World powers jostle in Afghanistan's new 'Great Game'

The security situation is still precarious in many parts of the country. Afghanistan's strategic landscape is changing as regional powers forge links with the Taliban and vie to outdo each other in what's being seen as a new "Great Game".

Fifteen years after the US-led intervention in Afghanistan, competition for influence - reminiscent of that rivalry between the Russian and British empires in the 19th and early 20th Centuries, and that during the Cold War in the 1980s - is intensifying, complicating an already precarious security situation.

Political cartoon depicting the Afghan Emir Sher Ali with his

 "friends"  the Russian Bear and British Lion (1878)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Game

Suspicion and mistrust remain the biggest obstacle to stability in strategically-located Afghanistan, which has the potential to destabilise the wider region.

Pakistan, considered the main supporter of the Afghan Taliban, has been accused of playing a double game. But Afghan and Western officials as well as Taliban sources have also spoken about the Taliban's clandestine links with Iran for the past few years.

And recently it emerged that Russia's ties with the Taliban were warming too.

Soviet troops pulled out of Afghanistan in 1988 - Russia now has links with the Taliban

In December the top US commander in Afghanistan, Gen John Nicholson, criticised Russia and Iran for establishing links with the militants, which both countries have confirmed.

The US has also pursued contacts with the Taliban in recent years but those efforts have not brought peace. Several regional powers, most notably Russia and Iran, criticise the US and its allies for "failing" in achieving its original objectives of eliminating violent extremism and drugs in Afghanistan.

Three major factors have contributed to the shifting of regional alliances:

the emergence of so-called Islamic State in Afghanistan;

changes in the approach of the new Afghan government;

and tensions between the US and regional players such as Russia, China, Iran and Pakistan.

Fears over Islamic State

The emergence of IS in Afghanistan - the group announced the creation of its Khorasan Province branch in January 2015 - provided Russia and Iran with the opportunity to make "contacts" with the Taliban.

Army Gen. John Nicholson speaks at a news conference with US Defence Secretary Ash Carter, Friday 9 December 2016 at Bagram Air Base, north of Kabul, Afghanistan.

The US's decreasing military role in Afghanistan and a resurgent Taliban had contributed to creating a sense in regional capitals that Afghanistan's fate was up for grabs. The political infighting in the central government in Kabul also raised concerns about political stability both inside and outside the country.

Over the past two years, alarm in Russia and former Soviet Central Asian republics grew as militancy spread to northern Afghan provinces close to their borders as well as to China's Xinjiang region.

Conspiracy theories in Russia, Iran and China paint IS as an American or Western creation aimed at destabilising their countries.

The government says it is cracking down on IS, some of whose alleged members have been paraded by Afghan police

The emergence of IS posed a serious challenge to the supremacy of the Taliban but also encouraged Iran, China and Russia, who were fearful of IS expansion, to review their policies and open dialogue with the Taliban.

Russia's Taliban 'channels'

Softening its approach towards the Taliban is a dramatic and unexpected shift for Russia.

Moscow has for years opposed the Taliban, calling them terrorists, and supported the anti-Taliban "Northern Alliance" in the Afghan civil war of the 1990s.

But faced with a common enemy in the shape of IS, Russia has changed its mind.

In December 2015, a senior Russian diplomat declared that "the Taliban interest objectively coincides with ours" in the fight against IS and that his country and the Taliban "have channels for exchanging information".

Taliban sources also confirmed that the group's representatives met Russians inside Russia and "other" countries several times over the past two years.

But Moscow's current assertiveness in Afghanistan can also be seen as a tactic to put pressure on the US and to enhance its role and regional influence.

Taliban contacts with Russia and Iran might also help Pakistan to distribute and dilute the international pressure it is under for hosting the Afghan Taliban leadership.

Iran and the Taliban make up. Shared animosity towards IS has also brought the Sunni Taliban closer to their historic nemesis, Iran, a Shia powerhouse, whose clerical regime had previously viewed the Afghan Taliban as a major threat.

Iran and its allies have been fighting IS in Syria and Iraq

Like Russia, Iran supported the anti-Taliban groups in the 1990s. Tehran also co-operated with the US-led international coalition to topple the Taliban regime in late 2001. But, at the same time, Taliban sources say Iran sent them a message that it was willing to support them against the US.

When the Taliban insurgency gained momentum in Afghanistan, Iran publically supported the US-backed Afghan government but reportedly kept a link to the Taliban alive. Since the emergence of IS (which considers Shia to be infidels), the Tehran-Taliban relationship has deepened.

A delegation from the Afghan Taliban's political office in Qatar visited Iran in mid-May 2015 where the two sides discussed, among other things, ways to counter IS in Afghanistan.

The Taliban supreme leader, Mullah Akhtar Mansour, was reportedly on his way back from Iran when he was killed in a US drone strike in Pakistan's Balochistan province in May 2016.

Afghanistan's 'imbalanced' foreign policy

The foreign policy of the Afghan government established in September 2014 has also altered political calculations.

Hawks in Russia, Iran and China consider President Ashraf Ghani's government with suspicion and see it as too weak to deal with the multiple security challenges it faces.

They also view Mr Ghani as too close to the US compared with his predecessor, Hamid Karzai.

And some of Mr Ghani's decisions have raised eyebrows in regional capitals.

Afghan security forces have launched operations against both Taliban and IS militants

Soon after taking office, he said that improving relations with Pakistan was a top priority. While ignoring India, Pakistan's arch-rival but Afghanistan's traditional ally, the new president made several positive gestures to appease Islamabad. But that rapprochement ended within a year and Kabul and Islamabad reverted to hurling accusations at each other.

Mr Ghani then revived Afghanistan's close relationship with India and on a few occasions seemed to be taunting Pakistan while speaking in India.

His government also pledged support for the Saudi-led military coalition against Shia Houthi rebels in Yemen. That gesture was not received well in Tehran.

These rivalries underline the nature and scale of possible troubles ahead.

The Taliban as Trojan horse?

The Afghan Taliban had been largely dependent on their support base in Pakistan, a country where their leadership is allegedly living. Fears are now growing in Afghanistan that the Taliban are being used as a Trojan horse by state actors in three main ways:

to put pressure on the Afghan government and its US/Nato allies;

to increase the influence of individual countries;

and to outdo one another in a regional competition.

Taliban fighters carrying weapons cheers during a speech by their senior leader in the Shindand district of Herat province, Afghanistan. 27 May 2016.Image copyrightAP

Image caption

Talks have not yet led to peace with the Taliban

The Taliban see their expanding regional portfolio and diplomatic push as evidence of their "legitimate struggle" - in some ways more important for them than material assistance.

The price the Taliban ask has generally been for these countries to help them rid Afghanistan of foreign forces. In return the Taliban offer the following assurances:

not to allow IS to establish a base in Afghanistan;

to prevent foreign militants from using Afghanistan against these states;

to keep their war focused on Afghanistan.

So where will a new 'Great Game' lead?

Most US military personnel have left Afghanistan - there is little appetite for more losses among the US public

Major regional players seem to have realised that they cannot rely on the US alone to sort out Afghanistan and stabilise the wider region. They are keen to make themselves much more relevant and are looking to play a more assertive role. They also insist that their "contacts" with the Taliban are aimed at promoting regional security.

Afghanistan has been the scene of foreign interventions for a long time. The British and Russian Empires jockeyed for control during the 19th and early 20th Centuries. In the 1980s the US-led Western alliance helped Pakistan provide weapons and funding to Afghan mujahideen fighting to end Soviet occupation.

Recent developments show the extent of a new "Great Game" taking shape.

And once again Afghan civilians are caught in the crossfire.

An artillery gun is air lifted out of a British base in Afghanistan by an American helicopter as the base is closed. 8 May 2014.Image copyrightMOD

Image caption

The UK, one of the original 19th Century "Great Game" players, has once again pulled out of the country

The past few decades have shown that no country has the means to impose its will in Afghanistan on its own, but many actors have created disorder.

Because a big part of the chaos in Afghanistan is rooted in the wider region, the solution needs co-operation and a wider consensus. One positive outcome of the shifting regional alliances might be a more inclusive approach towards stabilising Afghanistan and its neighbourhood.

Many Afghans are hopeful that Russian leader Vladimir Putin and incoming US President Donald Trump will improve bilateral relations, with a positive impact on the situation in Afghanistan.

For many decades during its recent past, when it was left alone, Afghanistan was one of the most peaceful and stable countries. History shows that what Afghanistan needs is less foreign interference, not more of it.

By Dawood Azami ,BBC World Service, Kabul

Source: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-38582323 

Pakistan and Afghanistan: The new Great Game  

…. The Great Game Strategic rivalry between the British and Russian Empires…, in which outside powers struggle for control of Afghanistan, is alive and well…

Afghanistan: The Great Game - A Personal View by Rory Stewart …Rory Stewart tells the story of foreign intervention in Afghanistan from the 19th century to the present day…  Afghanistan: The Great Game - A Personal View by Rory Stewart: Episode 2  …Rory Stewart tells the story of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the twentieth century, and its parallels with the American-led coalition's intervention today. He explains that, quite contrary to popular understanding, the Soviets…  

Afghanistan: The Great Game - A Personal View by Rory Stewart: Episode 1  … became known as "The Great Game". Afghanistan was perceived by Victoria

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Alf Dubs: ‘Antisemitism, Islamophobia and racism are all equally abhorrent’

The peer who fled the Nazis, aged six, on Labour’s troubles – and his attempts to make the government accept 3,000 unaccompanied child refugees

The public support Lord Dubs received when the Labour peer’s amendment to the immigration bill passed through the Lords in March took him by surprise. “I’ve had people in the street shouting at me, saying well done,” he says. “And you know, when politicians in the street normally get shouted at, it’s with abuse.”

The Dubs amendment to compel the government to take 3,000 unaccompanied child refugees from Europe – proposed amid reports that some 95,000 refugee children have reached Europe without their parents – was voted down by the Commons last week. But it was immediately revised by the Lords and sent back – to be voted on in the Commons again next week. Dubs says the new amendment, which states that numbers of child refugees will be determined by the government in consultation with councils, has made it “easier for the government to accept”, but the key principle, that Britain should take in unaccompanied, mostly Syrian minors from Europe, remains in place. The government has argued that the UK is already helping refugees in the Middle East, and that accepting vulnerable children from European camps would create a “pull factor”. But Dubs, who arrived in the UK from Czechoslovakia on Kindertransport aged six, disagrees. “There is little evidence to suggest that, but in any case the plight of unaccompanied children in various parts of Europe is so serious that one has to set that off against the possibility that one or two might come as a result of a magnet effect,” he says.

This isn’t the first time Dubs has worked on migration issues – he chaired the Refugee Council for seven years and worked on immigration while on the Labour shadow cabinet front benches during the late 1970s and early 1980s. But he believes that public support for his amendment is significant at a time when resentment and negative sentiment has been stirred around the issue of refugees and migrants across Europe.

“It seems to have got hope to people, that it’s something we could easily do as a country and is important to do,” he says, adding: “British people have good humanitarian instincts. Basically people feel that it’s a rough world, and if we can do something to help a few people, then we should do that.”

A Labour working peer since 1994, the Prague-born Dubs says that he is fighting this case on principle, but in terms of garnering media attention his background has obviously helped. He arrived in Britain in 1939, one of 10,000 children who the UK received as part of the government-backed Kindertransport scheme from Germany and Nazi-occupied countries before the outbreak of the second world war.

Dubs was one of the youngest children and also, he says, luckier than most, because both his parents survived the war: his father was already in Belsize Park, north London, and his mother also eventually escaped – he is not sure how – and joined them in Britain. His father died of a heart attack shortly afterwards, leaving her alone with a child and no money, scrubbing floors and travelling the country for various jobs. She died of leukaemia just after Dubs finished university at the London School of Economics. Years later, he learned that he was one of the 669 children saved from the Nazi regime by Sir Nicholas Winton – the “British Schindler” – and the two became friends.

Dubs says that, steeped in politics at an early age, he quickly realised he wanted to enter this field, because “if evil politicians had caused so much that was dreadful in the world, maybe politics could also be used for good”. Always aligned to the Labour party – “the only way forward” – he was selected as Labour candidate for Battersea South, which he represented until 1987, a post he describes as “a privilege”. There followed a short period out of work – he went to sign on for the dole after losing his seat and wrote “not enough votes” on the form as the reason for his unemployment. After writing a book on how to lobby parliament, to help campaigners and activists, he worked for the Refugee Council, becoming the first refugee director of the organisation, and later for Liberty, as well as other charities and trusts.

It seems that Dubs has always been a thorn in the side of governments, during Labour tenures too. In 2008, while Gordon Brown was prime minister, Dubs refused to approve the government’s attempts to increase the period of detention without charge, from 28 to 42 days.

“The whips asked me four times if I’d support the government and I said no. Then they asked me if I’d take the day off and I said no.” He opposed the Iraq war, though he says that, to this day, he regrets not moving a Lords amendment that declined to support military action in Iraq without endorsement from the UN security council. It wouldn’t have passed, he says, but still: “There was a point of principle about it and a time when it was important to go on the record. I would have felt more at peace with myself if I had played my part”

In the Lords he has fought, among many other things, to make mental health trusts more open, to provide more support for neurological diseases – his son has MS – and in favour of assisted dying. He wants to see an income tax increase hypothecated to the underfunded health service – something he feels the public would support if they knew every penny of the increase was going to the NHS.

He has also been consistently vocal on race relations – during the Brixton riots of the early 1980s he “got into long arguments” about police stop and search, which was disproportionately targeting young black men and which he views as one of the factors causing “understandable resentment”. Still clearly passionate in opposing discrimination of any sort, and at a time when the Labour party has been under fire over antisemitism, Dubs says: “I think antisemitism, Islamophobia and racism are all absolutely and equally abhorrent,” adding: “If I thought the Labour party had a problem with antisemitism, I would leave tomorrow.” He does, however, feel that party leader Jeremy Corbyn began to address the issue “too slowly, and didn’t make a clear enough statement” about it early on.

As for the government, he thinks the current administration is “harsher than the Thatcher government in some ways – the cuts in our services are awful, the cuts in social security support, all these things are a terrible package, where the poor are having to carry the burden”. He was pushing to tackle tax avoidance long before the Panama Papers and still believes this is key – along with opposing austerity measures. The unfairness in our society is much more manifest. How can we have a world with such wealth inequality? It is scandalous – and I shall go on playing my part, to lessen inequality, to work for equality, to oppose discrimination of any sort and to have decent public services.”

As the new amendment on unaccompanied child refugees goes back to the Commons, he remains hopeful that MPs will do the right thing. “Britain is a great country, but I don’t think we are doing a good enough job,” he says. “I keep saying, I’d like other people to have the same opportunities in Britain that I had.”

Alf Dubs: ‘Antisemitism, Islamophobia and racism are all equally abhorrent’
by RACHEL SHABI, theguardian.com
Education Cheadle Hulme school, Cheshire; London School of Economics, BSc politics and economics.
Career 1994 to present: Labour peer, House of Lords; 1997-99: junior minister, Northern Ireland Office; 1994–97: opposition whip; 1988-95: director, Refugee Council; 1979-87: Labour MP, Battersea South (later Battersea); 1983-87: opposition front bench spokesman on home affairs; 1981–83: member, home affairs select committee; 1971-78: member, Westminster city council.

Public life chaired the Fabian Society and Liberty; past trustee of Action Aid and the Immigration Advisory Service.

Interests Walking in the Lake District, tennis, political histories, biographies and thrillers.
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