Orientalist: Afghan instability has its limits

ArmInfo. As of today it is unambiguously premature to assert about the prospect of Afghan instability going beyond the borders of the country and its spread in  neighboring states. A similar opinion was expressed to ArmInfo by   chief researcher at the  Dialogue of Civilizations Research  Institute, orientalist Aleksey Malashenko.

"Yes, after 20 years of presence, the Americans practically left  Afghanistan. And it must be acknowledged that being a great country,  the United States lost to the traditional Islamic society reigning in  Afghanistan.  The United States have gotten involved in the others  affairs with its own charter. And today their departure from  Afghanistan is a consequence of their usual behavior in this style,  "he stressed.

According to the orientalist, it was clear from the outset that it  was unattainable to implement plans to achieve peace in Afghanistan  in the form in which it was presented by the Americans and their  allies in the NATO coalition. First of all, due to the fact that over  the past decades traditionalist Afghanistan with its very energetic  radical Islam has been fighting against senseless foreign attempts to  impose socialism or some kind of liberal economic model on it.

And all this uncompromising struggle, according to the expert, began  with the emergence of the Soviet Union with its socialist model of  development in a fairly calm, Shah Afghanistan, which subsequently  led to the emergence of the Taliban movement, after which the country  became a den of Islamic extremism.  After the terrorist attacks of  September 11, 2001, the United States came to Afghanistan, for some  reason deciding that they could succeed there, without having  previously achieved anything worthwhile in Vietnam.

In general, Malashenko believes that, by and large, the withdrawal of  the United States, the activation of the Taliban and its activity on  the borders of the CSTO zone of responsibility is of rather little  importance for Russia. He is convinced that Moscow, like all other  players, especially neighboring countries, perfectly recognize the  power that is being formed in Afghanistan, even in the face of the  Taliban, especially the pragmatic Taliban. Especially after these  pragmatic Taliban will have done away with the remnants of the old  regime and begin to build a nation-state and foreign policy  relations.

Nevertheless, according to Malashenko's estimates, the current  instability in Afghanistan and on the borders with neighboring  countries is creating another zone of destabilization, in which  Russia and Turkey receive another conditional negotiating table.  Especially considering that Ankara has quite serious asset in this  region. At the same time, the orientalist does not see any special  connection between the "Afghan table" and the rest of the negotiating  tables, in particular, with the Karabakh negotiation track.  

"Of course, there is also the CSTO - an interesting enough office to  maintain the military-patriotic influence of Russia against external  enemies. But you need to understand that this office makes some  maneuvers, exercises, spends money, makes symbolic statements, but it  will never fight. For some reason, the Kirghiz asked for help, then  Armenia, now Tajikistan has for some reason declared its hope for  support of the CSTO. Moscow loves to talk about it and can, but the  situation, as a rule, is settled even without the CSTO. I think this  will be the case in Afghanistan as well, especially considering that  all this does not cause much alarm in Moscow," the orientalist summed  up.