 Good morning, good afternoon or good evening, depending on where you're joining us from. My name is Scott Worden and I'm the director of the Afghanistan and Central Asia program for the U.S. Institute of Peace. I'd like to thank you all as well as our esteemed panelists for taking time out of your business schedules to join us for this important discussion about the ongoing and concerning situation in Afghanistan. We invite everyone to take part in today's conversation by asking a question using the chat box function located just below the video player on the USIP event page. We also ask that you please include your name and specify your affiliation or where you're joining us from when you do ask the question. And finally you can engage with us and each other on Twitter with today's hashtag, hashtag Afghanistan USIP, all one word. As many of you know USIP was founded by Congress 35 years ago as an independent national and nonpartisan institute dedicated to preventing mitigating and resolving violent conflict. We have been engaged in Afghanistan since 2002 focusing on rule of law, peace building and inclusive governance and those tasks have never been more urgent than they are today. It's been nearly five months since the Taliban took control of Kabul and the Afghan Republic, the Democratic Republic collapsed. There's been a reduction in violence since the Taliban's military victory with the end of the insurgency, but the hardship for many Afghans has increased as the economic and humanitarian emergency replaces the insurgency as the biggest threat to the Afghan people. The UN issued yesterday an unprecedented $4.5 billion appeal for humanitarian assistance in 2022 and noted that a majority of Afghans face acute hunger and severe poverty in the coming months. The humanitarian disaster that people have been predicting is now upon us. The causes of the current crisis are complicated and they include sanctions and the withdrawal of donor funding for a Taliban regime that is unrecognized and includes leaders on terrorist sanctions lists. Beneath that however are much broader governance deficiencies the Taliban have including ethnic exclusion, a total lack of technical capacity and rollbacks on human and women's rights. The governance gap, its implications and possible ways to address it are the focus of today's conversation. To engage in that discussion we have an excellent lineup of experts joining us. After introducing them I will ask them a few rounds of questions as the moderator and then invite audience participation. Please again place your questions in the chat box on the event page and we will select from that list. Our first panelist is Ramatullah Amiri who is a researcher and analyst with the liaison office in Kabul and an independent consultant with deep experience as a researcher focusing on peace, reconciliation, humanitarian access and social political issues. We're also joined by Pawasha Khakhar who is USIP's acting director for religion and inclusive societies. Pawasha previously worked at the Asia Foundation in Kabul where she was the director for women's empowerment and development. As fund year, Mir recently joined USIP as a senior expert in the Asia Center. Previously he was a fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University. His research interests include international relations of South Asia, US counterterrorism policy and political violence and he focuses on Afghanistan and Pakistan in particular. And finally Andrew Watkins is a senior expert on Afghanistan with USIP after joining us from the International Crisis Group in addition to years of experience analyzing security risks for NGOs and Afghanistan. So let me now without further ado begin and Amiri let me ask you a question about the current situation on the ground. I know you've been in close contact both with Taliban as well as civil society leaders and you've studied the Taliban for many years. How would you describe the current conditions in Afghanistan? How bad is the humanitarian economic crisis that I mentioned and is it affecting all parts of Afghanistan equally? Thank you Scott for having me on this panel with this amazing panelist. Just to start, the situation is pretty bad right now. So the crisis in Afghanistan, the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan just didn't start with August 15, 2021 with the collapse or fall of the Republic. It was before that many years before that the situation in the villages were horrible but unfortunately nobody reported. With the collapse in August 15, 2021 what happened is that a new disaster started besides the disaster that was already happening in the villages and remote areas and this disaster was mainly this disaster hit mainly the urban areas, the major cities, thousands and hundreds of thousands of people that worked for the Afghan government, NGOs and other they just lost their jobs and their daily income was been hit hard. And so what happened and then in the meantime the banking system collapsed and what happened is that these all crises came together and made a mess in Afghanistan right now. For example, if you go to Eastern Afghanistan, thousands of people were working for MDSF and now their job list, their families were dependent on those salaries but they no longer have those salaries coming. And for example, before the fall of the Republic in August 15, 2021, the situation for example in Zulmat, some villages that I visited back then actually some literally told me that they eat grass, it sounds they eat just bread, they have nothing else, they borrow flour from the family but because of the restrictions by the donors back then that you can now work in the Taliban control area or you don't have to pay the and also the problems from the Taliban side because they ask for the tax and this created a huge things in those areas and plus in some areas Taliban at all didn't allow any aid and donor agencies because they accused them of spying and other things especially in the southern Afghanistan. So this what created it was was sort of a system that nobody knew that okay what's going on in those villages and areas and completely those signs were ignored and then when this crisis happened and combined with those others it just created them a huge humanitarian disaster and right now I mean the banking system everything that is collapsed it's making it further and further worse. You know people don't know what to do a lot of people are fleeing to Iran in other countries to they think that they can besides security reasons they think they can find some sort of jobs and they can send some money and so yeah so right now it's a mess Scott. Thanks for that difficult situation let me ask in your analytical view how you think the Taliban are perceiving the situation and their situation as now leaders of the country I think a lot of people and including some Taliban have said that the their complete takeover was a surprise and it happened more quickly than then even they expected. So you know in some senses is this a case of be careful what you wish for now now they're in charge of a government that as you said had lots of or a state that had lots of problems before and then sanctions and other issues compound that what's their perception or approach to governance now that they are in charge? I think one of their problems that's still they still don't own the crisis that's one of the thing and it's not just because of them it's also the international community the way they're dealing with them you know that make them hold accountable for the crisis you know they accuse the international community for creating the crisis therefore they have to you know you know find a way to to to solve this crisis and this crisis cannot be solved by humanitarian crisis it's a political crisis that Taliban are thinking it's not a political crisis without you know so without solving the political side of this crisis I don't think the humanitarian side will have a sustainable solution you know and Taliban I mean the issue with them is that they're very good when it comes to implementations but the thing is they don't have the means and resources you know they don't you know the meaning resources because the international community doesn't want to work with them on any of those things yes behind the doors they're work with them like for example from the UN and others they work with them in some respects in some ways but for how long and you know I mean the the question is now just that you know they work with them but the thing is how sustainable are those I mean if it's not today if tomorrow they're gonna they have to come up and step up you know the international community will like the way they did withdraw in in august 15 you know 2021 they will also say well this crisis is enough enough so I think you know that the lack of owning the the problem and coming up with solutions that we don't see at this point in time you know that and that solution is not that you know they think that you know if you give us the money we will solve no I mean that's the problem they have to first come up with the political solutions because the moment they have a political solutions they will have you know you know the you know they will find ways how to work with the international communities when they find a way to work with the international communities then they will have the resources and collaborations and partnership with the international community how to you know come up with the long-term solutions and ways to deal with this but right now you know just because you know they're ready tomorrow to work with the human in the humanitarian crisis but the international community will not work with that you know because that's that's not so it's not just a black and white picture you know just it has so many dimensions this crisis scott yeah thanks for that I definitely want to come back to the the political side of this and and we we have 90 minutes because of the complexity of it let me let me just turn next to paul washa and we talked about the the scope of the humanitarian crisis in I mentioned at the top there's also I think a rights crisis a human rights crisis a women's rights crisis people have been quite critical of the Taliban's rollback on rights people are especially fearful of a return to the the particularly restrictive and even I would say abusive policies of the Taliban in the 90s and I'm wondering from what you're hearing from what you're observing what is the state of the rights rollback now how realistic is is it for the Taliban to improve on the record of the of the 90s have they moderated at all and what are you hearing from the ground thank you for that question scott it's a really difficult one to answer and in fact what we're hearing from the ground from many of our partners and those that we work with is that this seems to be just tactics that the Taliban their their difference of approach where they're now allowing girls say up to sixth grade and around afghanistan go to school and then in 19 provinces allowing some of them to go further on is just a tactic and there seems to be this push and shove between communities and the Taliban where the Taliban will implement something and then the communities will protest and then they'll come back and they'll say okay well now we're going to open it back up or we're going to do something different and it's just people feel like they're just being played with and that this is something temporary until they receive until the Taliban receive enough international attention of international aid and recognition and so there's a lot of women that are worried and also men that are worried that if this turns into international recognition the Taliban will just go right back right back to the 1990s some of the things that we're seeing of course i talked about education there there's some difficulties in health care we heard in faria where the Taliban went and spoke to the female doctors and actually told them you know you shouldn't be doing x y and z you need to limit for example your treatment of men you're not allowed to treat men you're not allowed to to prescribe certain drugs those kinds of things where limitations were given on them and then we're seeing in the justice sector where no female lawyers no female judges are allowed at all then the independent bar association has completely been dismantled and been brought under the ministry of justice so there's all these things and what we're observing also is that women are not going to courts uh they're not being observed in courts and this is even something worse than the past in the 90s women did go to courts where the Taliban were presiding and now we're not seeing that as well and they're feeling that they're not safe so those are a number of areas um the Taliban have intensified their crackdown just in the last week on women we've seen that protesters in police area of Kabul um were were actually beaten because of not observing appropriate Islamic hijab uh protesters have been fired upon um and protesters in Kapisa women female protesters in Kapisa were um detained some the community calls it abducted arrested however you want to put it but they were put in jail and there was a huge community outcry including from religious leaders in the mosques that then eventually led to their release but we've heard also unconfirmed reports of protesters in other provinces female protesters in other provinces um being detained and tortured as well so that's on the women front on human rights abuses we're seeing beyond just women uh journalists are being targeted uh we continue to see those security forces uh being targeted revenge killings are happening um even we have reports of doctors being killed uh and these are kinds of things that in the past under the Taliban there was some sort of a security force that prevented some of this happening and now it seems like with the jails being open and and there isn't um as much control over criminal activity that all kinds of things like this are are cropping up um and then the final thing I wanted to mention is those that have shown online dissent um are also being arrested we we saw the prominent professor phaisal ajalal being arrested and recently released and then others who've been arrested that are not as well known uh and still it's unknown where they are and when they will be released um so there's some of the things that we're observing right now thanks for that you mentioned tactics and I want to touch on another dimension uh that particularly affects women's rights but but human rights more generally and the Taliban often have have tried to say encouraging things at least to to western audiences about respecting rights but there's often added the caveat in accordance with Islam uh now of course Islam is uh is a is a broad religion and it's it's practiced by many in different ways uh but I'm I'm wondering you know what's your take on that caveat what do the Taliban really mean by that is there any clarity about how they will interpret uh Islam uh is this just uh a way of covering what will really be restrictive rights or are they open to debate or dialogue on religious grounds about uh how they should how they should treat uh social policy in Afghanistan Scott I think that that's a really important point because what we're noticing is when they talk about according to Islam or even according to Hanifi jurisprudence there's this very big discrepancies and how they interpret that and what is in Hanifi jurisprudence particularly related to women's rights for example in Hanifi jurisprudence um there is nothing about women covering their faces uh arwah is not the face and the hands are not included as as places that should be covered according to Hanifi jurisprudence for example um in Hanifi jurisprudence women can be judges uh so there's all of these things that are and then for example in Hanifi jurisprudence there's a very big emphasis on uh by or pledging of allegiance to the head of state and and head of state being basically elected by the people by the public and we have the example of Imam Abu Hanifa himself refusing to pledge allegiance to the Abbasid ruler Mahdi saying you haven't been uh approved by the people they haven't pledged you allegiance and you need the public to pledge your allegiance so these are some of the things that are in Hanifi jurisprudence specifically Hanifi jurisprudence that the Taliban claim to follow and they're not following those things um so it does seem to be very much tactics very much politics however we are seeing some breakthrough moments where for example in Iraq the olama were able to overturn overturn uh the Taliban's ruling of closing the women's hammams and they were saying the the women's bath houses that the Taliban were saying they need to be closed and the olama there in Herat said no this goes against Islamic jurisprudence women should have a place to have to be able to wash and clean and make their evolutions and be ready for prayer and through their flat was they were able to overturn that and reopen the hammams similarly with the Kapisa abduction of the women we saw the outcry from the mosques the olama stood up for those women and asked for them to be released so we're seeing some of these breakthrough moments where the olama are standing up and there's making some changes but overall we're not seeing this we heard the olama and doha speak against the Taliban's decision on education on girls education it didn't seem to make a a dent really in what they're doing we still haven't seen girl schools above sixth grade open at a large scale in Afghanistan things like that so so it's it's a lot of politics and and we're still waiting to see really how that's going to happen but at this point it doesn't seem very likely that the religious argument is going to do much without some sort of political backing or some sort of political gain that the Taliban will see out of it thanks for that again again the politics so we'll we'll definitely flag that as our conversation goes on let me turn to Asfandiar and and talk about the a third significant interest maybe even the most significant us national security interest which is the terrorism threat that Afghanistan poses of course the Taliban committed in the US Taliban agreement to prevent al-Qaeda or other terrorist groups likely ISIS from launching attacks from afghan soil what's your assessment of one the i guess the sincerity of that commitment toward the u.s. and to other allies since the Taliban victory are they still bound by that are they still intending to not allow al-Qaeda or other groups to operate but also what's their ability if they are sincere what's their ability to deliver on counterterrorism commitments considering the humanitarian crisis and the the unrest that persists in the country and thanks so much for this opportunity squad to join this very distinguished group on this really important and sobering topic i'm delighted to be here but also as concerned about the continuing distress that the afghan people faced in afghanistan you know the Taliban have been slowly walking back or strongly pukkavi adding many of their key declarations and commitments on various issues that they've made over the last few years i think bolusia documented or spoke about some of them and my assessment is that terrorism and counterterrorism as an issue area is no different i don't see real sincerity or commitment on on part of the Taliban to work with the international community to meaningfully stem the terror threat from afghanistan in afghanistan for now and you know the the Taliban retains strong relationships with various terror groups in the country despite their commitments as part of the feb 2020 u.s. Taliban agreement what is most concerning is that they are providing what amounts to de facto political asylum to a lot of groups and their people in the country and they've also ensured that key leaders of many of these groups have freedom of movement the kind of movement freedom of movement that they did not enjoy prior to august 15 2021 groups that are benefiting from the Taliban's support included my assessment al-qaeda and its local units in afghanistan my sense is that al-qaeda chief iman az-zawahiri remains alive and he may well be in the afghanistan pakistan border region could be in pakistan as well but i think a reasonable likelihood that he is in afghanistan with a lot of al-qaeda allies now in key positions in the Taliban's government my assessment is that the iran-based al-qaeda leadership is in better position than before to relocate to the country if it wants to and then perhaps one of the biggest beneficiaries of the Taliban's largest is the group that they take a Taliban pakistan ttp or pakistan taliban as it is generally known the leadership of this group has stepped up its campaign of violence in pakistan from bases in in afghanistan in november there was some glimmer of hope that perhaps the taliban are going to get serious about the ttp but restraining the ttp they brokered a ceasefire between pakistan and the ttp but that ceasefire lapsed and now the taliban remain non-committal on the future of ttp in in afghanistan there are various central asian jihadis which have relocated within afghanistan and continue to steadily build up their sizes most certainly growing i think there are efforts to further unify some of the central asian jihadis to boost their campaigns in central asian republics then there are anti-india jihadis anti-china jihadis such as those of the turkistan islamic party so that you know that's the ecosystem that the taliban are aligned with on the other hand you know i think it's clear more than ever that the taliban see isis in afghanistan to be one of the most important significant threats they face perhaps even more significant than the threat of due to the humanitarian disaster unfolding in the country they are fighting isis no doubt about it they're seeking to target the group especially in the in the east of the country there's been a major crackdown undertaken by the taliban especially in in angarhar but here is where we are at on that crackdown you asked about capacity the taliban's counterinsurgency is relatively indiscriminate they are repressing lots of salafi communities in the east of the country because they see them as associated with providing for isis in in afghanistan and they're also rounding up minorities political opponents other vulnerable groups casting them as isis affiliates members as well which i think is or is counterproductive uh so as a result of that there are serious supports of isis k activity in various parts of the country which previously indicated no meaningful isis activity and to top it off and i think this is where the international community kind of comes in taliban have not been able to contain or neutralize any senior leader of isis k until now isis leader is aslam faruqi you know they remain at large and and taliban have not been able to to get them the question is is capacity the reason the taliban are not going to gain some of these major terror groups that they're aligned with i think it can be to be fair to the taliban but but they have to actually make that determination that they want to do something about these groups uh but for now that is not the fundamental reason for taliban's support or continuing assistance for for all of these groups i think the reasons of ideology ideological commitment to the problems of chip on in jihad who subordinate themselves uh to the taliban i think those reasons are more important to the taliban's calculus than then considerations of capacity thanks you know your your description of the of the different regional actors that are coming into afghanistan raises another question which is when you look at the at the terrorism thread that might emanate from afghanistan is it greater would you say for the u.s and our close allies or greater for the region uh and ultimately are those interests aligned between let's say the u.s and and nato uh as well as diverse actors like iran china central asia and pakistan uh my sense is that the more near-domed threat is from thailand's neighbors and other regional powers which is going up substantially you know pakistan certainly faces a more important and higher capacity threat in the shape of the pakistan taliban uh which pakistani policymakers have been understating for a while and are only starting to consider seriously uh now it appears central asian governments are watching the movement of groups like islamic jihad kadeeb at the moment bukhari jamaat and sarulah with a lot of nervousness um and i think some of these governments are starting to voice that nervousness such as the the the government of tajikistan recently uh and then china uh which you know initially looked like it would move in sort of quickly to recognize the taliban um you know appears not so convinced of the taliban sort of talk on uh on terrorism uh and you know it's not hating what it wants to hear seeing what it wants to see uh and that's because i my sense is chinese assess that the taliban are not in the move you know not in the mood to move against um you know some of the threats that they are concerned about like to costan islamic party um which is why i think china the aid to afghanistan is around the same amount as what al-qaeda and biladan were giving to olama before before 9 11 uh to be sure the threat to the u.s and nato allies is there and it's not very far off from the threat that uh that a lot of these regional countries are facing think it's building up isis gay is certainly committed to a major attack against the u.s homeland and al-qaeda i will note to its branch in yemen in some of the same messaging streams in which it prezes and applause the taliban has again threatened major attacks against the u.s in in near term so i think the threat against the u.s and its nato allies very much remains thanks for that andrew walkins you've been patient let me get to you and and start to talk a little bit about politics but but in the context of the question how stable is the afghan as the talibans uh hold on power here you know on the one hand their military victory was quite complete uh and they and they quelled the the small opposition armed opposition that that emerged in in panchir uh on the other hand you know the taliban one of the surprises of this situation i think is the taliban were manifestly unpopular throughout their insurgency never really showing any mass appeal um so you have an unpopular regime with firm military control for now and all these problems that we've just talked about over the last half hour i mean what's your assessment of the of the stability of the taliban government right now yeah thanks scott and and no problem being patient uh with a panel like this it's been great to hear everyone's inputs and thoughts um when when we think about the stability of the taliban as a government or as a ruling regime to me the most important at starting point is comparing how we might measure the fragility of a state versus how the taliban themselves might measure either their strength or their effectiveness or their own fragility what i want to do is ask not uh how do we think the taliban look as as we think states should look but what is the taliban's conception of what a good job would be for themselves and i think there's a really stark divide and it touches on everything that our other our other speakers have have spoken about um this is a group that is still mired in a militant movement's modus operandi across the board when it comes to how it responds to the humanitarian crisis when it comes to the idea of the threat of terrorism or other security challenges also when it comes to human rights and and even the core idea of service delivery this is a group that seems to believe its job is not to serve its population its people but to protect them and and that's being very generous that's giving a bit of a benefit of the doubt to the taliban and and assuming uh benevolent intent but we have a group that perceives everything that it does as protection over the afghan people with a very hobsy intake on how the world works and all of the dangers and threats that are out there uh that just so happens to correspond with what this group has done best over the last 20 years which is to identify and hunt down and then attack or extinguish threats at the time for for the last two decades that threat was a government that they believe to be illegitimate um today the threats are manifold right and there are so many things that they just don't have the capacity or the resources to do as amiri noted uh but if you ask the taliban whether they've done what what they really want to do i i think they might say yes uh they their their sources of instability over the longer term is a really interesting question because right now what they've demonstrated in one decision after another is that they're perfectly fine with running a government that effectively just elevates their movement their insurgent movement their jihadist movement into the halls of power but transforming into a political actor transforming into what we think of as a more conventional uh state and all of the organs the state requires and and nurtures they don't even seem to have bought in to to that core concept of what we might think of as a modern state so in that sense it's incredibly fragile and there's a lot down the road that might really trouble them but if they're fine with running a proto state if they're fine with running a national scale version of their militant movement that that supplies only the most basic services most of which would be their ideas of law and order um or security then then in that sense they might be able to do that for quite some time so afghanistan is the graveyard of many things people say uh among them is predictions but i want to challenge you and and go to the other panelists as well to try to project as you've started down this path uh how you see unfolding things unfolding over the next year uh i think most people presume this humanitarian crisis will actually unfortunately get worse before it gets better uh that will presumably generate a certain amount of of social pressure on the Taliban who as we said has has sold control um and we talked about political pressures of course and and further i'll prompt you for uh some analysis that that say there are internal divisions within the Taliban that are that are unfolding between different factions but if you if you look at this as a i'm thinking a pressure criteria where is the pressure release is it toward reform uh along the lines of at least internationals and their sanctions would would hope for uh is it toward a crackdown uh is it towards blintering uh how do you see pressure being managed in this system under the current circumstances and i'll get your views first but i want i want other views on that as well sure uh unfortunately i think the most likely outcome broadly speaking is crackdowns uh and and again that's across the board and i think in response to a variety of perceived threats um that's that's what this group uh has has honed and refined itself as a war fighting machine for years now down to the individual level of of the young men who who've been trained and and indoctrinated you know brainwashed in some ways brought up in a system that that is intended to teach them and to school them in doing one thing which is you know overthrowing the previous regime those skills and those mindsets and that mentality is geared towards cracking down on what they see as problems or or threats or uh dissent as we've seen even peaceful dissent through speech um the the idea that this movement could move towards reform would require changing at the individual level at the at the level of every rural pocket where the Taliban has drawn its people from the grievances that they've come to the the the world views that they embrace would require changing away from an idea that what we are is a movement that enforces uh law and order and security through either violence or the coercive threat of violence and it would need to transform into a very different idea of what it means to be in power and and what it means to you know watch over and to rule a country's population um that kind of transformation i don't see evidence although the Taliban is a close and opaque movement i don't see evidence of that vast and wide-ranging intellectual transformation taking place certainly not in the near term but but when you you characterized it as a sort of pressure quicker situation the severity of what's going on in Afghanistan i would just i would maybe suggest that although the pressure is building and this is going to be one of the world's worst crises uh with devastating impact it might not take that much of a release valve to release the pressure what i mean is look at for instance just yesterday's news that the Taliban plan to implement a wide-ranging wheat for work program either being unable or unwilling to dip into their own cash reserves to pay civil servants salaries they're going to start doling out rations of wheat and wheat flour to hundreds of thousands of Afghans in lieu of a monetary salary now that sounds outrageous and that could be perceived from our outside view as a serious weakness of the government but what if things are already getting so bad have gotten so bad inside the country that that's actually quite a relief to many of these families and that that might be just enough pressure relieved from absolute disaster um that that we don't see things bubble up quite the way we might anticipate or at least not in the near term thanks thanks let me get other views amiri so essentially the same question to you i mean amid growing pressure do you see Taliban hardening softening or cracking so to answer that i need to give a little bit more context i mean Taliban is kind of entity that you know they believe in some stuff like one of us that was that 20 years the international community you know did a lot of harm to our communities and that's why the community hate us therefore the community now needs kind of you know our engagement from the bison worker and others from religious scholars to bring them back to to to so basically they're saying that they're not against us because you know we're bad because they say we're they're against us because you know they're influenced by the international community just to put it in a simple way um so what so basically their plan is the way they won't support in rural communities they literally plan each one religious person in each family so they're kind of thinking that if people become more religious and more so that's where they can see more people on their side once people are on their side if it's worse or bad they will support them in any situations the way the rural communities did in the rural areas you know people were in a horrible situation but did not complain because of Taliban you know so they just think that yeah that's the the the way so they're kind of working on the soft power to kind of have community but that's actually a miscalculation you know um i mean there's like 39 million i mean 35 million 39 million i mean we don't know the exact number of people living there i mean governance is not going to be just the way it was in 1990s or you know so Taliban are actually miscalculating but Taliban also has their own problem for example the internal structure you know like you know makes it very difficult for them to make any reforms you know the narrative that comes from military commanders you know from middle level commander for local commanders that actually shaped their policies you know um their policies and way forward and at the same time lack of leadership i mean the thing is the Taliban process is a consultative process you know whatever comes they have to talk to each other you know and nobody wants to bring a sensitive issue for example inclusion in in these things among the topics because then he will be seen some sort of like yeah why are you advocating for such thing you know it's too early and the other thing is religious scholars you know that that that that that shapes sort of their policies governance and everything that's why they called recently for a religious shura because that will take a lot of pressure from the political actors if the religious scholar decides look religious scholars you know play a very important role in their legitimacy their source of legitimacy is driven by the religious no matter the whole country says anything if the religious scholar supported that's it that's what you know that that's that's what matters to them the most so that's why when you know they they try to engage you know to kind of have the religious scholars we want some of these points some of these reforms some of like for example women's inclusivity and other things once they have that then that will kind of but still you know on one hand they're kind of bounded by an influence by the religious scholars on the other hand they're kind of influenced by the military guys and then they're also the process consultative so that makes it the the whole you know Taliban dealing with the with the local issues or the with Afghanistan is your national level very complicated you know and it makes it more and more you know you know for them to delay it further and further and give a very you know very standard answers now that's one part on the other part is the international community the external factors when it comes to the Taliban policy there's a fairly lack of consistency in engagement from the peace talks to right now even at this point in time there's no consistency what needs to be done Taliban are thinking that it's a matter of time before everybody recognized that you know I mean this needs to be clearly communicated you know millions of people are living day to day we're hoping that something you know that tomorrow news will come you know and this the lack of international community you know a clear response to engagement yes they did come up with some statements but those statements are still not very clear you know sometimes they say one things then the second times they release they announced a couple million dollars and you know they talk about the Afghan people but there's no who are the Afghan peoples how are they going to engage you know so those actually you know sending a very mixed signals to the communities and also to the Taliban to everyone that you know nothing is decided anything can go any ways and this makes Taliban think that they have the a little bit the upper hand scott thanks thanks very interesting so paul asha just get you in on on this discussion as well your your reactions on on how pressure will impact the the Taliban and the governance situation but I wonder also if you have thoughts on on on my thesis to begin with how much pressure do you think will come from within Afghanistan I think the the U.S. audience the western audience hears overwhelmingly from those leaders of civil society many of whom left but who are oriented more toward western donors western donor programs of course civil society is much broader than that and amiri mentioned religious leaders having great influence there's the grassroots that that isn't heard from is there going to be significant pressure from within afghan society or are they in a position of weakness where there won't be that much pressure on the Taliban to to reform or improve I think scott that's a really good point I think there is pressure internally and we're seeing that by the protests that are happening with something when something happens that they disagree with the olama have stand up stood up I just wanted to clarify I think that what amiri was mentioning in terms of the Taliban really listening to the religious scholars as they listen to their own religious scholars within their own movement and so we need to make a distinction between the olamar the religious scholars within the Taliban movement that they listen to and then the non-toliban religious scholars here who have like I said in some instances been able to have to use their leverage and knowledge of the song to make difference but in general doesn't seem to have a huge impact overall I don't feel like the internal pressure from the afghan population we've seen them then demonstrating we've seen them the outcry we've seen people dying we've seen IDPs being beaten when they're trying to go back to their land all kinds of things are happening it doesn't really seem to make a huge difference some of the protests and some of the big cities seem to have some small effects on on certain issues but we're not seeing that large effect overall what does seem to make an impact is international community and the role the international community is playing unfortunately when the Taliban decide that they're going to focus on beheading women of girl mannequins the media seems to follow that and be all you know up at arms that they're doing this rather than focusing on the starvation that women and children are facing in afghanistan and so the Taliban's also lack of attention to the starvation this winter will bring I mean there's a estimation that one million children will possibly die of starvation in afghanistan this winter if nothing is done 22.8 million afghans are facing starvation right now in this winter it's very very severe and the fact that there is instead of focusing on how do we overcome this starvation how do we you know give jobs to people how do we pay the teachers instead of preventing the teachers from going to school to work how do we pay women how do we give them jobs how do we make sure that that that people have an income that doesn't seem to be the focus rather than some these petty issues seem to be coming up and that's really unfortunate in terms of what we're seeing play out with the Taliban and it does seem that the international community's attention to starvation is really important here and and trying to bring some sort of relief to this but what I I do want to mention is that you know just bringing wheat into the situation or rice or flour or oil isn't really going to solve the problem you've seen in the past where those kinds of things have been brought in they spend $150 on rations and then the family actually needs the money for something else and goes and sells that for $30 and uses it for something else it's really a huge loss the importance is purchasing power and how do we increase purchasing power in Afghanistan there's a number of different ways to do that to be able to get money into the hands of afghans I think that's really that the key issue the international community needs to work on and pay attention to to stay starvation in Afghanistan at this point thanks for that and I I appreciate a good segue because I want to move to to a third round of of questions and there is an arc to this which is the current we've heard about the current situation we've had projections about the future and then I want to ask initially the the what to do about it question and I'm also going to turn to the audience after this so if you haven't put your questions in the chat please do so and we'll select from from there let me go to us fondy are and get your kind of regional perspective on how to address what you said before is a significant regional problem we talked about terrorism but certainly the the collapsed economy of Afghanistan hurts regional trade the the more nobody's mentioned refugees but but the more economic and and hardship and hunger there is presumably the pressure for refugees to go over into neighboring countries increases with these risks facing the region what do you see as their incentives for action are they more likely to just close the borders and harden the situation will they help the Taliban how do you think the region can or will act to alleviate at least their own security risks yeah I think the region has a lot of tolerance for dysfunction in Afghanistan really unfortunately which goes generally underappreciated I think the last few years we've had this this analytical consensus at least at the west that the region is the worst affected and the region you know really wants to prevent the worst-case outcome in Afghanistan um but while the region you know continuously chastises the United States government for its missteps and you know I think many a time they make good points about that we have not seen the region exert the kind of pressure on the Taliban that is necessary to move them on governance on issues of political inclusion terrorism counterterrorism and human rights concerns so you know I think you could argue that the region is withholding diplomatic recognition so in a way the region is punishing the Taliban but I'd contend that the region is only withholding digital recognition de facto Taliban stands recognized much of the region is doing is engaging with the Taliban you know in in multiple different ways why is the region not pushing the Taliban harder I think it's because the region has other interests in Afghanistan which it prioritizes all the sources of potential spillovers due to the humanitarian disaster of the economic crisis so you know China Russia Iran they wanted to see the US out and their priority was to sort of see the US out and I think going forward it remains to not allow the US to again have major political influence in Afghanistan China in particular doesn't seem to mind for their erosion of Afghanistan's economy which is you know which is somewhat puzzling to me for Pakistan no surprise they have always been keeping about keeping India out and even amid all its growing challenges with the Taliban Pakistan is kind of content with the fact that at least the Taliban are not close to India like the former Afghan government so you know my depressing sort of conclusion here is that the region will not act at least in time or force the hand of the Taliban to to fix fix things but you know in the off chance that the region becomes really very concerned that the Taliban are this fundamental obstacle that they are the source of the current crisis and and if the if Afghanistan has to be fixed the Taliban have to be fixed I think we might see attempts and manipulation of the Taliban's internal politics to influence the group for more favorable governance policies you know I think Pakistan could take a lead Pakistan and China could coordinate we're already seeing Iran trying to do more trying to bring in the political opposition the question is will they will they succeed will the region succeed they hard to see at this time Andrew Walkins how do you see the what do you see as opportunities for the U.S. for other international actors to positively influence the situation what are the what are the levers that will work what should be pulled first yeah thanks Scott just a quick thought following up from Asfandia's points which I agree with I think it's absolutely correct in the broad picture but in terms of points of leverage I think it's been interesting to see even in the past week some of the regional powers and neighbors although as Asfandia notes their tolerance for what we might consider unacceptable Taliban behaviors is much greater and that goes back to a completely different set of national interests and priorities that many of the neighbors have they're also able to exercise leverage in a way that I think perhaps only neighbors and regional states can because of the very real tangible payoffs and quid pro quos and benefits that they might be able to offer the the meeting that Iran seemed to put together and perhaps probably insisted on between the Taliban's former foreign minister and several key opposition leaders in Tehran this past week on one level that could have been largely symbolic that may be dismissed as a photo opportunity for PR purposes we've yet to see if that will turn into something more real more substantive but it does appear to be an instance of successful leverage of Iran which the Taliban very intently needs a technical working level engagement on a number of issues not just trade but even water rights and water usage between the two states etc number of issues Iran successfully leveraging what the Taliban needs from them in very real terms to at least inch towards something that we've all been speaking about in very vague abstract terms a more inclusive system or or inclusion of other political figures and voices so that's an interesting point maybe maybe what I say on the US and various European and other donor states is that it's not as clear if the US or other European countries have that leverage and I think the belief that the massive amounts of aid and even development assistance that the US and the EU its member states etc are able to bring to bear I think there's long been a hope that that can prove to be a source of leverage but you only need to look at the track record of the past 20 years it's incredibly difficult for states that are disengaged and are fairly distant geographically and in many other ways to exert that leverage of donor support unless they truly are willing to back off in the Taliban's case the issue is not the one that we had with the previous regime where we have committed all of this aid and now feel like we can't really credibly threaten to take it all away as it was with the Islamic Republic but today it might not even be credible the idea that we would give them as much aid as the Republic saw and so if we think that the promise of future money and funding and engagement and benefits could tempt the Taliban into moderating are we really serious if we make that promise that hypothetical promise thanks for watching you mentioned you were on the on the path towards some concrete recommendations I think with with purchasing increasing purchasing power you referenced earlier the Taliban's strong desire for international recognition maybe that's amounts to leverage I just want to invite you to continue on what would be your your top actions and opportunities for the US or other international actors to positively influence the situation thank you yeah as I was mentioning I think it's really important to think of the Afghan people and giving purchasing power to the Afghan people and supporting the Afghan people through this crisis rather than thinking about the Taliban government per se and I think that finding ways to support the people through this crisis is really important and not giving international recognition to the Taliban is really important I think those are two things that we have to figure out how to square the circle because in terms of supporting the people how do we do that without giving recognition to the government it's a it's a big question even though it's very clear that there's a specific list of 139 people on the sanctions list in Afghanistan still banks are risk averse and you know we're still having trouble getting money to Afghanistan it's just not going to happen so whether there's there are ways to make it very clear or to help that process that's that's something that I hope could be investigated in some solution some resolution could be found to help the Afghan people particularly over this crisis and find some way out in terms of leverage with the Taliban I you know the way Andrew ended his point about whether it will make any difference I think that's something you know we need to pause and think about will giving some sort of sanctions relief on a specific issue or conditions based issue really attempt to the Taliban to change you know we haven't really seen any sort of concrete move towards that we do have the Doha agreement with the U.S. of the Taliban signed that they have not held on their part unfortunately we you know there's so many pieces to that that we can go into and I think as when I did as well a little bit that that could be points where we could say well hey you didn't uphold this this this part of your bargain and you know if you do uphold and there may be some some ways that we can work but you know I really I don't see any of that happening and making a difference the only one thing that I was I think in terms of international pressure is looking to religious scholars to olima particularly those that are borderline on the jihadi side that may have influence on the Taliban's movement that are connected to political powers that the Taliban care about that might have some way of leveraging on particular issues inside of Afghanistan that might help the situation that's something that could possibly be an area to explore but again I really think that a national effort should be to help the Afghan people really work on ending starvation in Afghanistan and finding ways to get help on the ground to the people and not recognizing the Taliban government at this point thank you thanks and and just before going to uh to audience questions Amiri what's the what's the biggest point of leverage and what should it be used for uh just to add I mean just one point on the olima or religious scholars a lot of them the Taliban are quite popular I mean a lot of religious scholars that's one point and second is that look the traditional boxes are not going to work that's one thing we have seen that's not going to work there has to be a new way out it's if we just stick to the old traditional boxes and think that a different result I think uh it's it's just a waste of the people of Afghanistan people who's been suffering for the last 40 years so here what I I mean what I mean we've been thinking and working with a lot of people on the ground one of the way that we see I mean let's talk a little bit more practical than just I believe shooting in the air is that engagement with the locals one of the things that Taliban are really afraid of engagement with the locals you know more engagement and the civil society is not you know is you know is there they're active people are active people want to participate in politics people want to challenge Taliban on their decision I think the international community should work with them you know meeting them every time for example I see these you know invoice go to Kabul they don't meet those local Afghans you know I think it's time to work with those locals if one wants to challenge the Taliban in the future they have to have you know they need to work with the local population you know one of the ideas to kind of even form a sort of like a local representations you know engage them every time for example a special envoy goes there and meet with these guys yes it takes a lot of risk but with a brisk you will not be able to achieve anything I mean there's a risk I mean the the the so those traditional boxes coming back to the traditional boxes are not going to work working with the locals