Al Mayadeen English

  • Ar
  • Es
  • x
Al Mayadeen English

Slogan

  • News
    • Politics
    • Economy
    • Sports
    • Arts&Culture
    • Health
    • Miscellaneous
    • Technology
    • Environment
  • Articles
    • Opinion
    • Analysis
    • Blog
    • Features
  • Videos
    • NewsFeed
    • Video Features
    • Explainers
    • TV
    • Digital Series
  • Infographs
  • In Pictures
  • • LIVE
News
  • Politics
  • Economy
  • Sports
  • Arts&Culture
  • Health
  • Miscellaneous
  • Technology
  • Environment
Articles
  • Opinion
  • Analysis
  • Blog
  • Features
Videos
  • NewsFeed
  • Video Features
  • Explainers
  • TV
  • Digital Series
Infographs
In Pictures
  • Africa
  • Asia
  • Asia-Pacific
  • Europe
  • Latin America
  • MENA
  • Palestine
  • US & Canada
BREAKING
Al-Nakhalah: We are the rightful owners, and we must fight to retrieve our rights
Al-Nakhalah: The enemy and its allies must know that we can never surrender to their terms and diktats after all the sacrifices made
Al-Nakhalah: The prisoner exchange clause can be completed in the next few days, and thus we will have pulled the [explosion] fuse and removed the enemy's justifications for aggression
Al-Nakhalah: The Resistance has expressed its willingness to negotiate on the basis that there are items that can be dealt with positively, the first of which is the prisoner exchange item
Al-Nakhalah: Trump's plan entails the Palestinian people's declaration of complete surrender to the enemy
PIJ Secretary-General, Ziyad al-Nakhalah, in an address aired on Al Mayadeen: The Resistance is engaging in a fierce negotiating battle under the so-called Trump plan
Russian Federation Council approves joint military cooperation agreement with Cuba
Al-Nunu: Today, the lists of prisoners required to be released, the agreed-upon criteria and numbers, were exchanged
Al-Nunu from Sharm el-Sheikh: Negotiations focused on mechanisms for implementing an end to the war, the withdrawal of occupation forces from the Gaza Strip, and the exchange of prisoners
Al-Nunu from Sharm el-Sheikh: Mediators are making great efforts to remove any obstacles in the way of implementing the ceasefire, and a sense of optimism now prevails among all parties

Today’s Taliban May Be Truly ‘New’, and the Shift Could Transform the Middle East

  • Alastair Crooke Alastair Crooke
  • Source: Al Mayadeen
  • 20 Jul 2021 16:28
  • 4 Shares
5 Min Read

Most significantly, rather than having a tunnel vision limited to the narrow territory of Kandahar, the new young Taliban leaders want to play the strategic ‘Great Game’.

  • x
  • Today’s Taliban May Be Truly ‘New’, and the Shift Could Transform the Middle East

There is a subtle breeze blowing; it is too soon to call it ‘a wind’.  But a striking change has – and is – occurring.  Is it enough?  We should be rightly cautious; yet the Taliban that I knew, as it first coalesced – the brainchild of General Hamid Gul of Pakistan’s Intelligence service - is not the Taliban of today.  Perhaps we need, too, to avoid being locked into stale narratives. Suhail Shaheen, their spokesman, made this point when he lamented the “propaganda launched against us”, and by which he implied that the world should admit that the Taliban has indeed changed.

Several of these shifts are breathtaking: The Taliban were a narrow Pashtun revanchist movement, wholly Gulliverised by rigid tribal law, and influenced by intolerant Saudi Salafism and Pakistani Islamism.

What do we see today? The Taliban is engaging in extensive diplomacy with Iran. Tehran, it seems, is no longer apostate, no longer an ideological and theological foe.  The Taliban now seek to mesh Iran into their wider strategic interests. And more extraordinary, the Afghan Shi’i Hazaras – originally slaughtered and fearfully repressed by the Taliban – are now a component of the Taliban!  Then there is now also a ‘Tajik Taliban’, whereas before, the Taliban were a sworn enemy to the northern (mostly Tajik) forces of Ahmad Shah Massoud. Today’s Taliban is no longer a simple instrument of Pashtun hegemony - maybe up to 30% are Tajik, Uzbek, or Hazara. In other words, the kernel of inclusion is already in the soil.

Most significantly, rather than having a tunnel vision limited to the narrow territory of Kandahar, the new young Taliban leaders want to play the strategic ‘Great Game’. Their vision has broadened. They are saying as such, very forcibly to Moscow and Tehran: They will be inclusive; they will try to avoid major bloodshed, and they look to Moscow and Tehran as mediators for a new Afghan dispensation.  And there is something more: Saudi and Pakistan formerly controlled the money spigot. Now it is China.  For several years now, the Taliban has cultivated China – and China has cultivated the Taliban.

But we must keep our feet on the ground.  The Taliban is not autonomous. Both India and Pakistan wield weight in it, and the narco-gangs (the legacy of the CIA’s ill-considered earlier attempts to buy prominent Afghan warlords) may act as spoilers.

But the point here – aside from the caveats above – is, is this enough?  Enough for what? Enough to see the US out of the region, that is. There is here, a marked and unusual, constellation of interests.  All the principal actors want the US gone from the region.

Related News

The Ukrainisation of Afghanistan

Wakhan Corridor—a centuries-old Silk Route—is being rejuvenated by China and Afghanistan

It is not geo-strategic high science to understand that America’s withdrawal from Iraq and Syria will be contingent on what now happens in Afghanistan. If there is an unholy mess after August 31st, further US withdrawals from the region will become hugely more problematic in terms of domestic US opposition.  It is in the interest of the Taliban - as much as of Russia, Iran, and China - that Afghanistan does not now humiliate Biden through a descent into (very possible) bloody civil war.

A tough ‘ask’, but as Pepe Escobar points out, the SCO heavyweights, China and Russia, will be joined on July 14 in Dushanbe, by four Central Asian ‘stans’, plus India and Pakistan (Afghanistan and Iran attend as observers).

Wang Yi and Lavrov likely will tell Ghani’s FM, “in no uncertain terms, that there’s got to be a national reconciliation deal, with no American interference, and that the deal must include the end of the opium-heroin ratline”.  (Russia already has pocketed a firm promise from the Taliban that jihadism won’t be allowed to fester.  The endgame: loads of productive investment, Afghanistan is incorporated to Belt and Road and – later on – to the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU).

Why should the Taliban agree?  Well, they can be the facilitators of an American wider withdrawal (or, its’ spoiler). But, if they are patient – and agree to wait until US attention has moved on – they can allow Ghani to fall some months later - all in good time.  The Taliban might claim then to be the vanguard to a new more sophisticated, more inclusive Sunni Islamism that is aligned with a major Belt and Road infrastructure project.

How did this happen?  Professor Rabbani just might be smiling from his grave.  It seems the ‘new’ Taliban may have taken the Tajik leader’s political clothing.

The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect Al Mayadeen’s editorial stance.
  • Taliban
  • US
  • China
  • Iran
Alastair Crooke

Alastair Crooke

Director of Conflicts Forum; Former Senior British Diplomat; Author.

Most Read

All
Charlie Kirk Murder Mysteries Multiply

Charlie Kirk Murder Mysteries Multiply

  • Analysis
  • 26 Sep 2025
From the beginning, GB News has been a Zionist asset. Is there any part of UK society that is not infiltrated and colonised by the Zionist movement? (Al Mayadeen English; Illustrated by Zeinab el-Hajj)

Reform UK, GB News and the Zionist infiltration of the British far right

  • Opinion
  • 28 Sep 2025
Barrack explicitly asserted that the US is supplying the Lebanese army to fight its own people, even laughing at the idea that this support is intended to confront "Israel". (Al Mayadeen English; Illustrated by Zeinab el-Hajj)

Why the US is so open about its intentions for Lebanese civil war

  • Opinion
  • 30 Sep 2025
There is a great uncertainty over how the president will use the remaining three years of his term, to say nothing about his prospects for re-election. (Al Mayadeen English; Illustrated by Batoul Chamas)

Iranian opponents of diplomacy have definitively won the debate

  • Opinion
  • 4 Oct 2025

Coverage

All
The Ummah's Martyrs

More from this writer

All
The Nakedness of EU ‘Geo-political’ Ambitions Will Be Revealed - As the Ukraine War Melts Away

The Nakedness of EU ‘Geo-political’ Ambitions Will Be Revealed - As the Ukraine War Melts Away

The Slow-Motion Advance to the Edge of the Abyss

The Slow-Motion Advance to the Edge of the Abyss

Already, "Israel" has the White House committed to support an Israeli military operation against Hezbollah. (Al Mayadeen English; Illustrated by Zeinab El-Hajj)

Does 'Israel' want war?

The European Mutiny: The Consequences are Just Beginning

The European Mutiny: The Consequences are Just Beginning

Al Mayadeen English

Al Mayadeen is an Arab Independent Media Satellite Channel.

All Rights Reserved

  • x
  • Privacy Policy
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Authors
Android
iOS