An American decision to pull out entirely could have two very different effects. It could demoralize the Afghan forces, who appear to think they cannot defeat or hold off the Taliban without American support. That could lead, some fear, to a complete Taliban takeover. But I don’t think the Taliban is eager to run most Afghan cities, after its past experience. It wants to push out the Infidel foreigners, and keep the Afghan forces constantly off-balance, but not take on what they previously discovered was the unhappy task of actual administration of those cities, where their strict rules, for example, about women led to all sorts of unintended and unwelcome consequences. They don’t want to take the blame for deficiencies in mundane things — in police and fire protection, in the running of the schools and hospitals, in garbage collection, in maintenance of infrastructure. The Taliban have always had their eyes on higher things, like imposing the Sharia, making sure that women are properly burqaed and submissive, that thieves have their hands chopped off, that homosexuals are executed. That’s what matters most to them.
A second, very different possible effect of an American pullout of its last 14,000 troops, is that it could make the Afghans realize that they must not count on help from the Americans forever, that 17 years was long enough, that Afghanistan is their country, and the fight against the Taliban is their fight. And that pullout might just work as shock therapy, strengthening their resolve to go on.
Afghanistan, like Iraq, has been a tremendous drain on American resources. Neither we, nor the Afghan army, have been able to destroy the Taliban in 17 years of trying. After all, its forces can find refuge, whenever they need to, in Pakistan, which despite its protestations to the Americans, has never stopped supporting the Taliban. And Iran, which has been the Taliban’s enemy in the past, especially after the Taliban killed eight Iranian diplomats, in an attack on the Iranian consulate in Mazar-i-sharif in 1998, has more recently been supplying weapons, money, and training to the Taliban, in order to bleed the Americans still in Afghanistan.
If the Americans leave, the Iranians will have no reason to keep supporting the Taliban which, after all, consists of uber-Sunnis. The Taliban may try again to wipe out the Shi’a Hazara, as they were attempting to do back in 2001 until the American troops arrived. Should that happen, Iranian troops could conceivably enter Afghanistan — for years they have had tens of thousands of troops stationed at Iran’s Afghan border — to protect their fellow Shi’a.
The Taliban, with an estimated 60,000 recruits, would have a hard time destroying the Afghan army, which has about 200,000 soldiers. Each of its attacks has resulted in a dozen, or a few dozen, or at most, as on August 11, with three simultaneous attacks, 200 enemy killed. The five-day siege of Ghazni resulted in another 200 Afghan soldiers being killed. These attacks keep the Afghans constantly on edge, wondering where the next such attack is coming from, but they do not inflict the kind of massive defeat that could lead to a collapse of the Afghan military. And even in Ghazni, the Taliban lost more men than did the Afghan army. If somehow the Taliban could destroy the entire Afghan army, a much larger force, the Pashtun-populated Taliban would not be able successfully to rule over all of Afghanistan, for 40% of the population, being non-Pashtun, sees the group not as Muslim liberators but, rather, as Pashtun conquerors. This tribal enmity limits the Taliban’s appeal. If the Taliban tried to impose its rule everywhere, it would in turn become the victim of guerrilla warfare by non-Pashtuns.
The war in Afghanistan has no end. The Afghan army cannot defeat the Taliban, which has repeatedly demonstrated its remarkable resilience. Nor can the Taliban defeat the entire Afghan army, or successfully rule over the 40% of the population that is non-Pashtun. An American withdrawal of ground forces will let the Taliban and the Afghan army go at it, for a long time.
Ideally, this continuing conflict could draw in other forces. Iran, having reverted to its former anti-Taliban stance, could come in, as noted just above, to protect the threatened Shi’a Hazara. Or its soldiers might simply enter Afghanistan not for the specific purpose of protecting the Hazara, but in order to prevent the establishment of an uber-Sunni state on its eastern border. Pakistan, which has never wavered in its support for the Taliban that, after all, got its start among Afghan refugees in that country, could come in to help the Taliban’s Pashtuns — there are many Pashtuns in Pakistan. And Saudi Arabia, seeing the possibility of opening another front against its mortal enemy Iran, might supply the Taliban with funds and weapons, especially if Iran enters Afghanistan to protect the Hazara and its own interests.
So imagine Afghanistan as a battleground where the Taliban, the Afghan army, Iran, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia are all involved. Why should we care, after our losses of men, materiel, and money during these last 17 years, losses that have gained us nothing, if these Muslim enemies fight each other, and ideally become stuck, in the tar baby that is Afghanistan?