Dr Ehsan Azari Stanizai
Director of the Sydney Lacan Study and Reading Network.
The arguments in the FT interview: “Afghanistan on the edge” (September 17) carry a conceptual blind spot on what is going on within the Taliban’s medieval rule in unfortunate Afghanistan. The interview also maintains that the Taliban isn’t a monolithic militant group, and some elements within them are willing to rule the country and engage with the world in a civilized way. However, the key question is why the Taliban sustainably increase their brutal treatment of the women and girls who are forcibly banned from every aspect of social, political, and cultural life. Almost every month, the Taliban’s reclusive and masquerading leader, Shaikh Habatullah, issues more and more insane decrees to harm his nation and people. This issue is the heart of the Afghan problem that needs a deconstruction.
In the wake of the US-Taliban Accord in 2020 that allowed for the withdrawal of the Western troops from the country to the Taliban on August 21, 2021Aljazeera reported that the US is vigilant against the interference of Pakistani ruling generals. The failure of the Accord began soon when the leader of Pakistan military intelligence, Faiz Hamid, made the Taliban cabinet and installed his agents as key ministers. The veiled leader of the Taliban, who is arguably a heartless villain, sidelined all the moderate leaders at the behest of Pakistan. He is virtually using Islam as a play tool for his Sharia enforcement. Afghanistan and the people of Afghanistan will never see the daylight unless and until the Pakistani proxy hardline Taliban remains as ruler of the country. The Pakistani ruling general determines the degree of the temperature in Kabul from their headquarters in Rawalpindi.
