Afghanistan Under the Taliban: Should Minority Faith Communities Fear the Worst?
(Farahnaz Ispahani, September 11, 2021)
Transcript available below
About the speaker
Farahnaz Ispahani is a Public Policy Fellow at the Wilson Center in Washington, DC and the author of the book Purifying The Land of The Pure: The History of Pakistanâs Religious Minorities (Oxford University Press, 2017). In 2015, she was a Reagan-Fascell Scholar at the National Endowment for Democracy, where she worked on women and extremist groups with a particular focus on the women of ISIS.
A Pakistani politician, Ispahani served as a Member of Parliament and Media Advisor to the President of Pakistan from 2008-2012. She returned to Pakistan with Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in 2007 after opposing the Musharraf dictatorship in the preceding years. In Parliament she focused on the issues of terrorism, human rights, gender based violence, minority rights and US-Pakistan relations. The most notable pieces of legislation enacted with her active support include those relating to Womenâs Harassment in the Workplace and Acid Crimes and Control, which made disfiguring of women by throwing acid at them a major crime. She was also a member of the Womenâs caucus in the 13th National Assembly, which was instrumental in introducing more legislation on womenâs issues than has ever been done before during a single parliamentary term.
Ms. Ispahani spent the formative years of her career as a print and television journalist. Her last journalistic position was as Executive Producer and Managing Editor of Voice of America’s Urdu TV. She has also worked at ABC News, CNN and MSNBC.
She has contributed opinion pieces to The Wall Street Journal, Foreign Policy, The National Review, and others.
Transcript
Introduction
Robert R. Reilly:
Hello, and welcome to the Westminster Institute. I am Robert Reilly, its director.
Farahnaz Ispahani is a Public Policy Fellow at the Wilson Center in Washington, DC and the author of the book Purifying The Land of The Pure: The History of Pakistanâs Religious Minorities (Oxford University Press, 2017). In 2015, she was a Reagan-Fascell Scholar at the National Endowment for Democracy, where she worked on women and extremist groups with a particular focus on the women of ISIS.
A Pakistani politician, Ispahani served as a Member of Parliament and Media Advisor to the President of Pakistan from 2008-2012. She returned to Pakistan with Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in 2007 after opposing the Musharraf dictatorship in the preceding years. In Parliament she focused on the issues of terrorism, human rights, gender based violence, minority rights and US-Pakistan relations. The most notable pieces of legislation enacted with her active support include those relating to Womenâs Harassment in the Workplace and Acid Crimes and Control, which made disfiguring of women by throwing acid at them a major crime. She was also a member of the Womenâs caucus in the 13th National Assembly, which was instrumental in introducing more legislation on womenâs issues than has ever been done before during a single parliamentary term.
Ms. Ispahani spent the formative years of her career as a print and television journalist. Her last journalistic position was as Executive Producer and Managing Editor of Voice of America’s Urdu TV. She has also worked at ABC News, CNN and MSNBC.
She has contributed opinion pieces to The Wall Street Journal, Foreign Policy, The National Review, and others.
Farahnaz is joining me today to discuss, âAfghanistan Under the Taliban: Should Minority Faith Communities, Women, and Girls Fear the Worst?â Welcome, Farahnaz.
Farahnaz Ispahani:
I would like to start today by thanking Bob Reilly and the Westminster Institute for inviting me here today to speak about a subject very close to my heart. I think today most of us who work on Afghanistan or who have Afghan friends are deeply saddened. All of us here in the U.S. very recently observed the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on our soil, and just a few days before the commemoration of that terrible terrorist attack we saw the hasty, ill-prepared U.S. exit from Afghanistan, the land that had provided the space and refuge for the perpetrators of 9/11. Many scholars, senior military experts, and former government officials had agreed to the need for the U.S. to withdraw, but no one expected the hasty and painful scene the U.S. demonstrated to the world.
Religious oppression under the Taliban
At this historic time it is important to remember what life was like under the Taliban in Afghanistan before 9/11, twenty years ago. Why are we asking this question? Because the Taliban have not changed, their worldview has not changed, and what have we left behind, particularly for women and vulnerable religious minority populations, but also in terms of a security situation for the United States and other Western countries. So what the Taliban did before is likely what we are going to see again. There is no transformation in their core beliefs about what they consider to be Islamic teachings.
Afghanistan came under the harsh Taliban rule first in 1996. In the course of their military conquest of Afghanistan the Taliban massacred a community of Shia Hazaras. The last few Jews were harassed and sometimes arrested on various charges [and] because of that history the last member of Afghanistan’s Jewish community left the country a few weeks ago. Hindus and Sikhs were similarly harassed and sometimes extorted for money. Many of them have taken evacuation flights to India and Pakistan.
The Christian community in Afghanistan is small, but it has been growing, especially since the Taliban was beaten and we have had some form of civilian rule in Afghanistan. We have seen the underground churches, booming, blossoming. We have seen many different [Christian sects]. We have seen Catholics, we have seen Evangelical Christians, we have seen Mormons. We have seen many Muslim affairs actually having the strength to convert from Islam to Christianity and that as we all know is called apostasy, and apostasy (renouncing Islam) carries a death penalty.
Destitution in 2001
So going back to Afghanistan, it was depleted completely by 2001, dependent on foreign aid and almost entirely cut off from the rest of the world. It was beset by drought and on the brink of famine. Only three countries â Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates â recognized the Taliban regime at that time. According to a TIME Magazine reporter who was in Kabul on 9/11, the city of Kabul felt dead, crushed by poverty and trauma. Everyone who could afford to leave this formerly cosmopolitan city had emigrated elsewhere. Electricity was sporadic and there was no phone service or personal service.
Under Taliban law men had to grow beards and wear turbans. Girls could not attend school anymore. Women had to wear burqas and their shoes could not make any noise, no heels allowed. Most women were forbidden to work outside the home, and going outside meant they had to be accompanied by a male relative. So look at this medieval atmosphere that the Taliban’s first regime [created].
The Talibanâs dreaded religious police employed by the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice drove around Kabul in black Toyota highlands pick-up trucks, looking for anyone breaking their laws, goading people to pray, sometimes beating them for good measure, thievesâ hands were amputated, and public executions took place in Kabul’s main stadium.
In the months leading up to September 2001 the Taliban regime had been lashing out more and more in issuing odd and order edicts, banning the internet, banning nail polish, banning white socks on women, even lobster, which is not available in the landlocked country, got its own ban. Television, photography, kite flying and music had already been prohibited. For years the massive and impressive Bamyan statues going back centuries were blown up by the Taliban.
Given that track record I do not think that things would be much better under the new Taliban regime. Afghanistan will become a major human rights and a major security concern for the world, including the United States. It has already become a human rights problem in some parts of Afghanistan within just a week or two of taking over. Already we have reports that the Taliban have been executing people, lashing women, and shutting down schools, but they have been cleverer this time. Most of what they are doing is in the provinces. So far they have not been as violent in Kabul itself because there is still foreign journalists reporting from Kabul.
Basically, you know the reason behind the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan following the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001 was the Taliban refusing to hand over Osama Bin Laden, considered by Washington to be an international fugitive. We have no guarantee today nor has the rest of the world that Afghanistan will not once again become a safe haven for terrorists, either those intent on doing harm to the U.S. or other foreign powers. Former U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta recently offered a very blunt assessment. He said the Taliban are terrorists and they are going to support terrorists if they take control of Afghanistan. There is no question in my mind that they will provide a safe haven for Al-Qaeda, for ISIS, and terrorism in general, and that constitutes frankly a national security threat to the United States.
As we have witnessed recently, the Taliban have already released thousands of Al-Qaeda and Islamic State prisoners from Afghan prisons. Many have returned to the field. So what was the process for all this? We have seen the mess at Kabul airport as poor Afghans who worked for the United States in good faith as translators and many other posts for the last twenty years were hanging on to U.S. aircraft, but being left behind on the ground or literally falling to their deaths.
So what brought this about?
We have to go back now obviously to the Trump administration. As we know, President Obama first announced the interest in withdrawing troops and then President Trump’s administration pushed forward the Doha Accords of the Doha peace deal, which I am going to talk about. Now, the much celebrated Doha peace deal, signed between the U.S. and the Taliban during the Trump administration (and the U.S. deemed as terrorists until recently), reflects for me not just American military withdrawal from Afghanistan but also an abandonment of women, children, and religious minorities.
The Trump administration’s desire to withdraw American troops after eighteen years of war is understandable. The U.S. went into Afghanistan to locate and destroy Al-Qaedaâs safe havens in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on U.S. soil. It has been two decades now since 9/11 and most Americans have lost a sense of urgency in confronting the radical Islamist extremism that led to the U.S. military intervention in Afghanistan. Still, there was no reason to give up on the rights of Afghan women and religious minorities to education, employment, and a place in the political process which the Taliban’s ideology denies, and the pre-Taliban Afghan constitution, which was written with U.S. help, protected [minorities].
So we all know what women and religious minorities went through in the last Taliban regime. All Afghans basically suffered, except for those who joined the Taliban, and as we know women and Christians, Hindus, Sikhs, some Baha’is, the Hazara Shia community, all of these religious communities suffered terribly; torture, death, beheadings, being hunted down, and they did not know a moment’s peace to just follow their faith.
So since 2001 what did the U.S. do?
The U.S. gave $29 billion dollars, which is a huge amount of money, in civilian assistance to Afghanistan to make it a better country for its people. This was an investment in creating an environment that did not breed terrorists. As a result of U.S. civilian assistance more than 3.5 million girls were enrolled in primary and secondary schools, and a hundred thousand women attended universities, and eighty-five thousand Afghan women started to work as teachers, lawyers, law enforcement officials, and in healthcare.
Until just a few days ago the Afghan constitution, importantly adopted in 2004 with U.S. support, guaranteed equal rights and duties for men and women, barred discrimination, and required a balanced education for women. While Afghan society of course remains conservatively Islamic, the constitutional and legal framework enabled human rights defenders and social modernizers to reform their society.
U.S. negotiators during their jobs with the Taliban unfortunately remained narrowly focused on discussing American withdrawal in return for the Taliban’s promise not to host Al-Qaeda. Women and religious minorities of Afghanistan were not only not at the table of the so-called peace talks, but they were not even on the minds of the American negotiators. Even the democratically-elected Afghan government was not at the table and kept at arm’s length. So it was almost as if after spending billions of dollars on rebuilding Afghanistan, creating democratic institutions, the U.S. just wanted to walk away.
So as we have seen in more recent times, right after the signing of the Doha accords up till the inauguration of President Biden and till today, there have been dozens of attacks by the Taliban as they marched across Afghanistan, and they have been killing and beheading and torturing people all the way across till they marched into Kabul.
So here, now, today, I am just going to touch on exactly who makes up the so-called âTaliban interim government.â
The new Taliban interim government consists of thirty-three ministers, out of whom seventeen – I repeat seventeen – government ministers were named recently as UN-designated terrorists. The Taliban still dispute whether Osama Bin Laden was responsible for the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and not just Al-Qaeda but ISIS-K or ISIS Khorasan is still very much in evidence and growing stronger in Afghanistan. So we will see now as the Taliban adhered to a strict interpretation of Islamic laws, we are going to see not just conflict between the Taliban and ISIS Khorasan, perhaps at times between ISIS Khorasan and Al-Qaeda or all three.
We are going to see a decimation of people of faith, decimation of all people of faith who do not belong to or ascribe to the extremist Islamist faith of the Taliban. So now I would like to turn to the heart of this talk. We have all witnessed the scenes of chaos, unfolding at Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport in recent days as thousands of Afghans tried to escape their country, illustrating the fear gripping the country after the Taliban’s takeover.
Women and religious minorities that bore the brunt of the Taliban’s brutality during the 1990s when the Taliban was last in power feel particularly vulnerable. Among their first acts upon returning to power, and as the Taliban marched through a Shia neighborhood of Kabul, they pulled down a religious banner marking the Shia observance of the martyrdom of Prophet Muhammad’s grandson Imam Hussein. The Taliban’s interpretation of Islam sees Shia Muslims as heretics and their religious observances as haram or forbidden.
Contrary to assertions by Western diplomats who engaged in talks with Taliban representatives, setting in motion the current debacle, there is nothing moderate about the new Taliban. Their prejudices and intolerant outlook seems still to be the same as in the past. So we are seeing now a re-imposition of their rule from 1996 to 2001, the re-imposition of strict Sharia law, just the starting to ban girls and women attending schools and colleges, forcing women to keep their faces covered and to be accompanied by a male guardian, and the demand that minorities be forced to convert or be killed. Afghans remember well the brutal Taliban years when anyone who broke the rule suffered some public beatings, stoning to death, and public executions.
[Amid] all the American help over the last two decades we witnessed a whole new generation of Afghans. We saw a blooming of women and girls, of minorities who had not before had the courage to even apply or be part of any government or any public roles, and we saw this very, very different group of Afghans show promise for the future.Over the last one year while negotiating in Doha while negotiating with the U.S. administration the Taliban has conducted targeted assassinations of women, civil society activists, and journalists. After victory the Taliban have already knocked on the doors of many well-known faith leaders of minority faith communities and the doors of women and human rights activists. The Taliban have lists of women who held high office and have indicated that they will not leave them alone. In July when the Taliban started their current military offensive and took over border outposts, the Taliban cultural commission issued a diktat, saying all imams and mullahs in captured areas should provide the Taliban with the list of girls about 15 years of age and widows under 45 to be married to Taliban fighters.
Over the last year we have witnessed dangerous signs that bode ill for Afghanistanâs small and varied religious faiths, numbering Hindus, Christian, Sikhs, and Shia Muslims, Hazara among them. Taliban rule will be a disaster for Afghanistan’s small religious minorities and the Shia Hazara. For the Shia Hazara their distinctive looks and profession of their faith easily identifies them. The last time the Taliban were in power they declared jihad against the Shia Hazaras who ended up facing repression and persecution, including mass killings. Over the last two decades we saw the Hazaras making major gains in education and social status. Like women they were seen as sympathetic to the West and hence this has now left them open to reprisals.
The minuscule Sikh, Hindu, and Christian communities in Afghanistan that have been provided some form of protection over the last two decades also have reason to fear the return of the Taliban. Soon after the Taliban entered Kabul they sent letters (as I mentioned earlier) to not just the heads of minority groups, but also those of other activists like women’s activists and human rights activists.
Afghanistan’s Christians are today estimated – though it is difficult to get real numbers because there has not been a proper census of that kind and many Christians even during the 20 years where things have been so much more peaceful have been nervous about identifying as Christians – Afghanistanâs Christians are estimated to number between 10,000 and 12,000. The vast majority of them are converts from Islam to Christianity. For decades they have largely practiced their faith underground as conversion is considered a crime punishable by death under Sharia law, yet since the Taliban fall in 2001 the Christian community had not only been growing, it had become emboldened in part because of the modicum of security that was lent to them by the U.S. presence on the ground. In 2019 as the number of children born to converts grew, dozens of Afghan Christians decided to include their religious affiliation on their national identity cards so that future generations would not have to hide their faith, but only about thirty Christians had successfully made this change before the Talibanâs takeover.
Now, today, the United Statesâ highly criticized withdrawal has left Afghan Christians with no choice but to join those who cooperated with the U.S. and Afghanistan governments in attempting to hide. The memories of public executions, floggings, and amputations of Christians and other religious minorities under the Taliban’s previous rule remain vivid. As the Taliban is reportedly already working to track down the known Christians on its list, some local church leaders are counseling their communities to stay inside their homes. Even they know the best and perhaps only long-term hope is to somehow flee the country. Other Christians are reportedly escaping to the hills in an attempt to find safety. Although some reports say the Taliban is already conducting targeted killings of Christians and other minorities as well as executing anyone found with Bible software installed on their cellphones, I do not have any verified information about this, but Christian publications have been documenting stories of this kind.
So finally Christians also fear for the safety of their children with the Taliban already publicizing plans to eradicate the âignorant irreligionâ by taking non-Muslim women and girls as sex slaves, and forcing boys to serve as soldiers. As those of us who remember ISIS and ISIS rule, we also remember what they did to Christian, Yazidi, and young Shia girls, and the Taliban has already expressed an intention of doing the same. So without any clear plan from the United States to have evacuated Afghans under special threat, not to mention the remaining thousands of American citizens who refuse to leave, some because they were missionaries and wanted to stay with their flock and continue their good work. Afghan Christians and many other religious minority groups are stranded today. [The] Taliban is seeking them and we are today at a very, very, sorry, sorry and fearful time for all minority faiths, for women, and for all those who were friends to the United States in all of its years in Afghanistan. Thank you very much.
Legitimacy
Robert R. Reilly:
Thank you very much. Let me begin with a slightly different question. You rightfully criticized this, the withdrawal, the way in which the United States withdrew from Afghanistan and the enormous problems it has created for the people whom it was supporting until it withdrew, and you also referred to the reconstitution of Taliban institutions. According to what I have heard, the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice has already been reconstituted, though it is unclear what exactly its powers are going to be.
But one thing that stayed in my mind from 2001 was this statement from a man called Nabibullah Rabbani, who was part of that ministry. So it is quite extraordinary that in December of 2001 he said this, quote, âPeople understand we are the righteous ones and they know we could come back to power soon,â unquote. Who would know it would take 20 years for Rabbani’s prediction to come true? But unfortunately, it has and the question is Rabbani referred to the righteousness of the Taliban, in other words that was their claim to legitimacy, and as much as we can criticize the way in which the United States left Afghanistan, we need to also address how the Afghan government and institutions collapsed so quickly, why the military fled, and is that a reflection that that government was unsuccessful in establishing its own legitimacy?
Farahnaz Ispahani:
Firstly, to address the the comment going back to the head of the ministry for I believe âProtecting Virtue,â now they have abolished the women’s ministry and the women’s ministry has been reconstituted as this very ministry that you were talking about, the ârighteousnessâ we have seen of all these extremist terrorist groups. Each one of them espouses some form of what they call Sharia law and whom they consider infidels, whom they consider people of the book who from it differs, you know from ISIS to the Taliban to Al-Qaeda, but basically all of them are united in hatred towards the other.
And the way I see it, yes, the the Kabul government, the elected-government, was absolutely corrupt. When people in the United States saw images of how quickly the Taliban conquered Afghanistan and saw the Afghan National Army that the U.S. had spent so many years training just leave in disarray, running to themselves just become part of the general population, there is another side to that. And one of the things that people who belong to the Afghan government often say [is] they had asked for air power, which they did not get, and as we see today when a recent attack took place, we saw what we think are Pakistani ISI drones that were being used in the Panjsher valley to murder all the people of that civilian opposition who stayed to fight. So the one thing that the last government kept asking was for air power because they understood that in that hilly terrain of Afghanistan the only way to beat the Taliban, who knew this terrain inside out, was from above, so that is one of their main contentions.
And also a second one; you are a military man, Bob, so you will understand this. One of the things the U.S. did not do right was they did not make units within the military based on ethnicity so that really, so people in these units did not feel like the person I am fighting next to is my brother, is my kin, is from my neighborhood. They suddenly looked at each other and said, you are Tajik, you are Uzbek, I am Pashtun, I am not dying for you. So that was another suggestion that had been given by friends of Afghanistan and Afghan people.
So finally, Christians also fear for the safety of children. The Taliban have already publicized plans to eradicate the ignorant irreligious by taking non-Muslim women and girls as sex slaves and forcing boys to serve as soldiers. As those of us who remember ISIS and ISIS rule, we also remember what they did to Christians, Yazidi, and young Shia girls.
And the Taliban has already expressed an intention of doing the same. Without any clear plan from the United States to have evacuated Afghans under special threat, not to mention the remaining thousands of American citizens who refuse to leave some because they were missionaries and wanted to stay with their flock and continue the good work of non-Christians and many other religious minority groups as founded today. Taliban is seeking them, and we are today at a very sorry and fearful time for all minority faiths, for women, and for all those who were friends to the United States in all of its years in Afghanistan. Thank you.
Robert R. Reilly:
Farahnaz, thank you very much. Let me begin with a slightly different question. You rightfully criticized this withdrawal, the way in which the United States withdrew from Afghanistan, and the enormous problems it has created for the people whom it was supporting until it withdrew.
And you also referred to the reconstitution of Taliban institutions. According to what I have heard the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice has already been reconstituted. Though it is unclear what exactly its powers are going to be. But one thing that stayed in my mind from 2001 was this statement from a man called Navi Bula Rabbani, who was part of that ministry. It is quite extraordinary that in December of 2001, he said this, âPeople understand we are the righteous one. And they know we could come back to power soon.â Who would know it would take 20 years for Rabbaniâs prediction to come true, but unfortunately it has.
The question is, Rabbani referred to the righteousness of the Taliban. In other words, that was their claim to legitimacy. As much as we can criticize the way in which the United States left Afghanistan, we need to also address how the Afghan government and institutions collapsed so quickly, why the military fled, and is that a reflection that that government was unsuccessful in establishing its own legitimate?
Farahnaz Ispahani:
Firstly, to address the comment going back to the head of the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice. It has now abolished the women’s ministry, and the women’s ministry has been reconstituted as this very ministry that you were talking about.
The righteousness we have seen of all these extremist terrorist groups, each one of them espouses some form of what they call Sharia law, and who they consider infidels, who they consider a people of the book, it differs from ISIS to the Taliban to Al-Qaida, but basically all of them are united in hatred towards the other. The way I see it, yes, the Kabul government, the elected government, was absolutely corrupt. When people in the United States saw images of how quickly the Taliban reconquered Afghanistan and saw the National Army that the US had spent so many years training just leave in disarray, running themselves just become part of the general population.
There is another side to that. One of the things that people who belong to the Afghan government often say they had asked for air power, which they did not get.
As we see today, when a recent attack took place, we saw what we think were Pakistani ISI drones that were being used in the Panjshir Valley to murder all the people of that civilian opposition who stayed to fight. The one thing that the last government kept asking was for air power because they understood that in that hilly terrain of Afghanistan the only way to beat the Taliban, who knew this terrain inside out, was from above. So that is one of the main contentions.
Also, a second one. You are a military man, Bob, so you will understand this. One of the things that U S did not do right was they did not make units within the military based on ethnicity. People in these units did not feel like the person I am fighting next to is my brother, is my kin, is from my neighborhood. They suddenly looked at each other and said, âYou are Tajik, you are Uzbek, I am Pashtu. You know, I am not dying for you.â That was another suggestion that had been given by friends of Afghanistan and Afghan people.
There were, and again as I said in my remarks, this is not a Democrat or Republican issue. President Obama announced the withdrawal. [Under] President Trump the Doha Accords were negotiated very poorly, I will say, under President Trump. President Biden decided to leave in such a hurry that he actually left Americans behind. I have never in my life seen Americans being left behind and even people who have worked with the Americans for decades.
So yes, I agreed that the former civilian government was corrupt, but in 20 years it was a great deal. You saw how the Afghan people, it was not like these billions of dollars were just thrown at them and swallowed up. The schools were built. The universities were built. You swallow these swarms of young girls and women and, you know, lawyers, and judges, and members of parliament. You saw all these women governors. A lot of them were killed, but they ran their provinces. I do think, you know, as much as we criticize the government, we must remember that like in Iran, the two countries where I have felt that the people have loved the United States was in Iran and in Afghanistan. Which is why to me this is so heartbreaking.
Robert R. Reilly:
Well, very tellingly you mentioned that, in the Panjshir Valley, in this last military thrust by the Taliban to obtain complete control of the country, which they now claim to have achieved, there were Pakistani drones operating on behalf of the Taliban that had come from the Pakistani ISI. This strikes me as particularly ironic as I read a statement from the Pakistani ambassador to the United States from just the other day in which he said, âWe are on the same side in Afghanistan.â That is from Ambassador Assad Khan.
Now let me just say, I find his remark criminally ironic considering the role Pakistan played over the past 20 years in supporting the Taliban in particularly the game that ISI played in supplying them and directing them. It was no secret that the Taliban leaders were living [quite well]. So, we have all of the problems that are indigenous to Afghanistan: the tribal structure, the religious dimension, the perhaps misconceived goal of creating a strong federal government, but you also have the fact that Pakistan never accepted this government. This attempt by of the United States to sponsor a new Pakistan. With the undermining of this adjacent power to Afghanistan there was a little prospect of success.
I mean since you are a Pakistani, you served in the legislature, you worked for a former president of Pakistan. Your husband was the ambassador from Pakistan to the United States. How do you feel about all this?
Farahnaz Ispahani:
Well, I have to say that one of the saddest things is that the United Statesâ allies, and by that, I mean especially Qatar and Pakistan. These are the two countries, Pakistan, as you mentioned, the Quetta Shura, the Taliban leadership, especially the Haqqani who were based in Quetta. Throughout this time, they kept safe, living large, able to travel frequently, and in Doha, the capital of Qatar, where we have massive US army bases and air force bases. Those two countries helped undermine the civilian elected leadership there. We cannot forget their roles, but yet the United States did not listen to wiser council to really understand who the allies were in the region and worked so closely with both these countries.
Most importantly, I would say for the US today, the big, big, big danger is you have Russia in there. Now you have China there. You have Turkey. You have Iran on the border, you have Pakistan, and Qatar is extremely interested. You have a worse situation today, Bob, then we did 20 years ago. So, as I said earlier, in my remarks, from the human rights point of view the Doha Accord was a disaster, and from a strategic and security point of view the Doha Accords were disaster.
I feel that President Biden in rushing ahead has really, you know, there is now a feeling all over the Muslim world that Americans will never be your friends. They will dump you the moment things get hard. They will leave you without turning back, just say goodbye. And so, I feel now today in capitals from the UAE to Saudi Arabia to Iraq to many countries in the region, there is a real deep sense of disquiet about effects.
Robert R. Reilly:
Including the effects of energizing Jihadi movement, who have now seen the Taliban, according to the way they understand their achievement, is having defeated the other evil empire. First, the Soviet evil empire, and now the United States. And we know from the press the celebrations from Al-Qaeda cells around the world and as you mentioned from ISIS and other groups. They cannot help but be encouraged by what has happened here. And as you also mentioned in your talk, they have never disavowed Al-Qaeda. By all accounts Al-Qaeda is growing in Afghanistan.
Farahnaz Ispahani:
Yes.
Robert R. Reilly:
So, the very reason why the United States went in there seems to still exist. And we have withdrawn in the face of it, but what will this mean for Pakistan? I mean, the argument was always, Pakistan needed to be in control of the future of Afghanistan, because it needed strategic depth in light of the potential conflict with India. Well, now it has it, but they may have more than they bargained for and because they have their own Pakistani version of the Taliban.
Farahnaz Ispahani:
Yeah, I mean Pakistan today is a much more conservative Islamized in the worst ways country than it was before the Taliban first came into power. It has had many adverse effects on Pakistan itself. I think this, now, the Pakistanis wanted it. They will never admit to it, but they wanted this because it is a great success for them and the Qataris. The Qataris feel that they won against Saudi Arabia, and the UAE, and all their enemies in the Middle East. They are now top dog, but you cannot control.
We have seen this Bob, over and over again. These borders are porous. There is no way once you allow these terrorists a place to breed and grow, you are not going to be able to stop them. You can wipe them out temporarily, but they come right back. And so that is why I am very afraid for the future for all the countries in the region. But I also think this is a great win for China. Which again is a blow for the US. It is a win for Russia, which is a blow to the US. It is a win for Iran, which is a blow to the US. This has all around not been successful. You know we retreated. We did not leave triumphant, and we could have done that.
And, you know, our standing force was not huge. Yes, it costs something, but we are the world’s number one military power. There has to be some reason for that. We have to secure ourselves and our allies in the region. And I think we have lost sight of that, and I am worried that one day down the road, we are going to see the effects of this just very badly managed exit.
Robert R. Reilly:
Well, my fear is that we will not have to wait too long for that. I wonder Farah, if one of the reasons for failure in Afghanistan was the reluctance to address the religious dimension. The United States and its public diplomacy shied away from it. You know, there was good reason for that, since the United States is identified as a Christian nation, whether it is or not remains to be seen. But certainly, could not interfere in Muslim affairs. You have to be a Muslim to do that, but certainly we could have been smart enough to know that we have to support the Muslims who were trying to address the theological problems that they were facing.
One very perceptive friend of mine said that what we all knew that the Taliban had a safe haven in Pakistan, a physical safe haven, but even more dangerous was the theological safe haven that not only we, but the Afghan government, gave to the Taliban because their peculiar theology was the source of their legitimacy. Unless you undermine it at that level, it remains. I keep thinking, and you would know far better than I, whether they were vulnerable. I valued particularly a great book on the Taliban written by the Pakistani journalists Ahmed Rashid.
Farahnaz Ispahani:
Yes.
Robert R. Reilly:
Yeah, but he said this, and I am just read the short quote from his book. About the Taliban ideology âfitted nowhere in the Islamic spectrum of ideas and movements that had emerged in Afghanistan between 1979 and 1994. The Taliban represented nobody but themselves, and they recognized no Islam, but their own. Before the Taliban, Islamic extremism had never flourished in Afghanistan.â And indeed again, as you would know so well the Sufi orders, the practice of Pashtunwali, the general sort of easygoing tolerance. The culture was not an extreme culture, but an accommodating one. Indeed, a hospitable one. You see where I am going with this?
Farahnaz Ispahani:
I do. It was a conservative culture, but it was not a brutal extremist culture, where there is no room, except for this one way of thought, this one ideology. We see this over and over again with ISIS, with Boko Haram. We see this over and over again. I do not think you can change people’s faith. I think slowly what you do is what we were doing. Create a generation of Afghans who can then do it themselves.
Robert R. Reilly:
I did not mean to suggest changing their faith, but rather do not let their faith be changed, which is what the Taliban was doing. It was destroying folk Islam and many of the traditions, destroying Sufi shrine[s], many of the traditions that had obtained in Afghanistan for centuries. So, it is they who were trying to change the religion, and I do not know if enough was made of that in the struggle against them.
And now, as you already mentioned they are already on their project of homogenization by persecuting religious minorities and trying to put women back in what they think is their place. I was reading a very poignant story about the Zohra women’s orchestra, [which had] concerts and ties all around the world with performing Afghan folk music and classical music. They got to the airport and were unable to leave. Now certain of its members have been burying their instruments and also burying their certificates from their musical academy because they fear what is going to happen to them. I am sorry, I went off the major point which was they were given a theological safe haven. That issue, which so many thought was the most important one was left unaddressed.
Farahnaz Ispahani:
I think your point that you made just now about the women’s orchestra, there was also the girls soccer team. All of these things to me were, and I keep repeating this because I hate this constant refrain in America, âThat we spent all these billions, and nothing happened.â
Something did happen. We opened up the space for a lot of the Afghan people to be their best selves. And to be universal. To be proud of themselves, proud of the history, proud of the culture, but also be members of the world community. With that, I do feel we needed to leave, but it was done wrong and leading a small standing force and equipping them with the proper air force and a lot of other small things.
Sometime it is just the details, Bob, you know this. Sometimes it is just getting the details right. We do not know what will happen to those voices from Afghanistan. I am very desolate. I have to say it just pains me, and I see this axis of evil reforming there. Not just with the terrorist groups, but with all of these countries surrounding Afghanistan and it is not going to be good for the United States or for the West or any allies of the United States.
Robert R. Reilly:
Regarding the Afghan people. Let me ask you this question. It is a young nation. I would say at least a small majority of the people who were born after the Taliban were overthrown. They do not know anything but they see Afghanistan of the past 20 years. So, ruling them, how do you think that is going to affect to Taliban? How much of a problem does that create for the imposition of Taliban rule, and how do you think these young people are going to react to it? Because it is outside of their experience?
Farahnaz Ispahani:
I think Bob, we have seen it already. We have seen young women marching in the streets of Kabul and in almost every provincial capital of Afghanistan. We have seen unarmed girls and women marching in the streets to protect their rights and against the Taliban credo. We have seen the Taliban come in and beat them, attack them, and we have seen journalists who were just recording or reporting on these marches. Unarmed marches by these women and girls attacked, tortured, and imprisoned.
So, we can see the Taliban is going to come in hot and harsh, and they are going to spread so much fear by the actions. I believe in a very short period of time that they are going to bring back the same terror. The regime of terror, so that fewer and fewer people will speak out.
Conclusion
Robert R. Reilly:
Yeah, that is a very sad prognostication, but it is hard to see how you could make any other one if you take what the Taliban themselves say seriously. That to my mind was another failure on the part of the United States. Not taking what they say seriously, but they had to say religiously theologically, ideologically, and hoping or pretending that they would accommodate to modernity in some way. Would mean that all of these things in modern Afghanistan would not simply be reversed. But alas, that does not appear to be the case as you have gone through who the Taliban are, they are simply the same Taliban and ultimately the sons of the original Taliban rulers, the defense ministerâs the son I think of Mullah Omar.
Farahnaz Ispahani, you have answered the question with which this program began, âDo women minorities, religious minorities, ethnicities have much to fear from the Taliban?â I thank you for taking time with us at the Westminster Institute, to answer that question as sad as your answer has been.
Farahnaz Ispahani:
Thank you. It was an honor and a pleasure to be asked back again. I am so, so glad we had this conversation though.
My heart is very, very heavy at the moment. All of us here in the United States are trying to help those refugees who have come in. Just give them shelter, clothes, working to various groups. And that is all I would say to viewers. Get in touch with your churches. Get in touch with from the Lutherans to the Catholic, get in touch with your churches and your neighborhoods and all of that and see where to help. Sometimes they need small things like socks and drinking water. We can all help these people because these refugees have fled because their reality is no longer what they had hoped we had built. I think we need to open our hearts.
Robert R. Reilly:
Thank you, Farah, for that call for compassion. And thank you again for participating. I would remind our viewers that the Westminster Institute has a broad array of videos from past Westminster lectures on our YouTube channel, and I invite you to explore them. Including the initial talk by Farahnaz Ispahani on her book, Purifying the Land of the Pure, which was one of our quite popular Westminster videos.
Thank you for joining us today. I am Robert Reilly, the director of the Westminster Institute.