Analyzing the Taliban Takeover: Perspectives, Players, and Power Dynamics in Post-U.S. Afghanistan

Analyzing the Taliban Takeover: Perspectives, Players, and Power Dynamics in Post-U.S. Afghanistan

Ashraf Ghani VS Zalmai Khalilzad

The takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban on August 15, 2021, will be analyzed from various perspectives for decades to come. The most common analyses of this endgame include geopolitical considerations, such as the success of Pakistan in achieving strategic depth to control Afghanistan, the conclusion of United States engagement in Afghanistan, and the gains made by China, Russia, and Iran following the U.S. withdrawal. Examining the degrees of failure of Ashraf Ghani, often regarded as the “number two global thinker,” and the degrees of success of the pragmatic neoconservative political operative Zalmai Khalilzad, the two main players in this endgame, reveals intriguing insights.

Both Ashraf Ghani and Zalmai Khalilzad were born in Afghanistan, received U.S. scholarships to study at the American University in Beirut, earned doctoral degrees from prestigious U.S. universities, and played significant roles in the endgame of the U.S. departure and Taliban takeover in Afghanistan. A closer examination of the last few decades of their careers illustrates that Ashraf Ghani evolved from a socialist idealist into a thinker-theorist liberal, ultimately failing as President of Afghanistan and being toppled by the Taliban. In contrast, Zalmai Khalilzad, a consistent anti-communist neoconservative, developed into a top American pragmatic political operative, contributing to the defeat of the Soviet Union in the 1980s, the establishment of post-Taliban Afghanistan in 2001, the reconstruction of Iraq post-Saddam, and negotiating the end of U.S. presence in Afghanistan.

In the 1980s, Zalmai Khalilzad, the pragmatist anticommunist, worked with U.S. administrations to increase the costs of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, leading to the eventual defeat of the Soviet Union. Ashraf Ghani’s only documented involvement during the Soviet Union’s occupation was a one-year study in Pakistan on the Islamic Madrasa system. Coincidentally, after Ghani’s study, the number of Madrasas in Pakistan exponentially increased, serving as recruiting grounds for fighters against the Soviet Union, funded by U.S. allies in the Gulf States. Khalilzad focused on increasing the cost of war for Soviets and as a result defeat the Soviet Union, while Ghani emphasized the legitimization and proliferation of Islamic Madrasas in Pakistan as a counterbalance to Islamist revolutionaries who were the dominant groups of Afghan Mujahidin. Decades later, the students of these Madrasas, the Taliban, negotiated with Khalilzad for the end of U.S. engagement in Afghanistan and toppled Ashraf Ghani from the presidency.

After the defeat of the Taliban due to their perceived role in the September 11 terrorist attacks, Ghani emphasized state-building from within, while Khalilzad argued for considering outside factors in rebuilding war-torn governments, including positive international economic and security assistance and negative foreign interference. Later on the same thinking of Ghani to  embrace the U.S. force withdrawal without adequately considering external influences, especially Pakistan’s policy, led to his downfall.

Khalilzad, accepting President Trump’s call to form an agreement with the Taliban, successfully secured the end of U.S. presence in Afghanistan, enduring through the Democratic Biden administration. Despite the televised chaos of the U.S. withdrawal, Khalilzad, the pragmatic political operative, achieved the task of bringing the Taliban to the negotiation table, preventing attacks against U.S. forces during the withdrawal, and securing agreements to prevent Afghanistan from becoming a base for international Islamic extremist terrorism.

Observers of Afghanistan, both inside and outside the country, find it astonishing that the theorist-thinker Ashraf Ghani and the pragmatic Khalilzad have played contrasting roles in the events of August 15. Ghani, the thinker-theorist, vowed never to run away from Afghanistan, taunting a former king Amanullah Khan on television for fleeing in 1929, weeks before his fleeing. Khalilzad, the pragmatic operator, consistently worked for an orderly settlement between the Taliban and the Afghan government. Ghani’s abrupt departure, creating chaos and a power vacuum, has been seen by many as an attempt to prevent an orderly transfer of power aimed at undermining  the success of Khalilzad’s mission.

In this comparison, the idealist-theorist Ashraf Ghani appears to be a failure, while the pragmatic political operator Zalmai Khalilzad achieved success in his assigned tasks. Even after fleeing Afghanistan, Ghani’s statement from the United Arab Emirates on August 18 reflects his unrealistic idealist views by talking about rulers and kings of 18 and 19 century Afghanistan who have come to power for the second time. In contrast, Khalilzad, acknowledging the enduring nature of Afghanistan as a civilization, noted that rulers come and go.