Preventing Afghan void now broader challenge

The US is withdrawing the last of its troops from Afghanistan ahead of schedule, bringing an end to the superpower's longest war, in which it has little to show for its two decades of engagement.

The last troops, apart from a small diplomatic protection unit, were originally due to leave by September 11, the 20th anniversary of the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in New York City that sparked the invasion of Afghanistan.

The Taliban, whose regime was the target of the 2001 intervention, claims to be back in control of 85 percent of the country, although Afghanistan's embattled government denies this.

According to the latest US intelligence assessment, reported by US media, the Afghan government led by President Ashraf Ghani could collapse within six months of the US withdrawal in the face of the Taliban's advance.

The initial 2001 intervention succeeded in toppling a Taliban regime that had provided a base and haven for al-Qaida, the Islamist group behind the attacks in New York City and Washington, DC.

But the US and its allies became rapidly bogged down in a political and military quagmire and a major resurgence of violence starting in 2006, and Afghan civilians have been the principal victims.

China has issued advice to its citizens in Afghanistan to exercise caution and leave the country as soon as possible.

The warning came after Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying blamed the escalation of violence on Washington's abrupt announcement of its withdrawal. She urged the US to conduct the troop pullout in a responsible manner.

In a White House meeting with President Ghani on June 25, US President Joe Biden reconfirmed that the troops were leaving but said the US would continue to provide security, diplomatic and humanitarian assistance.

That might prove to be little consolation to a fragile government threatened by its own political divisions and daily Taliban gains on the ground.

US analysts have set out a number of scenarios for the coming year, ranging from a preservation of the unstable status quo to an outright Taliban takeover or protracted civil war.

The latter scenarios "are far more likely", according to an assessment by the Brookings Institution, a leading US think tank. It said preservation of the existing political order was "extremely unlikely".

A more likely outcome, according to analysts, is that the Taliban will emerge as the most influential element in a power-sharing arrangement with other political and ethnic leaders. That would allow it to effectively take power while avoiding a prolonged civil war.

It is not an outcome that US citizens would have imagined in September 2001 when then president George W. Bush put the US on a war footing in the aftermath of the al-Qaida attacks.

With hindsight, the decision to go to war with the Taliban might have been an excessive response to the need to neutralize al-Qaida. As it turned out, the movement's leader, Osama bin Laden, remained on the run for a further 10 years before being tracked down and killed in a US operation in Pakistan.

Al-Qaida, however, was replaced by the potentially even more dangerous ISIS movement－in part a product of the US' subsequent invasion of Iraq－which continues to pose a threat to established governments in the Middle East and Africa.

Whatever the mistakes and mixed messaging of the prolonged US intervention, and the wide-scale violence that has marked its military presence in Afghanistan, the US departure creates a potential void in an unstable region.

Any orderly outcome of the current crisis will almost certainly involve some kind of accommodation with the Taliban, both among Afghans themselves but also among foreign governments.

Former US president Barack Obama announced as early as 2011 that Washington was holding preliminary peace talks with the Taliban leadership, the start of almost a decade of on-and-off negotiations.

These eventually led to a 2020 deal that opened the way for a reduction of the US troop presence and included a Taliban pledge not to allow the country to be used as a base for terrorist activities.

The challenge is that President Biden's decision to cut US losses, and to leave Afghanistan ahead of his own schedule, comes at a time when the Taliban is increasingly strong on the ground.

It may now be up to other governments, including those in the region, to reach an accommodation with the Taliban to ensure that if it comes to power, either alone or in cooperation with other groups, it will not encourage extremists seeking to export violence and instability beyond Afghanistan's borders.

Harvey Morris is a senior media consultant for China Daily UK.