The US is ready to prevent Ahmad Massoud from fighting the Taliban
Author: Andrey Serenko, Director of the Analytical Center of the Russian Society of Political Scientists
Source: Nezavisimaya Gazeta, Russia
The United States intends to prevent the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan (FNSA) and its leader Ahmad Massoud from fighting the regime of the Taliban terrorist organization banned in the Russian Federation. The State Department's official commentary on this was published recently in Foreign Desk. The statement by the representative of the American foreign policy department confirms the information published earlier by NG that Washington is preparing to conclude a second political deal with the Taliban.
The US State Department has condemned the recent military successes of the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan (FNSA) in the fight against the Taliban in the northern Afghan province of Baghlan. On July 8, Foreign Desk published an extremely interesting text entitled "Afghan resistance forces announce victory over the Taliban in Baghlan province, the US State Department condemns the resistance of the Afghans", which presented the official position of the US diplomatic department: "We want to see the emergence of a stable and sustainable political order (in Afghanistan) by peaceful means. We do not support organized violent opposition to the Taliban and we will prevent other forces from doing the same." The US State Department's statement is certainly important for understanding Washington's Afghan strategy. It confirms the information published in NG on June 16 this year, received from Afghan sources who took part in closed meetings with American representatives in late May and early June. Recall that then, during consultations with Afghan political emigrants, US Special Representative for Afghanistan Thomas West made it clear for the first time that Washington would not only not fight the Taliban regime in Kabul, but was actually interested in strengthening and legitimizing it through the model of an inclusive government.
However, a month and a half ago, in conversations with American emissaries, there was still no open criticism of the armed anti-Taliban opposition in Afghanistan, led by the head of the FNSA, Ahmad Massoud. Moreover, the same Thomas West invited to his meetings in Turkey, including representatives of the National Resistance Front, considering them as participants in the new US Afghan project - holding a large intra-Afghan conference in Washington, which is expected to be joined by the Taliban and leaders of all major groups of Afghan political emigration. The outcome of this conference should be the second political deal between the US and the Taliban (the first was concluded in Qatar at the end of February last year), whose representatives would continue to play a leading role in a possible inclusive cabinet of ministers in Afghanistan.
In a statement on July 8, the US State Department not only actually expressed open support for the Taliban regime, but also for the first time publicly indicated its political value to Washington. And this value is clearly higher than Ahmad Massoud's Resistance Front. The need for a public demonstration of such a choice is not connected with the weakness of the FNSA, as one might think, but, on the contrary, with the strengthening positions of Ahmad Massoud's movement in northern Afghanistan. While the Masudians were only defending themselves, fighting off the onslaught of the Taliban in Panjshir and Baghlan, the American speakers were silent. But as soon as the FNSA fighters, during a local offensive, took control of two fairly large rural settlements in the province of Baghlan for three days, knocking out Taliban units from there (according to NG sources, during this operation the Taliban lost at least 12 people), as immediately followed by a threatening reaction from Washington.
The State Department's statement draws several conclusions. Firstly, those observers who saw the collapse of the regime of the Islamic Republic in Afghanistan in August 2021 and the transfer of this country to the control of the Taliban as a behind-the-scenes deal between the Americans and the leaders of the Taliban and their operators from the Pakistani special services turn out to be right. Washington then made its strategic choice in favor of the Taliban and today is trying to protect it from the armed anti-Taliban opposition raising its head. Secondly, those who spoke about the American or British "trace" in the FNSA project, alluding to Ahmad Massoud's alleged connections with London and Washington, turn out to be wrong. Everything turned out to be quite the opposite: American and British emissaries have been trying for several months now to charm the Taliban regime officials in Kabul and Doha, promising "furious mullahs" a variety of humanitarian, financial, economic and political projects. The leaders of the FNSA received the first yellow card from the Washington referee of the new Afghan "great game".
The Americans' new public move on the Afghan chessboard is, of course, an unpleasant episode for the architects of Afghan policy in Moscow. Until now, they themselves and their commentators have been ardently convincing the Russian audience that the Taliban are allegedly consistent enemies of the United States and the West in general, and that therefore the Kremlin needs to recognize the Taliban regime as soon as possible and use it against America in a new cold war. For the sake of this, the creators of the Russian strategy in Afghanistan not only caressed the leaders and militants of the Taliban with the most exquisite political compliments, but also handed over the Afghan embassy in the center of Moscow to the Taliban. At the same time, the same blocks of domestic Afghan studies did not tire of discrediting in the eyes of Russian public opinion and the leadership of the Russian Federation the anti-Taliban resistance led by the same Ahmad Massoud. Obviously, now Moscow will have to forcefully revise its Afghan policy (which, by the way, we have called for for a long time and more than once), since maintaining the current course means playing the role of useful idiots for Russia's main geopolitical competitor. To continue to believe in conspiracy tales about “things in Afghanistan are really not as they seem” is to play a losing game in advance with the prospect of very sad consequences for Russian interests in Central and South Asia.
