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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 18-Jan-2021
18-Jan-21 World View -- Chaos grows in Afghanistan as American troops leave in hope of delusional peace plan

Web Log - January, 2021

18-Jan-21 World View -- Chaos grows in Afghanistan as American troops leave in hope of delusional peace plan

Iran offers Shia fighters to fight the Taliban and ISIS

by John J. Xenakis

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

Chaos grows in Afghanistan as American troops leave in hope of delusional peace plan
Why the Afghan peace agreement must fail
Iran offers Shia fighters to fight the Taliban and ISIS
Abandoning the peace talks

Chaos grows in Afghanistan as American troops leave in hope of delusional peace plan

A Kabul resident washes the road after gunmen killed two female judges working for the Supreme Court (AFP)

A Kabul resident washes the road after gunmen killed two female judges working for the Supreme Court (AFP)

On Sunday morning, unidentified gunmen, suspected to be from the Taliban, killed two female judges from Afghanistan’s Supreme Court. The two were were driving to their office in a court vehicle, when gunmen riding a motocycle ambushed them and shot them dead.

This was only the latest in a wave of assassinations across the country. In many cases, the targets appear to have been chosen because they're women.

This is happening as delusional peace talks are taking place in Doha, Qatar, between America and the Taliban. Participation of the Afghan government in the peace talks has been limited to nonexistent because the Taliban don't want to talk to the Afghan govern. They simply want to use the peace talks as a ruse to get America to withdraw its troops.

In February 2020, Washington agreed with the Taliban to begin withdrawing troops. The Taliban did not have to agree to end its terrorist violence, but it did agree to "tone down" its violence. I guess shooting only two female supreme court judges dead is an example of "toning down" violence.

Donald Trump made a campaign promise of "stopping the endless wars," and so has been ordering the withdrawal of American troops faster than had been anticipated, something that some American military officials opposed. In August of last year, there were 8,000 US troops in Afghanistan, which were cut to 4,500. After losing the election on November 3, Trump fired his Defense Secretary Mark Esper on November 9, apparently because the latter opposed further troop withdrawals, unless the Taliban met its commitments to reduce violence. On Friday of last week, acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller said that further withdrawals have reduced the number to 2,500.

Trump has agreed with the Taliban to withdraw all remaining troops by May 2021. I assume that Trump's intention is to let whatever happens happen after that, even if it means that the Taliban take control of the government, as they had prior to 9/11/2001.

However, that will be devastating for the people of Afghanistan, especially the girls and women. For that reason, president-elect Joe Biden may be forced to postpone any further withdrawals.

Joe Biden has been hiding in his basement for the last year, and has no idea what's going on in Afghanistan. According to some unconfirmed reports, Susan Rice will work behind the scenes to make Biden's foreign policy decisions. Susan Rice is an idiot, but I don't know if she's stated a policy on Afghanistan.

Why the Afghan peace agreement must fail

I've written many times that, based on a Generational Dynamics analysis, there is no possibility whatsoever of a successful peace agreement. I started writing about this in 2009, when I predicted that Barack Obama's "surge" into Afghanistan would fail. That prediction has been 100% correct so far.

The following is a summary of the Generational Dynamics analysis:

Afghanistan's last generational crisis war was an extremely bloody, horrific civil war, in 1991-96. The war was a civil war, fought between the Pashtuns in southern Afghanistan versus the Northern Alliance of Tajiks, Hazaras and Uzbeks in northern Afghanistan. The Taliban are radicalized Pashtuns, and when they need to import foreign fighters, then can import their cousins from the Pashtun tribes in Pakistan.

Indeed, it's much worse than that. The ethnic groups in Afghanistan are COMPLETELY NON-UNITED and loathe each other. Pashtuns still have scores to settle with the Tajiks, Hazaras and Uzbeks that formed the Northern Alliance, especially the Shias. These opposing groups have fresh memories of the atrocities, torture, rape, beatings, dismemberments, mutilations, and so forth that the other side performed on their friends, wives and other family members, and they have no desire to be friends or to work together. They'd rather kill each other.

Based on my work on the book on Vietnam that I'm writing, I was able to extend this analysis in an article last year by comparing the Afghan counterinsurgency efforts to previous counterinsurgency efforts. ( "22-Nov-20 World View -- Afghan 'peace talks' threatened by terrorist rocket attack on Kabul")

Here's a brief summary of the extended analysis:

Malay: Britain had a successful counterinsurgency in Malay in the early 1950s. In that case, the civilians were indigenous Malays, while the insurgents were ethnic Chinese. The counterinsurgency succeed because it was possible to distinguish a civilian from an insurgent simply by looking at them or talking to them.

Vietnam: The insurgency in Vietnam could not be defeated because it was impossible to distinguish between the civilians (in South Vietnam) were ordinary Vietnamese, and the insurgents (from North Vietnam) were also ordinary Vietnamese, and so it was impossible to easily distinguish the civilians from the insurgents. For this reason, the counterinsurgency effort failed.

Iraq: President George Bush's "surge" strategy won the Iraq war because the insurgents were quite distinguishable from Iraqi civilians. The insurgent group "al-Qaeda in Iraq" consisted almost entirely of fighters imported from Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and Syria. They were not Iraqis, and the Iraqis hated them. That's why the Iraq war was winnable, and the counterinsurgency succeeded. (See "Iraqi Sunnis are turning against al-Qaeda in Iraq" from April, 2007.)

Afghanistan: The Afghan insurgency cannot be defeated because ordinary civilians are ethnic Pashtuns, and so are the Taliban. So the Afghan counterinsurgency must fail.

Iran offers Shia fighters to fight the Taliban and ISIS

Iran has recently offered to send Shia militias into Afghanistan to fight the Taliban and ISIS in Afghanistan. These Shia militias would presumably be withdrawn from Syria, and consist of thousands of ethnic Hazaras and other Shia fighters previously recruited from Afghanistan to support Bashar al-Assad's genocide in Syria.

This is certainly an interesting proposal. Since Iran and Afghanistan are in generational Awakening/Unraveling eras, this would not lead to an "explosion" as some people are suggesting, but it would lead to local clashes between the Hazaras and the Pashtuns. The Hazaras are already under frequent terror attacks by the Pashtuns, and those would expand.

We'll have to wait and see if this goes anywhere.

Abandoning the peace talks

Since the peace talks under Trump were always completely delusional, they're going to end one way or another without accomplishing their supposed objective.

When the Taliban's spring fighting season begins this year, I would expect to see a surge in terrorist violence, whether American troops have been completely withdrawn or not.

The Biden administration will be under tremendous pressure to cancel the May 2021 withdrawal, and probably will do so.

Here's some advice for the Biden administration from the Atlantic Council:

"The new administration should affirm its support of the ongoing Doha peace negotiations. It should pause further US troop withdrawals until it can conduct an expedited inter-agency policy review. The review should include consultations with NATO, the European Union, and other allies who have faithfully partnered with the United States in Afghanistan. It should include a re-examination of military drawdowns not only as part of a political strategy, but also as they relate to assuring that remaining US forces, diplomats, and other personnel are secure."

This would abandon the existing peace agreement at just about the time of the Taliban's spring fighting season. It is a prescription to continue the status quo indefinitely, and with the increase in Taliban violence, Biden might actually be forced to increase the number of American troops again.

Sources:

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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the Generational Dynamics World View News thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be posted anonymously.) (18-Jan-2021) Permanent Link
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