In an interview Thursday, 19 August 2021, analyst Seyed Mohammad Marandi discussed the sweeping victory of the Taliban, why the Taliban’s forces were largely unopposed by the Afghan Army subsequent to the US departure of troops, and why the United States intentionally created chaos upon its withdrawal.
With a US withdrawal agreement already in place — negotiated months earlier between the US – Taliban and updated by the present regime, we’ve all been puzzled about the chaotic US withdrawal. The result is a ringing triumph for the Taliban and an apparent stinging defeat for the United States. But is it?
Pepe Escobar’s ‘Empire of Chaos’ may provide historic background to such chaos, while Marandi provides depth to that meaning. According to Marandi, Iran has been negotiating with the Taliban about the future of the region for almost twenty years. Marandi’s article ‘Flight from Kabul and the Legacy of General Soleimani’ explains that General Soleimani established Iran’s policy of negotiation with the Taliban. General Soleimani was assassinated by the United States in 2020.
Marandi believes that the Taliban has reformed over the years, based on its experience governing large areas of the country seven since the invasion and occupation of the country by the United States late in 2001, but says that opinion is divided in Iran, on how reasonably (or not) the Taliban may rule.
Marandi says the Afghan National Army failed to fight due to agreements with Iran, China, and Russia through back-channels. The agreement being that a peaceful transition of power to the Taliban will take place. The controversy concerns how much the CIA knew about those peace negotiations, and whether it was a failure of US intelligence that allowed this largely peaceful transition of power to occur. Regardless, the CIA was obviously caught wrong-footed.
In response to the actions of Russia, China, and Iran, with regard to arranging the Taliban’s unopposed assumption of power in Afghanistan versus the Afghan National Army, the United States and CIA sought to create as much havoc there as possible. The goal of such provoked havoc is identical to that of NSA chief Brzezinski’s thinking almost fifty years ago, when Brzezinski and the CIA engineered Operation Cyclone to provoke the Soviets.
In other words, by leaving Afghanistan in chaos, the intention of the United States is, as always, to provoke civil war there.
Why? Because just as the CIA and NSA advisor planned almost fifty years ago, civil war in Afghanistan benefits US interests by destabilizing Afghanistan’s neighbors. Civil war in Afghanistan negatively impacts Russia, China, Iran, India and Pakistan; and that is what the United States wants. Likewise, such neighboring instability prevents humanitarian aid and progressive development of people, minerals, resources in Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan, when that development does not benefit US trade and Corporate power. The Empire of Chaos indeed.
Now the CIA-owned western media is braying and screaming for war, anew, to provoke world opinion in favor of more war and destruction in Afghanistan — as described above — to destabilize the entire region… since America can’t have it.
The Empire of Chaos indeed.
[A brief commentary by Mr Marandi appears here and full version of interview: https://www.breakthroughnews.org/post/view-from-iran-us-withdrawal-from-afghanistan-reflects-a-weakened-empire-with-mohammad-marandi ]
Steve Brown
Source: Lire l'article complet de Strategika 51
