 U.S. and NATO troops have finally left Afghanistan. The Taliban is in complete control of the country. Discussions are going on on the shape of the new government. There is a lot of uncertainty. The issue of Afghanistan is being discussed widely across the world. The impact is going to be worldwide. But nowhere is it going to be more intense, more significant, as in the Central Asian region. You're watching Mapping Fault Lines and today we're going to be talking about the impact of Afghanistan on Central Asia. We're joined by Prabir Purkhaista. There's been a lot of talk about the 20-year invasion by the U.S. which started from 2001. But we also do know that the intervention is much longer. It's from the late 70s. And it was also against communism. They claimed it was against terrorism. But there's also a substantial amount of geopolitics and resource warfare or resource competition involved. So could you maybe take us through these angles as well, which, you know, complicated and make it go beyond just the 20-year war? You know, there are two bits that are associated with the U.S. intervention of Afghanistan. One is it was a nation-building effort. It was not just against an intervention against the Taliban or Bin Laden. It was nation-building, women's rights and so on. Considering that women's rights at the moment are under attack in the United States, the logic of their intervening in Afghanistan for women's rights really rigs hollow. But as you said, if we go back to why did the United States invite, as they claimed, Brzezinski claimed, a Soviet Union into Afghanistan to trap them in what they called was the Soviet Union's Vietnam. Now, that was Brzezinski's claim, not ours. But if we go into that, there are two reasons for it. One is to of course trap Soviet Union into an external intervention, which the thought they could turn to their advantage. And then they backed all those forces, which they're now claiming to fight, which is essentially fundamentalist forces who are lauded as freedom fighters, revolutionaries. The entire fundamentalist lobby in Afghanistan was lauded as people who have respect for their way of life. And each of the fundamentalist heroes, that's what the Western president made the mark to be, were all essentially equivalent to the freedom fighters of the United States during the war against Britain and so on. So all these myths really cover up a much more important reality, that Afghanistan has always been thought to be strategically important, not only because it about South Asia, of course, India and Pakistan, but it also about West Asia and as you said Central Asia. It also about China, which has always been a target. And in the time that Soviet Union existed, Central Asia part was really either Soviet Union or China. So that was the thrust of Afghanistan for the United States, that this was a direct intervention, perhaps a gateway to intervention into then what was Soviet Union and what was Xinjiang province as we know, also Tibet. So this is one part of it. And let's not forget that United States had an ongoing war at the time with Iran virtually. After the particular hostage crisis, this was also declared by Carter. Carter had two very important declarations. One declaration was entire oil in West Asia was a security interest of United States. Anybody intervening with that will be then crossing the red lines of the United States, the trip lines of the United States. So declaring West Asia's oil as essentially belonging to United States in some sense. So that was one. And it is important because dollar was underpinned by oil. And therefore, dollar was extremely important for US financial control, which it wanted to assert of over the world, which it did assert after the fall of Soviet Union, particularly. Second was, as you have noted, Central Asia, because it was gateway to what after the fall of Soviet Union becomes what I call the various tans. Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. And that, a lot of them about Central Asia. Now, what's important of Central Asia is something people do not understand. But if you look at the Eurasian land mass, you have Western Europe, which is not very big. It only looks bigger on a market or map. But if you look at what is called the Equal Area Projections, then you will find it's not that big an area. It's a relatively small part of the world. But you have Central Asia, which is pretty large. And you have a number of countries in which United States wanted to intervene after Soviet Union fell. Now, increasingly that has weakened over the years. Russia has reemerged. You have China also emerging. And with the Belt Road Initiative, the economies of these countries may get unlocked in a way that earlier wasn't possible. There are also gas and oil pipelines in these areas. And if you look at the, essentially, the mineral wealth of these areas, including gas fields, oil fields, connectivity to Russia and to China would really unlock a lot of these resources for these countries and for also their growth integration to the global economy. So, if you look at all of that, apart from the mineral riches of Afghanistan, which I think is going to take a lot longer to come into play. If you look at that, other issues also are, for instance, the agricultural produces of this country. So, if they get an access to both the Chinese and the West Asian, as well as a, in West Asia, the Iranian market. And Iran is a big country with a presence in this region. Turkey is also abutting this region. So, it has also some interest, particularly because a lot of Turkic speaking tribes or Turkic speaking population in these areas, including in Afghanistan itself. So, if you take all of that into account, I think this region is going to play a very important geopolitical and economic role. And that is where the United States really wanted to have a presence. Through Afghanistan, that's what Brzezinski says and that's what it really was. Afghanistan, particularly with the Iran in Broglieu and the fact that Iran was an enemy for the United States, I think that was also in the crosshairs of the United States with the intervening in Afghanistan. Don't forget the Iraq invasion followed soon after. So, West Asia was definitely in the play, but Central Asia, yes, of course, because already you have Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, all of them abutting on the North Afghanistan. And then, of course, you have a long border with Iran. You have a very small border with China and also you have a border with Pakistan. Of course, India is supposedly having a border, but as you know, that's really at the moment under control of Pakistan. So, given this, I think we are seeing United States having a rather weak hand after this intervention in Afghanistan comes to an end. I don't think it has readymade spaces for itself to insert in now the stance as they've been called. And this is really going to get more integrated with Iran on one side, with Russia on the other side, China on the other side, and possibly Turkey as a question mark. What do they do in this period? Ruby, elaborating on that last point you mentioned, like you said, there's a lot of mineral, natural gas, oil resources in this region as a whole. And what we have seen is that the countries of Central Asia, you mentioned the three countries, bordering Afghanistan, of course, there's Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan as well. And all these countries, of course, have various kinds of relationships with Russia. Many of them have strong relationships with Russia, including military alliances, Russian bases are there. There's also, of course, a very concerted attempt by China as part of the Belt and Road Initiative to establish economic ties as well. So what we're seeing is that these countries have a major stake in sticking to the regional matrix and being a part of that regional matrix. Many of them have been reluctant to allow U.S. bases even in the aftermath of Afghanistan. So do we really see the United States having any kind of cards to play in this region right now, or are they basically right now out of the picture after withdrawal from Afghanistan? Well, they can play a very destructive role as a spoiler. And if they want to play the role of a spoiler, then they have to, instead of bringing the region together, they have to see that the region does not come together. So for not having the region come together, then you try to widen the trust deficits between each other and see whether you can play one against the other. It's a completely imperialist game. That imperial part of all is played, how you can play one against the other and then step in as some kind of a mediator, if you will, or strengthen one side or the other. Now, I think that role was much more important earlier when Russia was much weaker. At that point of time, as you said, United States had actually built economic and military relationships with some of these countries. And in fact, if you take the recent battle between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh, it was Russia who finally settled the issue. So it wasn't other countries. So increasingly, the ability of the United States to intervene in these areas has weakened over time and particularly Russia has asserted itself much more after the kleptocratic regime of Yeltsin fell. So once that was out of the picture, you can see that slowly Russia has asserted itself. China has, of course, come in also with this promise of building infrastructure. It's in China's interest as well because if the infrastructure gets built, then the Belt Road Initiative strengthens and the relationship of trade between different countries in the region with Western Europe, with China and Russia, all of it strengthens. Now, one thing about a land route is that it's a cooperative venture. Unlike sea, where it's a competition because it's all open seas. Here one country can play a spoiler. So therefore, all countries have to come together or the whole region does not develop. So I think Belt Road Initiative in that sense is much more of a unified and that's why the United States is trying to do all that it can to dissuade people from it. But even the European Union is quite interested if we take Germany, for instance. It's one of the major end of the Belt Road project if we will in terms of the land connection. So if we take all of that, I think the centripetal forces, which brings everything together, rather than the centrifugal forces will take over at this point of time. And the only role that the United States has is of trying to disturb it, play as a spoiler. Will therefore they see that peace in Afghanistan is not restored? Will the back, for instance, the small revolt taking place in Panshir, which seems at the moment to be on the defensive. And it seems Taliban have the upper hand there, but we still don't know of Saleh and Mahmood. So all these things we'll have to see how that develops. But it is very clear that the United States is not in favor of reaching an accommodation with Taliban, trying to see that Afghanistan is normalized. Yes, who those who have taken power in Afghanistan, we may not like them. The kind of policies they are going to follow is regressive. These are the kind of policies the United States supported in the 80s and in the 70s, late 70s and 80s. So given all of that today, I think that it's the interest of all countries, but the United States, particularly those in the region, to see peace as restored to Afghanistan. Because the fact that there is a war, if that continues, it's going to produce a huge number of new refugees. It's going to cause economic loss to Afghan people mostly, but also to the surrounding countries. So I think all of that demands at all the regional powers because they have a stake directly in this, should come together and see that first and foremost, you have peace, stability and some economic development that takes place in Afghanistan. Engage with the forces that have taken control of Afghanistan, even if we don't like them. After all, honestly speaking, how many of the countries who now criticize the Taliban are great friends with Saudi Arabia? Now Saudi Arabia's internal policies, as we know, are no different from what the Taliban politics were in the 90s and earlier periods. So given all of this hypocrisy, the West's hypocrisy is really quite shocking that they should be now talking about this great liberation of the Afghan people, which they tried for 20 years, by conducting air war. We saw the aftermath of that when these recently children getting killed in this drone attack, which they said was a car laden with explosives. It turned out it was laden, but with children. So given all of this hypocrisy, I think it's time that the United States and the western past realize this new colonial interventions in the world is something that's not welcome. And finally, let's take a quick look at two other major powers in the region, to the south, that's Pakistan and India. Now Pakistan has been supporting the Taliban for the longest time, but it's definitely a question as to whether the support will rebound in the form of Taliban elements inside Pakistan itself, which might cause unrest. And Pakistan also, of course, having a great interest in the Belt Road Initiative and in good relations with China and the development of the region. And India on the other hand, we see that there is talk of India having missed the bus in not engaging with the Taliban and other players at the right point of time. So what are their possibilities ahead for these two countries as well? The good part is India has now started talking about engaging with Taliban. And Taliban also has made the right noises that it wants India to be involved. Let's face it, India has a number of Afghans already in its soil. It has long historical ties with Afghanistan. It invested about two and a half billion dollars in the development projects in Afghanistan, though it didn't have military presence there. So all this is something which is already a stake that India has in Afghanistan. And as you rightly said, Pakistan has been a player in Afghanistan, much bigger player with the Taliban. But it also has the risk that it might rebound on them. And of course, this is not the 90s. This is really a different era. This is not even what is called the 90s. So you have a different era now opening up. And in this period, the kind of forces that Pakistan is also contending with, it's not healthy if, for instance, the back forces which then rebounds on them. So I think both sides have a lot of ground to make up. And India, as you said, almost closed itself out because it felt that they had time. And just as the United States felt that they had time and they realized they did not. India was also caught totally on the back foot. I hope both India and Pakistan will see Afghanistan as not a mutually competitive area, but as something they have to also cooperate over. Because Afghanistan is much too complicated, much too big. And playing a spoiler is much easier than trying to bring peace to the region. And I hope that good sense will dawn on both these countries not to play a zero sum game, but really combined in together and with all the other countries in the region to help stabilize, bring peace to Afghanistan, look at its economic development. And of course, engage with the people over there so that a more progressive government, more progressive institutions develop over there. Then what happened in earlier Taliban rule? Taliban claims it has changed, but we have to see whether the claims are right. And the fact is we don't seem to see a very inclusive government either. These are question marks over Taliban. And I think those question marks are going to stay. What we don't need is people trying to stir the pot in a way which does not benefit anybody, but also harms the cause of peace in the region. Absolutely. Thank you so much, Prabir, for talking to us. That's all we have time for today. We'll be back next week with mapping fault lines and geopolitical issues from across the world. Until then, keep watching NewsClick.