Shanghai Cooperation Organization’s ‘facilitate, not mediate’ role could be the key to solving the Afghan imbroglio
By Pepe Escobar, with permission and first posted at Asia Times
Kazakhstan’s Foreign Minister Mukhtar Tileuberdi, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, Tajik Foreign Minister Sirojiddin Muhriddin and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi pose for a family photo before a meeting of Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Contact Group on Afghanistan, in Dushanbe, Tajikistan. Photo: Russian Foreign Ministry / Sputnik via AFP
Shanghai Cooperation Organization meeting of Foreign Ministers on Wednesday in Dushanbe, the Tajik capital, may have been an under-the-radar affair, but it did reveal the contours of the big picture ahead when it comes to Afghanistan.
So let’s see what Russia and China – the SCO’s heavyweights – have been up to.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi laid out the basic road map to his Afghan counterpart Mohammad Haneef Atmar. While stressing the Chinese foreign policy gold standard – no interference in internal affairs of friendly nations – Wang established three priorities:
1. Real inter-Afghan negotiations towards national reconciliation and a durable political solution, thus preventing all-out civil war. Beijing is ready to “facilitate” dialogue.
2. Fighting terror – which means, in practice, al-Qaeda remnants, ISIS-Khorasan and the Eastern Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM). Afghanistan should not be a haven for terrorist outfits – again.
3. The Taliban, for their part, should pledge a clean break with every terrorist outfit.
Atmar, according to diplomatic sources, fully agreed with Wang. And so did Tajik Foreign Minister Sirojiddin Muhriddin. Atmar even promised to work with Beijing to crack down on ETIM, a Uighur terror group founded in China’s western Xinjiang. Overall, the official Beijing stance is that all negotiations should be “Afghan-owned and Afghan-led.”
There is no sign yet that the Taliban will enter a power-sharing arrangement with President Ashraf Ghani’s government. Photo: AFP/Wali Sabawoon/NurPhoto
It was up to Russian presidential envoy Zamir Kabulov to offer a more detailed appraisal of the Dushanbe discussions.
The main Russian point is that Kabul and the Taliban should try to form a provisional coalition government for the next 2-3 years while they negotiate a permanent agreement. Talk about a Sisyphean task – and that’s an understatement. The Russians know very well that both sides won’t restart negotiations before September.
Moscow is very precise about the role of the extended troika – Russia, China, Pakistan and the US – in the excruciatingly slow Doha peace process talks: the troika should “facilitate” (also Wang’s terminology), not mediate the proceedings.
Another very important point is that once “substantive” intra-Afghan negotiations resume, a mechanism should be launched to clear the Taliban of UN Security Council sanctions.
This will mean the normalization of the Taliban as a political movement. Considering their current diplomatic drive, the Taliban do have their eyes on the ball. So the Russian warning that they should not become a security threat to any of the Central Asian “stans” or there will be “consequences” has been fully understood.
Four of the five “stans” (Turkmenistan is the exception) are SCO members. By the way, the Taliban have sent a diplomatic mission to Turkmenistan to ease its fears.
Break for the border
In Dushanbe, a special meeting of the SCO-Afghanistan Contact Group, established in 2005, for the first time was held at the foreign minister level.
This shows that the SCO as a whole is engaged in making its “facilitate, not mediate” role the prime mechanism to solve the Afghan drama. It’s always crucial to remember that no fewer than six SCO member-nations are Afghanistan’s neighbors.
During the main event in Dushanbe – the SCO Foreign Ministers Council – the Russians once again framed Washington’s Indo-Pacific strategy as an attempt to deter China and isolate Russia.
Following recent analyses by President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, the Russian delegation explained to its SCO counterparts its view counterposing Moscow and Beijing’s effort to develop a polycentric world system based on international law, on the one hand, with the Western concept of the so-called “rules-based world order.”
The Western approach, they said, puts pressure on countries that pursue independent foreign policy courses, ultimately legitimizing the West’s “neocolonial policy.”
On the ground
While the SCO was discussing the drive towards a polycentric world system, the Taliban, on the ground, kept doing what they’ve been doing for the past few weeks: capturing strategic crossroads.
The Taliban already controlled border crossings with Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Iran and Turkmenistan. Now they have taken over ultra-strategic Spin Boldak, bordering Balochistan in Pakistan, which in trade terms is even more important than the Torkham border crossing near the Khyber Pass.
Taliban in Spin Boldak, the very busy commercial border between Afghanistan and Balochistan in Pakistan. Photo: AFP
According to Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen, “the Spin Boldak district in Kandahar province has been cleared of the enemy” – Kabul’s forces – “and the district is now under the control of the mujahideen.” The term “mujahideen” in the Afghan context means indigenous forces fighting foreign invaders or proxies.
To have an idea of the importance of Spin Boldak for the Taliban economy during their years in power, see the third chapter of a series I published in Asia Times in 2010, here and here. Eleven years ago, I noted that “the Afghan-Pakistan border is still porous, and the Taliban seem to believe they may even get their Talibanistan back.” They believe that now, more than ever.
Meanwhile, in the northeast, in Badakhshan province, the Taliban are getting closer and closer to the border with Xinjiang – which has led to some hysteria about “terrorism” infiltrating China via the Wakhan corridor.
The Wakhan corridor in Afghanistan, seen from the Tajik side. Photo: Pepe Escobar, November 2019
Nonsense. The actual Afghanistan-China border in the Wakhan is roughly 90 kilometers. Beijing can exercise full electronic surveillance on everything that moves.
I crossed part of the Wakhan on the Tajik side, bordering Afghanistan, during my Central Asian loop in late 2019, and on some stretches of the Pamir Highway I was as close to Xinjiang as 30 kilometers or so through no man’s land. The only people I saw along the geologically spectacular, desolate landscape were a few nomad caravans. The terrain can be even more forbidding than the Hindu Kush.
If any terror outfits try to get to Xinjiang, they won’t dare cross the Wakhan; they will try to infiltrate via Kyrgyzstan. I met a lot of Uighurs in Bishkek, the Kyrgyz capital: mostly businessman, legally going back and forth. On the Kyrgyz-Xinjiang border, there was a steady flow of cargo trucks. ETIM was dismissed as a bunch of nutcases.
What’s way more relevant is that the Ministry of Public Works in Kabul is actually building a 50-kilometer road – for the moment unpaved – between Badakhshan province and Xinjiang, all the way to the end of the Wakhan corridor. They will call it the Wakhan Route.
No imperial graveyard ahead
SCO member Pakistan remains arguably the key to solve the Afghan drama. The Pakistani ISI remains closely linked to every Taliban faction: never forget the Taliban are a creation of legendary General Hamid Gul in the early 1990s.
At the same time, for any jihadi outfit it’s easier to hide and lie low deep in the Pakistani tribal areas than anywhere else – and they can buy protection, irrespective of what the Taliban are doing in Afghanistan. Prime Minister Imran Khan and his circle are very much aware of it – as much as Beijing. That will be the ultimate test for the SCO in its anti-terror front.
China needs an eminently stable Pakistan for all the long-term Belt and Road/China-Pakistan Economic Corridor projects and to fulfill its goal of incorporating Afghanistan. Kabul would be bound to benefit not only from increased connectivity and infrastructure development but also from future mineral including rare earth exploration projects.
Meanwhile, Hindu nationalists would love to outflank Pakistan and extend their influence in Kabul, encouraged by Washington. For the Empire of Chaos, the ideal agenda is – what else? – chaos: disrupting Belt and Road and the Russia-China road map for Eurasian integration, Afghanistan included.
Added hysteria depicting Russia and China involved in Afghan reconstruction as but a new chapter in the never-ending “graveyard of empires” saga does not even qualify as nonsense. The talks in Dushanbe made clear that the Russia-China strategic partnership approach to Afghanistan is cautiously realistic.
Taliban negotiators Abdul Latif Mansoor (right), Shahabuddin Delawar (center) and Suhail Shaheen (left) walk to attend a press conference in Moscow on July 9, 2021. Photo: AFP / Dimitar Dilkoff
It’s all about national reconciliation, economic development and Eurasian integration. Not included are a military component, hubs for an Empire of Bases, foreign interference. Moscow and Beijing also recognize, pragmatically, that fulfilling those dreams will not be possible in an Afghanistan hostage to ethno-sectarianism.
The Taliban for their part seem to have recognized their own limits, hence their current inter-regional diplomatic drive. They seem to be paying close attention to the inevitable heavyweights – Russia and China – as well as the Central Asian “stans” plus Pakistan and Iran.
Whether all this interconnection dance will herald the beginning of a post-war Afghanistan as a real functioning state, all we can say is insha Allah.
Imagine the optics of a swift SCO-brokered Afghanistan rebuilding, under a Taliban-led govt no less. Absolutely terrible optics for the West.
There will be resistance from them; was this week’s CPEC bus tragedy a taste of things to come?
Iran and Russia won’t allow a talibunny takeover. Not good for optics at all. The talibunny killed a dozen chinese 4 days ago and grievously injured 30 more. Russia/ China/ Iran are watching wahabbi pakistani behavior carefully. And reaffirming previous understandings/ prejudices of wahabbi society.
As I wrote just a little while ago on the SCO article thread, the test bed is SCO. /joint-statement-by-foreign-ministers-of-the-sco-countries-sco-afghanistan-contact-group/#comment-956189
The test will be on the Taliban to follow the wise path to development of the Afghanistan nation. It also will test the Russia-China leadership of the SCO and Eurasian Integration with big BRI projects and smaller local projects.
Afghanistan has fallen to the Taliban forces. But it also has fallen into the hands of Russia and China to facilitate the transformation of Afghanistan’s government, economy, security and regional integration as a terror-free, crime-free sovereignty.
The task is huge and will be imperative they have success.
I think the natural expectation to put on Taliban now is that they better set their house in order which includes stressing respect for law and order and dismissing the medieval and harsh actions they became known for, whether true or false. Everyone in Afghanistan knows what happened in IRAQ, SYRIA, LIBYA, YEMEN and everyone knows what is this thing called NATO. (Apologies if I have not mentioned all countries.) The strategy for Afghanistan now is dual – the essential and outward looking “Belt and Road ” and the unifying and internal “New Islamic Civilization” vision enabled by connections to China, to North Europe and to (the guidance by) the Islamic Republic of IRAN.
That map! Source of map: AIMS, Long War Journal. A Colour Revolutionist’s chart. Divided into eight different colours, each colour a different ethnic group. Each ethnic group a target for Identity Politics.
I seem to remember Afghanistan as a happier place BC (Before Carter). Perhaps China can remind Afghanis of the benefits they used to enjoy under a Secular Communist Government. Or, if Afghanis insist on Islam, Iran can remind them that progress and stability is possible under an Islamic Communist Revolutionary Government. Where is Ramin Mazaheri when you need him?
It would be the best, if Afgani people could decide for them themselves, what kind of government they want.
Afghanistan could have been integrated into the USSR. Imagine an Afghan SSR, it would have fitted perfectly to its Uzbek SSR and Tadjik SSR neighbours! A secular country with a well developed industry. But it was always in the British sphere too with neighbouring Pakistan and India. With different empire trying to reach out to Afghanistan, that country was ultimately thrown into chaos.
It is, then, paradoxical that the first country to recognize the then RSFSR and/or Soviet Union was Afghanistan.
I think Afghanistan is more likely to go the Iran route, that is, integrate revolutionary “secular” principles with an existing Islamic foundation, than swap it for chi m Communist ideology.
The results of the SCO Ministerial meeting are unsurprising but nonetheless encouraging. The UN foundational principles underscored by Lavrov and explicitly contrasted to the Western ‘rules based international order’ mandates a ‘facilitate but not mediate’ approach. Afghan matters are for Afghani’s to settle. The SCO Ministers have made their basic positions clear and, I think, have little to fear from the Taliban leadership. They have never made any attempt to establish themselves as an international movement aside from their native territories inside Pakistan in the tribal areas.
I’m encouraged that there’s thus far no pressure for elections. Representative government is the golden gate to corruption which marks every country which employs the system. In Afghanistan ‘civil society’ hardly extends beyond the city limits of Kabul and Herat. It is a country of tribal politics and what works in such situations is what they’ve always had, some form of Shura, whether presided over by a hereditary monarchy or not. It is a ‘parleying’ institution not unlike what once prevailed in Europe long ago. If elections are established what we’ll get are political parties that are easily susceptible to foreign influence through the machinations of local embassies and their NGO camp followers. Yet another version of Pakistan, India, and all the other countries that have sunk to a terminal level of corruption. We in the West cannot think otherwise. That’s a problem, above all, ours. But what the Taliban fighters fought for is an emirate.
But however this may be I doubt that there will be very much in the way of civil strife. These tend to heat up when there are foreign backers willing to financially back and arm their proxies. The SCO is the new game in town. The American hour is past. To keep the pot stirred up bases and embassies are needed. I doubt that the Americans will be able to accomplish much from ‘over the horizon’. That’s happy talk for Beltway critics of pulling out. There is some pressure for a ‘negotiated settlement’. As long as this goes on the spooks and mercenaries have a government that is paid to shield them. This government is very corrupt and it was established to do exactly what it does, front a foreign governance. I think a military solution would actually be better. Then it would be a matter of the Taliban negotiating with all the hereditary forces that have always formed the substance of Afghan politics. Judging by the favourable comments coming from the leadership I’m not without my hopes. But we’ll see.
I feel so sad for all the “actors” …
symbolic and telling about the last picture Pepe ended with:
1) The men look like kind of like they r walking around Mars- not so sure any more- about planet earth
a) they can walk upright, but I can just tell, they can not believe it
1) the gentleman on the far right, the one with the hospital mask, that’s the one who says a lot (indirectly) I think he has giv’n up
It is not obvious what I implying, …no one would believe me….and I would b too easy a target ( I already am- and have been- 4 about the last 12 years, that’s another story) but have learned 2 get by on the symbolic “shoestring” (u do what u can) (kudos to Eva Bartlett)
The best line Pepe ended w/ was Insha Allah- , there is the world everyone is used to, that appears real, but is in reality a sad excuse 4 a construct- a bad, bad joke at best ( hyperbole!? u decide)
The appearance of this worldly life or construct is starting to appear like a highly over touted punch–
We r not waking up from this, but we r going to b forced 2 ( this movie is not end’n well) ( throw Hollywood out)
finally rare earth value gets a mention. Afghanistan is very rich in these and only china is poised to benefit from this. im always interested in colonial ideology that native tribes were given the worst land that had no value. no timber gold farming etc. but in a century. oil gas uranuim etc were developed and it was stolen again. Australia is a great example of how mining companies can even blow up the oldest known cave rock art in the world for mining projects.
we all talk of the empires opuim extraction in Afghanistan but rare earth is where its at. looks like the empire will be mining mars or a passing asteroid to get their share as they arent into nation building just sovereignty crushing