KABUL (SW) – Afghans witnessed an array of drastic upheavals in the political arena and on the security front in the past year.
Many had hoped that in 2021, the peace talks between the former government and the Islamic Emirate would be concluded, the war in the country would end and the way would be paved for lasting peace, but this hope did not materialize.
In 2020, in the Qatari capital, Doha, many meetings were held between the former government’s peace negotiating delegations and the Islamic Emirate, in which both sides outlined their real efforts to achieve peace.
After 18 months of talks and the Afghan government’s hesitant stance, the United States and the Taliban reached an agreement, which was signed on February 29, 2020 by Zalmay Khalilzad, the former US Special Envoy for Afghanistan, and Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the head of the Emirati political bureau in Doha.
On the same day, former US Secretary of Defense Mark Spencer and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg signed another agreement in Kabul with the former Afghan government officials. A statement from the agreement said the Afghan government had previous security commitments to NATO and the United States, which had been ratified by the House of Representatives and the Senate, and that those commitments remained in place.
It was said at the time that the Doha agreement was aimed at ending the long-running US war in Afghanistan and bringing peace to the country, but the peace process failed not only through dialogue, but the republic fell and power was taken over by the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.
Some insiders attribute the situation to the ignorance, incoherence and lack of proper management by the Afghan officials and the implementation of a major project in Afghanistan by countries in the region and the world.
Ramazan Bashardost, a former member of the Wolesi Jirga (lower house) and a political analyst, criticizes former government officials for failing to run the country properly, and said that because of their mismanagement, everything went against people’s expectations.
Bashardost blames some countries in the region and the world for the recent changes in the country and says that Russia, China and Pakistan have played an important role in the Afghan peace process and are turning this process in their interests.
He called the US-Taliban agreement useless and added that no action had been taken in Afghanistan under the agreement. The most important clauses in the agreement were the complete withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan, the release of prisoners from the Islamic Emirate, the severance of ties between the Islamic Emirate and terrorist groups, the reduction of violence and the start of peace talks.
Noorshah Noorani, another political analyst, blames the reluctance of some neighboring countries to end the war in Afghanistan and the withdrawal of American troops from the country as factors in the fall of the former regime.
Experts on political and military issues consider the Doha Agreement, corruption, the intervention of countries in the region, the loss of security forces and the prolongation of the war in the country as the most important factors in the fall of the former regime.
However, former President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani recently said in an interview that the cause of the collapse of the former regime was the United States and its allies.
Afghanistan in 2021 not only faced major political upheavals, but also went through difficult days in terms of security.
Last year, fierce fighting broke out between the forces of the previous government and the Islamic Emirate, and eventually power was taken over by the Islamic Emirate, and the foreign forces left Afghanistan on August 31, 2021.
Although, the war in Afghanistan intensified in 2021, the security situation has improved since the fall of the previous regime and the rise of the Islamic Emirate. However, there are occasional explosions and targeted killings in Kabul and some other provinces.
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