On the inclusiveness of political representation in Afghanistan.
Author: Andrey Serenko, head of the Center for the Study of Afghanistan Politics (Russia)
The political situation in Afghanistan is at a dead end.
The Taliban regime, created as a result of a political deal between the United States, Pakistan, and the Taliban, concluded in 2020, does not yet want to change, especially by including representatives of other ethnopolitical groups in Afghanistan (as recommended by Moscow, Beijing, Tehran and other countries in the region ).
External (emigrant) Afghan political groups have not yet created at least some semblance of a national coalition capable of representing the interests of the Afghan people/peoples of Afghanistan outside the country.
The Afghan armed opposition/Resistance movement is neither militarily nor politically developed, and its presence within the country is extremely limited.
Countries in the region, including Russia, are trying to find a way out of the Afghan impasse created by the 2020 US-Pakistan-Taliban deal. So far this has not been very successful.
Attempts to flirt with the Taliban do not bring noticeable results. The Taliban perceive these attempts as signs of weakness and are even more rigid in their refusal to listen to recommendations from Moscow, Beijing, Tehran, and other, less impressive regional capitals.
In fact, the Taliban adheres to diktat tactics with Russia and the regional community, imposing their rules of the game on them.
Given the nature of the origins of the Taliban regime (I’m still talking about the same 2020 deal inspired by Washington), as well as the close financial and personal contacts of key Taliban figures with the Americans, it can be assumed that over time the Taliban regime will be increasingly used by the United States to influence countries region.
Attempts by regional countries to “adapt” to the Taliban today are a losing position from a strategic point of view, since the Taliban has, at a minimum, a hybrid political subjectivity, including that due to its dependence on extra-regional interests.
The unrepresentativeness of the Taliban regime in terms of representing the interests of Afghanistan (once again, this regime is the product of an external political deal) is its most vulnerable point. The Taliban are seeking external legitimacy and external recognition precisely because they do not have internal legitimacy.
It seems that it is not in the interests of Russia and the countries of the region to work to strengthen the legitimacy of an artificial regime created as a result of a deal between political entities hostile to the interests of both Russia and the countries of the region.
Political reality must not only be recognized but also created.
It is advisable for the countries of the region not to strengthen the legitimacy of the artificial regime in Kabul created apart from them, by hostile external actors, but, recognizing its reality, to engage in balancing the externally imposed model of governance in Afghanistan.
First of all, we are talking about assistance in creating a new political entity that represents the interests of Afghanistan and Afghan society outside the perimeter of the Taliban model. The Taliban regime destroys all attempts to create an alternative political entity within the country. This means that for now, it is necessary to work with this project outside of Afghanistan.
And here the potential of Afghan communities abroad, especially in the countries of the region, may be promising.
The Congress of Communities of the Peoples of Afghanistan, let's call it that, for example, could well be created and receive political support from the regional community - as an alternative entity representing the interests of the peoples of Afghanistan. The external legitimacy of such an association will be no lower than that of the Taliban - moreover, unlike the Taliban regime, such a Congress of Communities would have the political support of the countries of the region.
The creation of a new, alternative entity in the Afghan political process is long overdue. Afghan political groups inside and outside Afghanistan were unable to form such an entity on their own, thereby strengthening the illusion that there was no alternative to the Taliban regime.
Such a lack of alternatives does not meet the interests of Russia and the region's countries. Promoting the creation of a new subject of the Afghan political process means taking into account the reality that has developed in Afghanistan and changing it without waiting for extra-regional players to impose their own model of future changes.
Who exactly, what names can be represented in the conditional Congress of Communities of the Peoples of Afghanistan is an important question, but a second one. It is important to begin the process of breaking out of the current Afghan impasse, of which both Afghans and the countries of the region have become hostages.
