The Israel–Hamas war is a bitter reminder of the al-Qaeda attacks on the US on 11 September 2001, and America’s response to them. One of the effects of those events was that it strained relations between the domain of Islam and the West. The current war stands to take the world back to that paradigm, potentially spawning a new generation of jihadi or combative fighters.

Relations between the Muslim realm and the Judeo-Christian world have historically experienced ups and downs since the birth of Islam more than 14 centuries ago. However, in recent times, two events more than any others marked the start of a new phase in the rise of radical political Islamism and in the West’s treatment of it as a threat: the 1978–79 Iranian revolution and the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The Iranian phenomenon produced a radical Islamic government with an anti-US and anti-Israeli posture. The invasion of Afghanistan stimulated Islamic jihadism—as personified by the Afghan Islamic resistance forces, the mujahideen—to repulse Soviet aggression with a commitment to Islam as an ideology of resistance and transformation.

The US and many of its allies rejected the Iranian change as ‘fundamentalist’ and an anomaly but supported the Afghan resistance in conformity with their geopolitical preferences. They didn’t discern that their support of Afghan jihadism could eventually lead to the empowerment of a medievalist Islamic force, the Taliban, in Afghanistan and provide impetus to a range of other Jihadi groups.

Al-Qaeda’s 9/11 attacks moved jihadi Islamism to what was widely condemned as terrorism. The US’s retaliatory actions included intervention in Afghanistan, from where the attacks had been orchestrated under the protection of the Taliban, as part of a wider war on terrorism. Although US President George W. Bush and UK Prime Minister Tony Blair said that their target was not the religion of Islam per se but rather those who had hijacked it for selfish objectives, some other political leaders and opinion-makers in the West blamed the religion itself.

Al-Qaeda and like-minded groups were able to exploit this division to galvanise support among Muslims and engender new generations of violent jihadis. This was most evident in Iraq after the US invasion in 2003 and in conflict-ridden Syria, where the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria managed to overrun vast territorial areas and declare its caliphate in 2014. Islamic State’s politics of brutality and anti-Western stance brought the US back into Iraq, which it had left in 2011 after nearly nine years of combat.

The US and its allies didn’t succeed in uprooting the anti-Western jihadi forces in Afghanistan, Iraq or Syria. Al-Qaeda survived and franchised itself in alliance with the Taliban, whose defeat of the US and return to power after two decades of fighting in Afghanistan provided a powerful shot in the arm for kindred extremist forces. Similarly, Islamic State, while losing its caliphate, retained an ideological and operational capability to hit targets not only in the Levant but also across the Middle East, Asia and Africa as well as Europe.

Yet not all was lost. Efforts were made to repair the damaged relations between the Muslim and Western worlds in the wake of 9/11 and events prior to and after it. Moderate and reformist forces of Islam and their conciliatory counterparts in the West managed to build bridges of harmony and peaceful co-existence in the intervening period.

The Israel–Hamas war is now set once again to weaken Muslim–Judeo-Christian relations for many. Hamas’s actions against Israel, involving killing and kidnapping of civilians, are indefensible under international law and international humanitarian law, as is Israel’s retaliatory Gaza campaign, because it amounts to collective punishment of the 2.3 million people who live in the tiny, densely populated and totally blockaded Gaza Strip for the actions of a group from among them.

Israel’s stated goal is to destroy Hamas once and for all. This is similar to what the US set out to accomplish, but failed, with al-Qaeda, Islamic State and the Taliban. It prevented these forces from executing another mega-operation like 9/11, but it couldn’t wipe them out altogether. With the Taliban’s re-empowerment, they are revelling in the fertile grounds that have been provided for new generations of jihadis.

Whatever the ultimate outcome of the Israel–Hamas war, neither Hamas as a militant force nor the Palestinian struggle for freedom and independence will evaporate. The situation is likely to produce a more radical generation of Palestinian as well as Jihadi fighters with feelings of intense hostility towards Israel and its international supporters. As I have argued for over 20 years, the use of brute force may work up to a point, but beyond that a comprehensive political strategy is needed to deal with those aspects of protracted problems in world politics that defy military solutions. That conclusion is still valid.

Originally published 17 October 2022.

Iran’s mass movement of popular protest, sparked by the death in custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini at the hands of the country’s notorious morality police, has now entered its fifth week. While many Western media outlets have focused on the feminist, women-led aspect of the demonstrations, the movement itself almost instantly jumped from a protest against the policy of forced hijab-wearing and the unequal treatment of women to an uncompromising demand that the regime itself must go.

Whereas previous uprisings eventually transitioned from protesting stolen elections (2009) and corrupt economic policy (2019) to expressing broad dissatisfaction with the Islamic Republic itself, the current movement adopted the slogan ‘Death to the Dictator’ from day one. While the deplorable situation of legally sanctioned ‘gender apartheid’ in Iran remains one of the core grievances of those protesting today, reflected in the rallying cry ‘women, life, freedom’, there is no prospect that disbanding the morality police or reforming to Iran’s family law code (however unrealistic) could placate those on the streets.

In short, Iran is experiencing a revolutionary moment. Whether that will translate into a revolutionary outcome is still uncertain. A lot would need to happen both inside and outside the country for the protesters to succeed in removing the regime, which would not go quietly or without significant bloodshed. The revolutionaries (for that is what they are) would need to expand their movement beyond the streets and act to disrupt the government’s grip on both security and the economy. The international community could play a decisive role in helping the protesters take that step, should Western nations choose to pivot their Iran policies away from the increasingly moribund nuclear deal (officially, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA) and focus instead on the needs and demands of the Iranian people.

There are already tentative signs that small cracks are emerging, both in the security forces’ ability to sustain their brutal crackdown on protesters, and in the central government’s control over key economic sectors. Videos have been widely circulated on social media showing uniformed policemen joining the demonstrations, and even of irate mothers shaming their sons into abandoning their armed patrols and retreating home. The number of defectors is not likely to be of practical concern to those in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Basij militia and the regular police forces tasked with targeting the protesters. However, such clips have immense propaganda value and set a dangerous precedent that could inspire others to follow.

Reports have also emerged online of Arabic- and Dari-speaking mercenaries policing the streets in some cities, fuelling speculation that Iran’s security forces are demoralised and exhausted, and that the regime has sought to tap some of its battle-hardened proxy networks in Lebanon, Syria and Afghanistan to bolster its repressive apparatus. If confirmed, the use of mercenaries would indicate the extent to which the regime is concerned about its ability to contain the protests. It could also lead to a significant escalation in violence. When Arab dictators adopted similar tactics during the uprisings of 2011, foreign mercenaries showed far less compunction about killing unarmed civilians than local security forces, who might think twice before shooting at, say, a group of protesting schoolgirls belonging to similar socio-familial or ethno-religious networks to themselves.

In the past week, we have also seen the announcement of workers’ strikes in some key sectors of the Iranian economy. Striking oil and petrochemical workers in particular have emerged as a threat to one of the regime’s most crucial sources of revenue. Academics have also gone on strike, or even resigned, to protest the treatment of their students, many of whom have been arrested, disappeared or even killed. Merchants also closed down Tehran’s famous Grand Bazaar, an important symbolic blow, particularly as the more conservative bazaari class had traditionally aligned itself with the regime. National general strikes played a significant role in crippling Mohammad Reza Shah’s government during the revolution of 1978–79, and should Iran’s labour movement succeed in orchestrating a general strike today, it could bode extremely poorly for the Islamic Republic’s ability to manage the threat from the protests.

Washington and its European partners, long afflicted by a myopic fixation on the JCPOA, have recently shown promising signs of broadening their Iran policy to account for the protesters’ demands. The US has announced sanctions on Iran’s morality police and its leadership, as well as several prominent individuals involved in the crackdown, including Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi and Communications Minister Eissa Zarepour, an alumnus of the University of New South Wales who is rumoured to hold Australian citizenship. The UK has followed suit, sanctioning the morality police and individuals including the head of the Basij force, and the EU recently announced a package of sanctions targeting regime officials responsible for ordering the violent repression of protests.

Canada, not a party to the JCPOA, has led the way on punishing Iran for its deadly crackdown and other human rights violations. On 13 October it announced sanctions on prominent Iranian ‘reformist’ politicians closely associated with the nuclear deal, including long-time foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, and has also banned the top 50% of the leadership of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, some 10,000 people, from entering Canada. While declaring that the IRGC is a ‘terrorist organisation’, the Canadian government stopped short of formally listing the group as such.

Amid this flurry of international action, the Australian government has largely remained silent on the issue of the Iranian protests. Foreign Minister Penny Wong released a carefully worded statement condemning the violence a fortnight after it erupted, but Australia is yet to indicate that it intends to join its Western allies in punishing the regime with sanctions, asset freezes or travel bans. It has been reported that the Iranian Foreign Ministry has sent threatening letters to several European ambassadors warning of a rupture in diplomatic relations should the EU move forward in approving additional sanctions. Have Australian diplomats received similar communiqués from Tehran?

Australia’s history of using its autonomous human rights sanctions regime has been woeful. Since its version of Magnitsky legislation passed the parliament in December 2021, Australia has applied sanctions to only a handful of Russian officials. It has even declined to sanction the Myanmar junta following the violent military coup of February 2021, ostensibly because Myanmar has detained the Australian economist Sean Turnell on spurious charges of violating the state secrets act. This sets a worrying precedent, in that it sends the message that Australia’s commitment to opposing gross violations of human rights is contingent upon narrow diplomatic considerations.

If the Iranian regime were holding Australian citizens in its prisons, it would likely also seek to leverage their fate to prevent Australia from imposing sanctions. In the past six months, Iran has arrested more than a dozen foreign visitors, including nine Europeans following the outbreak of the protests. Australia risks providing an incentive for the Iranian regime’s bad behaviour if we continue to resist joining our international partners in imposing sanctions on the individuals and institutions responsible for the current brutal crackdown.

Western countries have a clear and obvious interest in hastening the demise of one of the Middle East’s most brutal and intransigent Islamist dictatorships. Iran’s secretive nuclear program, sponsorship of terrorism and interference in the affairs of its neighbours, as well as its imperviousness to the reform or moderation of its uncompromising ideology, have long been a thorn in the side of the US and its allies.

Western nations, including Australia, must accept that pursuing a nuclear deal with a regime that is quite literally shooting unarmed children in the streets is unconscionable. Instead, we should support the protesters by indefinitely pausing all negotiations that could lead to the transfer of funds or assets back to the Islamic Republic, including prisoner-swap agreements that trade cash for hostages. The international community should act to weaken the regime by further extending economic and human rights sanctions, by evicting regime lackies and their offspring from Western capitals, and by doing all it can to keep Iran’s internet online.

A revolution is brewing in Iran. Our priority should be to give it every possible chance of success.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has blamed the West for fomenting the widespread unrest that has rocked Iran over the past few weeks. But his claim is no longer heeded. The ranks of the protestors have swelled despite the authorities’ forceful crackdown. The Islamic regime faces its worst legitimacy crisis since its advent in the wake of the revolution of 1978–79 that toppled the pro-Western autocracy of Mohammad Reza Shah.

The unrest started on 16 September following the death of 22-year-old Masha Amini in the custody of the morality police after she was arrested for not wearing her hijab properly. Amini hailed from Iran’s Kurdish minority. The regime claims that she died of a heart attack, but her family has vouched for her good health and held the morality police responsible for beating her to death. Many Iranian women have, in a largely unprecedented move, publicly burned their headwear, demanding freedom from theocratic dress-code impositions.

But Amini’s death has triggered much more than an anti-hijab protest. It has invoked deep-seated grievances on the part of many segments of Iranian society, stemming from poor governance, economic decline, social disparities, endemic corruption, clerical monopoly of power, and a lack of accountability and transparency. US sanctions, the Covid-19 pandemic and Iran’s costly involvement in support of a number of proxy forces (most prominently in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen) have also taken their toll on the Iranian public, whose living conditions have been in no way commensurate with the potential of the country as an oil- and gas-rich state.

Women have led the charge for the first time in the Islamic Republic’s history, but the unrest has provided an outlet for expression of a wide range of societal frustrations. Many intellectual and professional opponents of the regime, as well as Iranians who are among the 40% living under the poverty line, have joined the protests. The latest groups to join are some of the bazaaris (small business owners—the traditional backbone of Iran’s economic and social order) and workers from the oil and petrochemical sectors.

It was primarily the combination of these forces that brought down the Shah’s rule as a main pillar of Pax Americana in the Middle East. Those who spearheaded the revolution against him essentially wanted a pro-democratic transformation of Iran into a constitutional monarchy. But since their movement evolved as a rainbow phenomenon and lacked a unifying leadership and organisational structure, Ayatollah Khomeini, a longstanding critic of the Shah and his US backer, with the support of the Shia religious establishment, was able to dominate the revolutionary movement by the second half of 1978. When the Shah and the US were compelled to relinquish their hold on Iran in mid-January 1979, Khomeini was able to return to Iran from a 14-year exile abroad to a tumultuous public welcome.

However, contrary to the expectations of many Iranians, he proclaimed the revolution as Islamic and engaged in a forceful Islamisation of Iran’s domestic and foreign policy according to his vision of the faith. He abolished the 2,500 years of monarchical rule, declared Iran an Islamic republic with an Islamic government, denounced the US as the ‘great Satan’, opposed Israel as an occupying and illegitimate actor and called for the export of the revolution to the predominantly Sunni region. The religious order he established was followed with gusto after his death in 1989 by his successor. Khamenei has exercised enormous religious and constitutional powers to subordinate Islamically vetted but elected presidents to ensure the regime’s survival within an ideological and pragmatic framework that Khomeini left behind.

Thus, the original objectives of the revolution were subverted in favour of what emerged as a politically pluralist theocratic order. Public support for this order has gradually eroded as the hardline factions of the ruling clerical stratum have pursued an iron-fisted rule, disallowing any form of organised or individual dissent, and wiping out any viable alternative. The regime has failed to see that over time most of the post-revolutionary generation, now constituting some 70% of Iran’s 85 million people, would have no memory of the revolution or firm devotion to the Islamic system of governance.

The ruling clerics are determined to put down the unrest at all costs, for they know that their survival is intimately tied to that of the governmental system they have created and still control. And they have the ability to do so with their control of the most potent forces of state power, especially the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and its subsidiary paramilitary organisation, Basij.

Meanwhile, the protestors have called for regime change with a firm determination to achieve their aim. Yet they face an uphill battle; they lack effective leadership and organisational strength, as their predecessors did against the Shah until Khomeini and his supporters gained primacy.

The scene is now set for a prolonged and bloody struggle, with uncertainty and unpredictability the order of the day. Iran is a critical player in today’s complicated regional and international situation. The Islamic regime has closely linked Iran to China and Russia in countering pressure from the US and its regional allies, Israel in particular. An unravelling of Iran might be more consequential than could ever have been envisaged.

Ten months into their extremist theocratic rule in Afghanistan, the Taliban are facing growing resistance in different parts of the country. Leading the way is the National Resistance Front (NRF), headed by Ahmad Massoud—the son of the legendary commander Ahmad Shah Massoud, who, from his native strategic Pajnshir Valley (north of Kabul), valiantly fought the Soviet occupation in the 1980s and later the Pakistan-backed Taliban–al-Qaeda alliance. He was assassinated in 2001 by the alliance’s agents two days before the 11 September terror attacks on the US.

Contrary to the Taliban’s claim that an atmosphere of calm and security prevails in Afghanistan, there has been growing resistance to their rule. The NRF has mounted increasingly organised and coordinated operations in Panjshir and the adjacent provinces of Takhar, Baghlan and Badakhshan in the northeast. Sporadic armed operations, led by various individuals and groups, have gained momentum in several other provinces, including Ghor, located at the centre of Afghanistan, and Samangan.

Some non-Pashtun figures who had initially been enticed by the ethnic Pashtun Taliban to join them have now turned against the group. One of them is Mawlawi Mehadi Mujahid, an influential leader from ethnic Hazara, whose Shia Islamic sect forms some 15–20% of the predominantly Sunni Afghanistan. Mehadi broke away from the Taliban after he was sacked as head of intelligence in Bamyan, the stronghold of Hazaras in central Afghanistan.

Concurrently, the Taliban leaders do not represent a cohesive group. They hail from rival eastern and southern provinces. Whereas the radical Haqqani network, which is intimately linked to Pakistan’s powerful military Inter-Services Intelligence, claims ascendancy from the east, its more nuanced counterpart, led by Mullah Mohammad Yaqoob’s group, hails from the Taliban’s original heartland of the southern province of Kandahar.

Initially, when the Taliban seized power in August 2021 in the wake of the chaotic US and allied withdrawal and the collapse of the dysfunctional government of Ashraf Ghani, the Taliban and their Pakistani backers could only rejoice over what they viewed as an easy victory. They appeared confident that the trophy was theirs for good.

However, they either failed to understand or underestimated the complexity of Afghanistan, as the Soviets and Americans had done before them. Afghanistan is composed of numerous ethno-tribal micro-societies, with none of them constituting a majority. This, plus the landlocked but crossroads location of the country in a traditional zone of regional and international rivalries, has historically rendered the task of nation-building in Afghanistan very arduous. The job becomes even more taxing when elements of one of those micro-societies seek to exclusively rule the others, whether with or without an outside backer’s support.

The Taliban hail from the Ghilzai tribe of ethnic Pashtuns—the largest minority in Afghanistan. This is the first time that elements of the tribe have seized power, in contrast to their Durrani tribal counterparts, who led the country for most of its over two centuries’ life. The Taliban leaders are largely trained in a version of Islam that approximates to a mix of Deobandi, Wahhabi and Salafist Sunni. Most of their commanders and foot soldiers are poorly educated, even in literary Islam, in Pakistani madrassas (religious schools) and have known little more than an austere rural existence. They are divided from within and insecure in relation to the rest of Afghanistan’s population, especially in the urban centres, where many experienced liberalist political–social and economic changes during the two-decade-long US occupation.

While exuding a sense of religious, political and ethnic supremacy and triumphalism, the Taliban leaders have expediently targeted women and girls and, more specifically, two other groups. They essentially view the defiant Shia Hazaras as deviants and the Sunni Panjshiris and their Tajik kindred, who constitute the second largest ethnic category in Afghanistan, as traditionally recalcitrant. The Taliban have unleashed unspeakable discriminatory, horrific operations against the opposition, involving beating, arrest, torture, disappearance and killing, to suppress any form of opposition across the country.

Nowhere are their atrocities more pronounced than against the NRF and people of the rapidly dwindling 150,000 or so inhabitants of Panjshir. This is because the NRF, led by the 34-year-old, Sandhurst-educated Ahmad Massoud, along with most compatriots in the country, want a free, sovereign and prosperous Afghanistan. It has advocated a publicly mandated, inclusive pluralist and democratic system of governance, with Islam as the state religion.

Fearing Panjshir’s resistance, the Taliban occupied the centre of the valley shortly after assuming power. As reported by social media and private sources, they have subjected the Panjshiri inhabitants to heinous punishments. There are reports of an instance where the Taliban killed a captured NRF fighter and beheaded his father in front of crowds. Arrest, torture and the disappearance of any suspected Panjshiri or, for that matter, their Tajik kindred have become the order of the day in Panjshir and beyond. The Taliban have engaged not only in massive human rights violations and curtailment of freedom of expression and press freedom, but also in operations that amount to ethnic cleansing. This is something that urgently requires a thorough investigation by the United Nations Human Rights Commission and the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan.

The Taliban, whose continued alliance with al-Qaeda has once again been confirmed by the UN, have recently raised more fighters wherever they can, given their own growing numbers killed and injured since March this year. They are hurriedly focused on building a 100,000-strong force, including a suicide regiment, fully equipped with billions of dollars’ worth of modern arms left behind by the US, to battle the opposition, and also their rival terror group, Islamic State’s Khorasan branch, which the Taliban haven’t been able to control. In addition, while abhorring modern education, they have reportedly supported many new madrassas to train jihadis.

The scene is now set for continued conflict and bloodshed until such time that the Taliban change their barbaric ways in the name of their self-centred version of Islam. They currently don’t enjoy the support of a cross-section of Afghanistan’s mosaic population or satisfy the criteria for international recognition. The only politics that can work in Afghanistan are those of plurality, inclusiveness and consensual processes of state-building. Any attempt by the Taliban to cut their way through by such orchestrations as a ‘Loya Jirga’ (Grand Assembly), which is advocated by former president Hamid Karzai, who hails from the Durrani Pashtuns, will produce nothing more than a propaganda tool for the Taliban leaders to claim false domestic legitimacy to gain global recognition.

As the world is grappling with the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the tragedy that has beset the Ukrainian people, it’s important that we don’t forget the ongoing human-made crises in other parts of the globe. One of them is that of Afghanistan under the rule of the Pakistan-backed and al-Qaeda-allied Taliban, whose draconian behaviour hasn’t changed since they last ruled most of the country from 1996 to 2001, before being toppled by the United States and its Afghan allies.

Prior to reassuming power eight months ago, the Taliban were painted as the ‘New Taliban’ by the former US envoy for Afghanistan, Afghan American Zalmay Khalilzad. He negotiated the US–Taliban peace agreement of February 2021 that facilitated the American, NATO and non-NATO allies’ withdrawal and paved the way for the Taliban’s return to power.

In several interviews with Afghan media, Khalilzad justified his conclusion of the peace deal on the grounds that the Taliban had changed, acknowledging their past mistakes on women’s education, the group’s standing in the world, and their links to other groups such as al-Qaeda.

Two Pakistani scholars, Huma Baqai and Nausheen Wasi, have lately affirmed and expanded on that view. In Pakistan–Afghanistan relations: pitfalls and the way forward, they state: ‘The new Taliban appear more pragmatic and politically savvy. They are displaying political acumen which is refreshing and raises hope for the better. Many confidence building measures have been initiated to cultivate domestic and international support.’ This is also a perspective that is pushed by Islamabad.

These views couldn’t be further from the truth. Since seizing power, the Taliban have proved to be as theocratic a cluster as ever. They have done nothing that could persuade most of Afghanistan’s mosaic population and, for that matter, the international community that they are less absolutist and discriminatory than before.

In contrast to some of their leaders’ earlier assertions that they would form an inclusive government, respect human rights and especially women’s and girls’ rights to education, work and participation in public life, they have failed to take any positive steps. Their persistence with an interpretation and application of Islam that relies on a perverted form of Salafism or Deobandism for power consolidation amounts to an abuse of the religion. They have remained firmly exclusionary and repressive, with no intention of building a participatory system of governance and respecting human rights. As is also reported, they have not severed their ties with al-Qaeda, which has forged cells in at least half of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces.

As a cluster hailing predominantly from the Ghilzai tribe of ethnic Pashtuns, who have historically formed about 42% of Afghanistan’s population, the Taliban have enacted draconian decrees and rules to treat females as social outcasts. They have ignored the Islamic emphasis on acquisition of knowledge as the right of all Muslims. Women are not allowed to travel more than 67 kilometres from their locality or board planes without lawful male chaperones. Freedom of expression, broadcast and congregation is severely curtailed. This has been accompanied by beating, detaining and punishing women who have publicly protested for their rights, and journalists and intellectuals whom the Taliban have deemed undesirable. Ostracisation, marginalisation and killing of some of those who served the previous government and ethnic minorities, the Hazaras and Panjshiris in particular, as well as house-to-house searches for detaining suspected opposition and confiscating weapons have become the order of the day.

Meanwhile, the factional split between Taliban leaders who come from the southern province of Kandahar and those who hail from the eastern provinces has weighed in favour of the latter, which are run by the dreadful Haqqani network. This group that controls Kabul has been closely linked to al-Qaeda and Pakistan’s powerful military intelligence agency, Inter-Services Intelligence. It is led by the interior minister, Sirajuddin Haqqani, who is on the FBI’s wanted list. Many other cabinet members, including Prime Minister Mohammad Hasan Akhund, are on the United Nations’ blacklist.

Yet, while the Afghan people are in a dire economic and financial situation, with half facing starvation, Pakistan has not been deterred from maintaining its full backing of the Taliban. The Chinese and Russians are heavily leaning towards forging close ties with them as an anti-US measure. In the wake of the Ukraine crisis, the Chinese foreign minister and a Russian delegation, headed by Moscow’s envoy for Afghanistan, concurrently visited Kabul on 24 March for wide-ranging talks with Taliban leaders.

Whatever the political game of Beijing, Moscow and Islamabad, it is incumbent on the West and indeed the international community not to lift their focus from Afghanistan in view of the Ukrainian and other crises in the world. If left unrestrained, the Taliban’s rule is not of the nature to build a viable political order and generate a widely acceptable functioning state in the face of a population who have historically proven to be divided and rebellious. Various armed opposition groups have already started guerrilla operations against the Taliban and they can only gain strength should the Taliban fail to change their ways. This is something that the Taliban’s main patron, Pakistan, and other outside receptive actors, especially China and Russia, need to realise.