Afghanistan Conflict: A Rethinking In The West Is Necessary

Recent developments in Afghanistan, with central government daily losing major cities and ground to the Taliban, that a successful resolution in Afghanistan, through LaRouche’s “peace through development” approach, is perhaps the last chance to achieve a similar peace across Southwest Asia in the near future.

This subject was taken up by Schiller Institute West Asia expert Hussein Askary in the July 21 webinar “Afghanistan: A Turning Point in History — After the Failed Regime-Change Era,” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCRtKKlfZQc&t=1s). In the current conflict in Afghanistan, Askary said, the West must drop the simplified narrative constructed by the media, according to which “the Afghani government is the good guys and the Taliban the bad guys. You have many different kinds of colors and shapes of people both in the government and in the Talibans. The latter is not a uniform grouping, it has to survive by making alliances with warlords, with tribes, with different terrorist groups or whoever to expand its power. The government has its own methods and has relied too much on US and British-NATO support. That chapter must be turned around and a new modus operandi must be presented.”

The new modus operandi must put a national development program on top of the agenda for national dialogue. Despite the ongoing conflict, major efforts are ongoing, mediated by neighbor countries, China, Russia and the US, to bring about a dialogue between the Taliban and the Afghani government. Russia and China in particular are pressuring both factions to put aside obstacles to such a dialogue. As for the Talibans, the obstacle is represented by terrorist groups like Al Qaeda and the separatist Uyghur groups which the Taliban have supported in the past; as to the Afghani government, they should drop all conditions that make a dialogue impossible.

The Aug. 13 issue of EIR magazine will contain transcripts of portions of the historic July 31 Schiller Institute conference, which featured in-depth discussion of the development process which can, and must, bring about a peaceful resolution, once and for all, of the imperial “Great Game” in Afghanistan. Rather than British troops marching through the Khyber Pass, the plan is for an extension of the rail line which runs from China through Peshawar to the Gwadar port, as part of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), to connect through the Khyber Pass to Kabul, and on to Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, connecting landlocked Central Asia to the Arabian Sea, and restoring the ancient role of Afghanistan as the prosperous hub of the Silk Road.

This great project was formulated at a February conference in Tashkent, and is already underway. Umida Hashimova, an analyst at the U.S.-based Center for Naval Analyses, who specializes in Central Asia affairs, told the South China Morning Post that there are ongoing funding discussions with U.S. and Asian development agencies, and that “Construction of the 573-km long railway’s first section, between Kabul and Mazar-i-Sharif, is expected to begin next month.” The design and technical documentation of the railway will be undertaken by Russian Railways, Uzbek officials announced following talks with its CEO Oleg Belozerov in Tashkent on May 19.