What are the challenges to the Taliban's survival in political power?
Author: Abdul Naser Noorzad, security and geopolitics researcher, especially for Sangar
The Taliban were returned to power through a global political game under a special security program. According to the documents revealed today, this group was revived almost since 2007 for the phase of returning to power. The United States and its allies ended their military presence in Afghanistan and handed over Afghanistan to the Taliban to serve the US goals as a proxy army. Now, the region has stepped up and thwarted this program at the regional level. But the important and central question is about the challenge of the Taliban to survive in political power, which becomes a central issue regarding the future of Afghanistan.
It can be seen that this group has been in power for two and a half years. It faces many challenges, including problems and challenges with neighbors, the region and the world. My impression is that this group, despite the existing challenges, is very difficult to turn into a strengthened political system and an international and regional partner for the region and the world. While there are many reasons for the fragility of its power structure in the future, this will lead to its immediate fall. Therefore, due to the following reasons, the presence of the Taliban is fragile and there is a possibility that any impulse will cause the collapse of their illegitimate regime:
- Failure to consolidate uniform power as an ideological force; as this group itself claims. The division within this group into numerous branches is an example of this claim;
- The Taliban group is a military group, war and a proxy army that does not have the experience of effective governance, timely policymaking and the ability to create a powerful political system. Therefore, it is successful in the battlefield, not in politics;
- Lack of internal and external legitimacy of this group; even in the eyes of the Islamic world;
- The regime of this group lacks expert personnel to govern in order to provide services to the people, and the brain drain has reached its peak since this group came to power;
- The presence of problems with neighbors and the area, which are classified as follows:
1 - Iran: Hydro- politics, the existence of extremist Sunni religious groups under the support of the Taliban, border conflicts, drugs, migration crisis, the Shia issue and business issues;
2 - Pakistan: TTP, Durand line, Pashtun issue, migration crisis and trade issues;
3 - Russia: terrorist groups, drugs, failure to form a comprehensive government;
4 - Central Asia: terrorism, drugs, separatism, trade issues;
5 - China: the issue of terrorism, challenges in China's economic plans and mines in Afghanistan, the impact of Afghanistan's security situation on the success of the One Belt One Road project;
6 - The competition between Arabs, Iran and beyond the region and the Taliban staying in this game;
- ISIS is self-made and the emergence of security threats that affect the security of the region, and the Taliban are considered to be the first responsible for it;
- Poverty, unemployment, tyranny, bigotry and ethnic hegemony, which has led to the formation of multiple fronts of civil and political resistance against this group and has brought Afghanistan closer to the point of disintegration;
- Numerous resistance fronts that fight against this group in an armed manner and carry out a large amount of attacks against the people of this group;
- Economic challenges and sanctions imposed on Afghanistan; along with the blocking of Afghanistan's foreign exchange reserves;
- The confrontation of neighbors in Afghanistan under the control of the Taliban over economic, political and security interests;
- The confrontation between the region and the extra region in Afghanistan in security, political, and economic issues;
- Conflict of interests between neighboring, regional and extra-regional countries over Afghanistan's underground resources;
- The foreignness and inadmissibility of the Taliban ideology in the region and the world;
- Exposing the cross-border jihadi plans of the Taliban project and the region's reaction to it. Talaban's ideology, little by little, provokes a reaction from the region and neighbors;
- The ethnic policy of the Taliban in Afghanistan, which will lead to the division of Afghanistan;
- Getting stuck in the regional versus extra-regional competition, which will be a difficult option for the Taliban.
Accordingly, if the above challenges remain, the life of the Taliban regime will be short. This calculation must exist in the eyes of the Taliban opponents, to measure a regular political and military plan to become an alternative to the Taliban.
