servants – 500,000 – back to work’. We thought a logical place to start given the sector resonated so much in the international community was education. We had requests of them, as well. Number one, women and girls could attend at all levels across large swathes of Afghanistan. Number two we wanted to see a monitoring mechanism and third there be a serious and rigorous curriculum. Over the following the months the international community receive the necessary assurances, and more importantly the Afghan people were told on March 23 we would see girls attend secondary education and that did not occur.”Hosna Jalil, a former interior minister was one of many Afghan women at Doha to claim the Taliban will not be able to keep a lid on the demand for education. She said the last 20 years had not been a waste but left a positive legacy. “We facilitated a generation, two thirds of the population, that knows what a better life looks like. That is why we will not give up. They are loud, they believe in freedom and democracy.”Malala Yousafzai, who won the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize for her fight for all children’s right to education, told the Forum that times had changed since the Taliban first banned girls’ education in 1996. Taliban U-turn over Afghan girls’ education reveals deep leadership divisionsRead more“It is much harder this time – that is because women have seen what it means to be educated, what it means to be empowered. This time is going to be much harder for the Taliban to maintain the ban on girls’ education. They are learning in the hide-outs. They are protesting on the streets. This ban will not last forever. They were waiting outside the school gates in their uniforms and they were crying. Seeking education is a duty of every Muslim,” she said.Dalia Fahmhy, an Afghan professor of political science said in 1999 no girls were in secondary schools. “Within 15 years later there were 3.7 million girls. Over that period a thousand women became business owners. This cannot be curtailed. We live in a digital age and 68 % have cellphones and 22 % are connected to each other and to the world. This cannot be curtailed. 27 % of the parliament were women.”TopicsTalibanAfghanistanUS foreign policyUS politicsSouth and Central AsianewsReuse this content More

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      The Prospects of Peace in Afghanistan

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      The Doha Agreement signed between the United States and the Taliban on February 29, 2020, not only set a date for the withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan, but it also included certain obligations for the Taliban.

      Under this agreement, the Taliban are obligated to take measures to prevent terrorist groups from threatening the security of the US and its allies and to engage in a comprehensive intra-Afghan dialogue that would produce a political settlement. The hasty US troop withdrawal in August 2021 emboldened the Taliban to disregard their obligations under the deal and encouraged them to prioritize political takeover instead of a sustainable peace mechanism for Afghanistan.

      Afghanistan’s Public Intellectuals Fail to Denounce the Taliban

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      The Doha Agreement and its contents undermined the sovereign government of Afghanistan at the time and provided an upper hand to the Taliban in both war and peace. Certain assurances in the deal enabled the Taliban to become stronger in both battlefield action and narrative propagation.

      These include the agreement’s references to a “new post-settlement Afghan Islamic government”; clauses on the release of Taliban combatants referred to as “political prisoners”; indirect legitimization of the Taliban shadow government by virtue of stipulations such as “the Taliban will not provide visas, passports, travel permits, or other legal documents”; and a complete lack of any mention of human rights protections in Afghanistan.

      Another Case of Failed Peacemaking

      The agreement is not the only pact that was expected to bring a peaceful end to the conflict in the country. In 1988, the Geneva Accords concluded under the auspices of the UN between Afghanistan and Pakistan, with the US and the Soviet Union serving as state guarantors, provided an overall framework for the settlement of the Afghan conflict and the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan. Likewise, the Bonn Agreement in 2001 — irrespective of whether it is categorized as a peace deal —established a process to manage the political transition in the post-Taliban Afghanistan. It briefly outlined steps from the formation of an interim administration to the development of a new constitution and holding elections.

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      However, neither the Geneva Accords nor the Bonn Agreement were successful and ultimately failed to foster conditions necessary for enabling a comprehensive settlement to Afghanistan’s complicated problem. More recently, the Taliban’s abject disregard for their commitments under the Doha Agreement, combined with the United States’ rushed exit, sped up the Taliban’s reemergence, once again closing an already narrow window of opportunity for achieving a durable political solution to the protracted conflict in Afghanistan.

      There is indeed a qualitative difference between the Geneva Accords, the Bonn Agreement and the Doha Agreement. However, one of the key reasons for their failure, among other factors, is that they are silent on the main cause of the conflict in Afghanistan — i.e., ethnic conflict.

      Afghanistan is a multiethnic country where the various ethnic groups are also geographically fragmented. Historically, divisions over who should lead the country and how have been among the core contentious issues in Afghanistan. Disagreements on this matter have manifested in violent ways in the 1990s and non-violent ways in the outcome of four presidential elections held based on the 2004 constitution. Overlooking of the main cause of the conflict and an absence of a viable mechanism for power redistribution among ethnic groups is a common thread that connects each of the three agreements that failed and continued to fuel instability.

      The Current Situation

      Less than two years since the Doha Agreement was signed, in August 2021, Kabul, the Afghan capital, fell to the Taliban. In the aftermath of this development, residences of several former government officials, particularly those from the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF), were raided and these personnel members were either killed or imprisoned. A UN report found that over 100 personnel from the Afghan security forces and others associated with the former Afghan government have been killed in the country, despite the Taliban announcing a general amnesty. 

      Moreover, despite the demands from the international community for the formation of an inclusive government, respect for human rights and counterterrorism assurances, the Taliban have refused to make any concessions. They have brazenly continued suppressing all dissenting voices, severely limiting women’s rights and persecuting civil society members and journalists.

      Peace in Afghanistan?

      It was apparent from day one that the prospects of the post-July 2018 efforts for a political settlement in Afghanistan were uncertain at best. The Doha Agreement simply laid out a possible schedule for the US withdrawal instead of guarantee or measures enabling a durable political settlement or peace process. The Taliban too negotiated the deal with the US with the aim of winning the war rather than seeking a peace deal or political settlement with their opponents.

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      The chaotic withdrawal of American forces and the mayhem at Kabul airport — which was reminiscent of the US pullout from Vietnam — has not only damaged the image of a powerful country like the US around the world, but has also established its reputation as an unreliable ally in times of difficulty. Given historical patterns and the Taliban’s track record, in the absence of any qualitative change of circumstances on the ground, the international community’s positive overtures to the Taliban might be yet another folly.

      As it stands, the prospects for peace in Afghanistan will remain distant for as long as the Taliban own the entire political apparatus rather than participate as a party in an inclusive and representative government and respect dissenting voices. In the meantime, the international community should use sanctions mechanisms and official recognition as the few remaining tools of leverage to hold the Taliban accountable to their commitments and to international legal standards.

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      Afghanistan’s Public Intellectuals Fail to Denounce the Taliban

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      Unlike most societies, political alignment in Afghanistan is not divided along the right and the left axis. Most of the policy debates in the last two decades of the so-called republic were shaped by the right — either Afghan/Pashtun ethnonationalism or political Islam. At times, both these political strands were amalgamated with naive populism. 

      Currently, political fragmentation and polarization under the Taliban have become an existential conflict over culture and ethnicity. The Taliban are a terrorist group, having successfully synthesized both Islamic extremism and Pashtun/Afghan ethnic chauvinism as their ideology. Ironically, they rule over one of the most diverse countries in the world.

      What the Taliban’s Constitution Means for Afghanistan

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      The Taliban use two vague criteria to dismiss all progress made in the past two decades or, for that matter, any undesirable but transformational changes that occurred in the 1980s and early 1990s: Afghan and Islamic values. The first category denies internal social diversity while the second rejects Islamic pluralism. After usurpation of power by force, the group proudly boasted of committing over a thousand suicide attacks. Now, it is officially forming a suicide bombers brigade within its security agencies. 

      Organic Intellectuals

      The exponents of Afghan ethnonationalism desperately aim to present a benign image of the Taliban. Having fundamental, political and social ties with the Taliban, in the words of Antonio Gramsci, they form the Taliban’s “organic intellectuals.” Unlike the traditional intellectuals, Gramsci argues, organic intellectuals are linked with a social class. Contrary to Gramsci, I use it as a negative term as they represent the extreme right. Their genuine undeclared mandate is to articulate and represent the interests and perceptions of the Taliban and to downplay the risks of the group’s rule.

      In other words, these organic intellectuals are systematically engaged in PR for the Taliban. The irony is that the same people are recognized as the voices of Afghanistan rather than of the Taliban in Western academic and think-tank circles. Afghan ethnonationalism and its exponents are only challenged by the Persian-speaking Tajik and Hazara intellectuals, whose voices have been relegated to the margins due to acceptance of the Taliban order as the new normal.

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      The organic intellectuals have the nature of a chameleon, speaking in two different languages to address different audiences and constituencies. On the one hand, they praise and welcome the establishment of the so-called “order,” albeit Taliban-centric, but, with a liberal audience, they speak the language of peaceful coexistence, “cultural particularism,” relativism and political pragmatism. To incorporate such a self-contradictory stance, they adopt a fence-sitting position.

      The justifications of the Taliban made by these organic intellectuals contradict both the realist and moralist approaches in political philosophy. First, let us address the five justifications before returning to the philosophical questions.

      The Taliban Order

      To begin with, treating the Taliban-centric order as default and ignoring the ideological dimension of the Taliban, it argues that the group is adaptable to political and policy reforms. Thus, it tries to undermine the possibility of a thorough transformation of the current scenario through violent means.

      The telos of political reform is expanding the horizons of rights and liberties. In a totalitarian regime, the goal of reform is not to improve the condition of individuals and communities but to consolidate the regime’s power. To suggest political reform essentially means to work with the existing political framework, not its transformation. This entails admitting the terms and conditions of the totalitarian regime.

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      Compared to reforms in an authoritarian regime, the prospect of successful political reform and change toward emancipation in the totalitarian regime is limited because, in the latter, the state is based on a rigid doctrinal ideology. An ideological state does not accommodate change and reform unless there is an alteration in the constituent ideology. The longer a totalitarian regime stays in power, the less likely the possibility for political transformation. Thus, change in a totalitarian regime is easier to achieve in the early stages, when its power is not consolidated. 

      The Taliban government currently installed in Afghanistan is not simply another dictatorship. By all standards, it is a totalitarian regime. A totalitarian regime, according to British philosopher John Gray, is not the one that negates liberal democracy — it is one that brutally suppresses civil society. The Taliban have created a monstrosity equivalent to that of other totalitarian states. 

      Political Pragmatism

      The second justification of Taliban apologists is political pragmatism — the Taliban is a reality that could not be done away with and thus it shall be acknowledged. As part of my research on the Afghanistan peace process, I conducted an opinion poll in 2018 that showed the Taliban’s popularity as below 10% across the country. Thus, this so-called pragmatism is constituted upon a false assumption. But the Taliban are a reality, like racism, Islamic fundamentalism, bigotry and slavery. Also, they are a reality fostered by sponsors: the Pakistani establishment.

      Nonetheless, it is worth mentioning that bigotry, racism and fundamentalism could not be eradicated through endorsements by the intellectuals and those who have a moral commitment to fight them. Irrespective of the logic of morality, one cannot buy the argument to accept bigotry or extremism just because they were a reality. Endorsing the Taliban is equivalent to recognizing their wicked acts. 

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      Third, it is proposed that if we accept the Taliban as a reality, the costs of establishing political order would be reduced. For example, it can prevent another civil war. This argument is built based on a false assumption regarding the nature of the Taliban. Historically, the group has been extremely violent by nature: War, jihad and suicide bombings are an integral part of its ideology. What country in the world prides itself on having suicide squads?

      In the seven months of their rule, the Taliban have killed, tortured and humiliated numerous civilians, former security officers and women’s rights activists, primarily minority groups like the Tajik and Hazara. Moreover, they maintain strong ties with an international community of jihadists, including al-Qaeda, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and the Turkistan Islamic Party, among others. 

      There is an inherent contradiction in the nationalist stance advocating for so-called reconciliation. The nationalists argue that war is costly and hence we should accept working with the Taliban. However, countless civilians being slaughtered or abused by the Taliban on a daily basis is ignored as the human cost of Taliban rule. A doctrinal state imposes its ideology on every single individual even if it is at the cost of the individuals’ lives. 

      Naïve Intellectualism

      Fourth, the naive social-media public intellectuals suppose that they can hold the Taliban accountable by citing some verses of the Quran or some articles of the law of Afghanistan. It is not that ideological totalitarian regimes do not understand what law is; rather the Taliban misuses the law to further limit the sphere of civil society and expand the regime’s control. Hannah Arendt argued that totalitarianism is primarily a denial of law, the emergence of a state in the absence of law. By this standard, the Taliban are simply a totalitarian entity.

      The assumption that the Taliban would be held accountable through a Twitter post is naïve. The issue is not negligence in the application of the law by the Taliban; rather, the fundamental issue is the group’s illegitimate rule. The Taliban have suspended a functioning state apparatus by military takeover of the state that led to the collapse of the republic, purging many technocrats from bureaucracy and creating an environment of terror, intentionally undermining the Doha peace talks.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Lastly, cultural particularism suggests that the Taliban represent a specific culture and shall be given time to adapt and develop according to its own history and context. Taking a relativist stance, it is said that there is no ultimate truth and no one is a final arbiter. Thus, relativist logic fails to recognize evil in its totality. The truth about the evil nature of the Taliban could not simply be dismissed by reducing the issue to a matter of a difference of opinion.

      Unlike relativists, cultural pluralists are not naïve enough to engage with evil. According to their line of thinking, although ultimate values are diverse, they are knowable; any order which negates and denies peaceful coexistence is outlawed. The Taliban eschews all forms of coexistence. They treat the Persian-speaking Tajiks, Hazaras and other nationalities as second or third-class subjects. They campaign against Persian cultural heritage such as Nawroz celebrations, the Persian language and much of the country’s pre-Islamic heritage.  

      The Realist/Moralist Challenge

      Exponents of the Taliban have to respond to both a moralist and a realist question in politics. From a moralist standpoint, by neglecting or dismissing any moral standard, they adopt a peace activist cover. They aim to humanize the Taliban in order to make the group pleasantly acceptable. 

      The question here is, what is a morally correct stance against a terrorist group that has a track record of deliberately inciting ethnic hatred, racism, ethnic supremacy, oppression, mass atrocities and terror? The answer is clear: Any act that demonizes humans and perpetuates violence for the sake of subjugation of others is condemned. The perpetrator would thus be fully responsible.

      On the contrary, any single word that misrepresents the Taliban and presents a false benign image of the group is a betrayal of the moral principle of justice, liberty and claims of intellectualism. Any responsible citizen and public intellectual has a moral obligation to not just renounce them publicly but to denounce totalitarian regimes and any act of terror.

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      Denunciation not only entails a public condemnation of evil in its totality but also an avoidance of any word or deed that contributes to the consolidation of the regime. By any standard, a terrorist group does not have a right to rule. Anyone who advises or applauds terrorist statements or policies is morally bankrupt. When faced with a totalitarian regime, one can only be either for or against it.

      Lastly, the realist question is what British philosopher Bernard Williams calls the Basic Legitimation Demand (BLD): “the idea of meeting the BLD implies a sense in which the state has to offer a justification of its power to each subject.” This is the very first question in politics.

      Before any other virtues, a state has to present an acceptable answer to those that it rules. Otherwise, the people who consider themselves alien to the rulers and have a basic fear of subjugation, humiliation and persecution, as well as those who are radically disadvantaged, have every right to disobey. As Williams says, “there is nothing to be said to this group to explain why they shouldn’t revolt.”

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      Your Monday Briefing: Russian Forces Attack Evacuees

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      Plus China’s new economic plan and updates on an attack on a Pakistani mosque.Good morning. We’re covering sustained shelling in Ukraine, China’s new economic plan and the fallout of a terrorist attack on a mosque in Pakistan.A Ukrainian soldier ran to check on a family after a mortar round landed nearby.Lynsey Addario for The New York TimesRussian attacks halt evacuationsAs Russian forces continued shelling Ukraine, at least three people — a mother and her children — were killed outside Kyiv as they tried to get to safety. For the second straight day, the authorities called off an evacuation from the besieged port city of Mariupol.Here’s the latest.Russian forces were struggling to advance on multiple fronts. The Ukrainian military said that it was successfully defending its position in fierce fighting north of Kyiv and that troops were also holding back Russians from the east, where President Vladimir Putin’s forces bogged down in clashes around an airport.Families are being torn apart. Some Ukrainians are finding that their Russian relatives, hopped up on government misinformation, don’t believe there is a war. Others are splitting: Wives flee while husbands are forced to stay and fight, which some Ukrainian women referred to as “a little death.”Flights: Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, repeated his calls for NATO to enforce a no-fly zone, despite bipartisan opposition from U.S. lawmakers and reluctance from European allies. On Saturday, Putin said that any countries that imposed one would be considered enemy combatants. The U.S. is discussing how to supply Polish Soviet-era fighter jets to Ukraine.Russia: The police have arrested more than 3,000 people in antiwar protests. Mastercard and Visa suspended operations there; many fast food chains remain open. Moscow has blocked Facebook and clamped down harder on independent news media than at any time in the Putin era, leading some Western outlets, including Radio Free Europe, to suspend operations.Analysis: The war poses a serious threat to the American-led liberal world order. But the West adapted: In days, it threw out its decades-old playbook and isolated Russia with unparalleled sanctions and penalties.Arts: Cultural institutions are pressing Russian artists to distance themselves from Putin. Film festivals are split on whether to ban Russian movies. Technology: Hackers are conducting simple but effective cyberattacks against Russian and Ukrainian websites. TikTok, flooded with misinformation, suspended livestreaming and uploads from Russia.A shopping district in Shanghai in January.Aly Song/ReutersChina’s new economic planChina detailed a plan to expand its economy, labeling stability as its “top priority.” The changes come as the national leader, Xi Jinping, is poised to claim a new term in power.Despite global uncertainty over the coronavirus pandemic and war in Ukraine, China’s leaders sought to project confidence and calm. The annual government work report delivered on Saturday did not even mention Russia’s invasion.The implicit message appeared to be that China could weather European turbulence — and focus on keeping its people content and employed before a Communist Party meeting in the fall, when Xi is increasingly certain to extend his time in power.Details: Beijing is calling for heavy government spending and lending. Social welfare and education outlays are both set to increase about 10 percent this year. China’s military budget will grow by 7.1 percent to about $229 billion — a signal that Beijing is preparing for an increasingly dangerous world.Domestic policy: The plan suggests that China is prioritizing economic growth, with an expansion goal of “around 5.5 percent,” over domestic consumer spending. Beijing has been trying to move the economy away from dependence on debt-fueled infrastructure and housing construction.A funeral on Saturday for some of the people killed in the Friday attack.Khuram Parvez/ReutersISIS bombs Pakistani mosqueThe Islamic State’s regional affiliate, Islamic State Khorasan, or ISIS-K, claimed responsibility for bombing a Shiite mosque in Peshawar, in northwestern Pakistan. The attack killed at least 63 people and wounded nearly 200 others.Pakistani police said on Saturday that they had identified the suicide bomber and the network behind the attack. ISIS-K and Pakistani security officials both said the bomber was an Afghan national. The Islamic State, a Sunni Muslim terrorist group that considers Shiites heretics, has claimed several previous attacks in Pakistan. This was the biggest and deadliest yet, and one of the worst terrorist attacks in Pakistan in years.Background: ISIS-K formed in Afghanistan in 2015 and opened a Pakistan chapter in 2019. Security officials say the group continues to operate from Afghanistan but has been displaced by the Afghan Taliban. Officials believe that about 1,600 of its fighters escaped when the Taliban overran a prison outside Kabul in August.Other bombings: Last fall, the group carried out bombings at Shiite mosques in Afghanistan, killing and wounding dozens.THE LATEST NEWSAsiaNews coverage in Seoul last week of a North Korean missile launch.Jung Yeon-Je/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesNorth Korea launched a ballistic missile off its east coast on Saturday, its second test in a week, South Korean officials sad.Women’s marches have gained steam in Pakistan, and opposition has risen.The snowboarders Cécile Hernandez and Brenna Huckaby are putting in strong performances at the Paralympics, despite a dispute over whether they should be allowed to compete.CoronavirusA group of truckers protesting Covid-19 mandates encircled Washington, the U.S. capital, on Sunday morning.South Korea reported high turnout in early voting for its presidential election, but apologized to coronavirus patients for a lack of preparation that resulted in long wait times.The U.S. Food and Drug Administration rejected an Indian-made coronavirus vaccine from the pharmaceutical company Bharat Biotech for children 2 to 18.What Else Is HappeningFrance’s president, Emmanuel Macron, finally announced he would seek re-election. He is leading in polls by a wide margin.German authorities gave Tesla approval to begin production at its first major assembly plant in Europe.Younger Asian American leaders in the U.S., grappling with how to respond to a series of attacks, want to rely less on traditional policing solutions.A Morning ReadA circular golden meditation chamber in Auroville.Rebecca Conway for The New York TimesThe new leadership of Auroville, an experimental Indian commune founded in 1968, wants to turn it into a utopian model city. Backed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the authorities are fighting residents who cherish their trees, tree houses and take-it-slow tradition.The Saturday Profile: A Texan bombshell married an Italian prince. Now, she is fighting his sons for the crumbling Roman villa — listed in January for a whopping $531 million — where she continues to live after his death.Russia-Ukraine War: Key Things to KnowCard 1 of 3Evacuation efforts under attack. More

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      Does the US Have Leverage to Advocate for Women’s Rights in Afghanistan? 

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      After the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, women’s rights in Afghanistan came under consistent attack by the Taliban, with many women activists captured, tortured, killed and reportedly raped. Unfortunately, the extent of these crimes is unknown due to a lack of comprehensive media coverage. However, the AFINT news channel reports that at least 200 people had been detained, tortured, raped and banned from traveling by the Taliban in the past six months. This number includes 102 women and 98 men, of whom 50 are journalists, 92 are civil activists, two are singers and 40 are prosecutors and judges in the previous government. 

      Over the past six months, Afghan women have continued to protest against the Taliban policies, provoking a brutal response. One of the detainees told AFINT: “Unfortunately, there is sexual harassment by the Taliban. The Taliban think that a woman who protests for her rights or has worked before they came to power is a prostitute. So, they consider these women as sex slaves.” While it may be impossible to change the Taliban’s mindset, international and regional pressure is key to helping Afghan women and holding the current regime accountable. 

      The Taliban Use Violence Against Women as a Bargaining Chip

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      To deal with the international pressures, the Taliban turned the women’s rights issues into a bargaining chip against the international community to gain recognition and force engagement. The US, in particular, consistently calls on the Taliban to respect women’s rights. But does the US have enough leverage over the Taliban to force them to revise their treatment of women?

      Power Is Everything 

      Since the overthrow of the Afghan government last August, the US remained engaged with the Taliban, although Washington does not recognize the regime as legitimate. Although the Taliban views the US as the loser in this conflict, many within the group’s leadership believe that they have to interact with Washington to gain recognition. 

      The Taliban’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai said in December: “If the US embassy reopens in Kabul, all European countries will be here in half an hour. We are working hard in this regard, and since I have been a member of the negotiating team with them (the Americans), I am sure from their morals and behavior that, God willing, they will be back soon.” 

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      From the Taliban’s perspective, power is everything. As far as they can control the country, the US has to respect them and will have to recognize them. This assumption leads the group to not compromise on women’s rights. Instead of revising their policies, they detained women activists and then released some of them following pressure to do so during the Oslo talks in January.

      The US has profound concerns about the Taliban’s relations with other terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda and the Islamic State branch in Afghanistan, but human rights, women’s rights and an inclusive government are all part of the US agenda in its interaction with the country’s new leadership. In his talk at the United States Institute of Peace, Thomas West, the US special representative for Afghanistan, emphasized these values as crucial for the US-Taliban relationship. 

      However, it is imperative to keep in mind that any compromise from the international community on women’s rights that suggests to the Taliban that their harsh policies may be accommodated will only exacerbate the situation for women in Afghanistan. 

      International Commitment

      For more than 20 years, the US and international community repeated their strong commitment to supporting women in Afghanistan, creating the expectation that it should continue doing so after the Taliban takeover. However, many Afghan women saw the US agreement with the Taliban as a betrayal.

      International pressure is the critical factor for holding the Taliban accountable. When the women activists disappeared without explanation, the Taliban denied its involvement for months. The United Nations and US diplomats repeatedly called on the Taliban to find the missing women.

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      In the end, the Taliban released several well-known women activists despite denying involvement in detaining them. The group also published videos of forced confessions by the activists. Totalitarian regimes use this tactic against human rights activities for propaganda and to mislead the public; exposing the Taliban’s double game will not be easy and will require international commitment and cooperation. 

      There are several measures that can be helpful in holding the Taliban accountable, and the US can play a central role. First, the diplomatic contacts with the Taliban should not be interpreted as hope for recognition; rather, diplomacy should be used only for contact and assessing responsibilities.

      Second, international consensus on women’s rights and supporting the idea of an inclusive and legitimate government in Afghanistan is key. This is significant for women’s rights and negotiation for building a broad-based government to reflect Afghan society, which is instrumental for avoiding another round of conflict. 

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      Third, increasing the activities of international organizations in Afghanistan to support women and monitor their situation under the Taliban is necessary. Currently, there is no access to different corners of the country where crimes against women may be committed. Fourth, financial support to organizations championing women’s education and activities will be vital for women’s voices and Afghan social society to resist the Taliban’s fascist approach.

      The US can exert pressure on behalf of Afghan women to demand that their rights to work and education are honored. Any degree of leniency toward the Taliban will make the situation worse for women. If the US shows a faltering resolve or sends a misleading message, the international consensus on human rights will disappear.  

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More