 Thank you for joining us. I'm Peter Bergen, Vice President of New America. We've got two wonderful guests and experts to discuss the current situation in Afghanistan. Ambassador Roya Rakhmani who was US about the Afghan Ambassador to the United States until July. She also served in Indonesia as the Afghan ambassador there. She has degrees from McGill University in software engineering and also public administration from Columbia University graduate degree, has a long history working with NGOs and is coming to us from the Washington DC area. We also have Candace Rondo who is a director of the Future Frontlines Program at New America, former Washington Post bureau chief in Kabul. Candace also worked for the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan as a strategic advisor and lived in Kabul for many years. Both Candace and I are professors of practice at Arizona State University. Anyway, we're grateful for everybody who's joining us. And I'm going to start with some first questions for Ambassador Rakhmani and Candace will jump in as well. So Ambassador, how are you feeling right now? Devastated. I'm very nervous, very worried and angry. Why angry? I'm angry because of how all of this have been handled. I am, of course, first of all angry because there has been a failure of international diplomacy in Afghanistan that all our sacrifices and investments of 20 years have been really disregarded in the way things are evolving. But I'm also angry about how things are being managed right now. The airport, the people who get left behind who have been really the people who helped promote the vision of United States and our allies. Those who had connections and money and the affiliation got evacuated immediately, but so many people who really worked for a better Afghanistan, they were left behind, doomed to a faith that is completely uncertain and things are getting more difficult for them by the hour. A very difficult situation back on the ground. Do you have a sense of how many people helped the United States or Britain or NATO or other allies? Do you have a sense of a number of people we're talking about? Absolutely no idea. I first of all don't know. There has been an announcement by countries saying I'm taking 20,000, some saying I'm taking 6,000, a variety of numbers being thrown, but how many people they are really taking and have taken out? I don't have any idea. It is going pretty badly and pretty slow. On the other hand, in terms of the numbers who are trying to get out, I think it's massive. Do you have a reaction? I'm sure you saw President Biden's interview with George Stephanopoulos of ABC News and essentially he said a number of statements and I'd like to get your reaction to them one that there was always going to be chaos. It didn't matter when we left. Well, on one hand, I understand his position. Like when he says that it wouldn't have been different if he left now or in six months, if the circumstances have been the same as it was when they left, I agree with him. Yes, it wouldn't have made much of a difference if it was now or in six months under the very same circumstances. But if it was done differently, the outcome would have been different. This is my viewpoint. Yes, if you continue, it would have been. And of course there would have been some degree of chaos and conflict and whatnot. Right now it is like millions of affluent people who are just thrown into this uncertain fate and a future that is just dominated by fear. What about the peace negotiations? Did they set the stage for this? The peace negotiations, I'm assuming you are referring to the process that was in Doha. Yes. I think it was a complete failure. It did not help with anything. It was a good opportunity for a much better solution to be brokered. I think it is, of course, there was failure on part of the Afghan government as well as the international community because they did not really put all they could into that to make it a success. But at the same time, of course, it did embolden the Taliban. It gave them the diplomatic platform. It allowed them to make the connection with the rest of the regional countries. But in terms of the result of it, we already have seen there was a military takeover. So what is the outcome of a peace process when one group is basically taking over somehow militarily? Specifically excluding the Afghan government from those negotiations. Was that a mistake? Of course it was. I mean, like you would negotiate the fate of millions of people with a group that are not necessarily even in Afghanistan except for fighting, except for conducting a military mission there. And excluding the Afghan people from that. What could have happened is that if international community in a much more hands-on way provided a framework, pressured all the sides, asked them to agree on certain conditions and basically terms and give them deadline with the specific consequences should they derail and do not agree. And then try to go in and enforce it. That would have resulted in probably a government that would have been more acceptable for everybody and would not have pushed hundreds of thousands of Afghans together at the airport today as they are. One final question before I turn to Candice. General Milley said in a Pentagon briefing that there was no intelligence indicating that the collapse would take place in 11 days. What's your view about the speed of the collapse and how predictable or unpredictable was it? Well, I of course was in no circle to receive any intelligence briefing but what I have is the experience from the past. Having lived under the circumstances as such, to me it was totally not a surprise. Especially like the way it was happening over the past several weeks when the provinces were handed over to the Taliban without any resistance and we were told that the ANDSF was ordered not to resist, not to defend, to surrender. Then of course it was very clear there was no surprise about that, how fast it happened. One quick follow up. You were born in 1978, which is when the civil war began even before the Soviets invaded. So you've spent your entire life living in a country at war, representing a country at war. What does the future look like now? I am very worried and concerned. I am looking for a miracle and magic that will turn things around. But honestly these miracles and magic do exist. It is just more consistency, more attention, and more patience in terms of the international community. Like you said, I was born right a year, just a year before the Soviet invasion and I have seen the country collapse many times and all my life have been in conflict. But there are ways. The problem is that here or in the rest of the world, when things like this happen, it's a failure of policy. It's a failure of what happens. The reporting was not right or they could not predict it and things like what the intelligence community say here. But for Afghans it means they lose lives, they lose limbs, they lose their households. And this is not just a simple report that misled people. It is their entire course of life gets changed and it's happening over and over. It is going on for over 40 years, almost like half a century. So much more. How many times again, we are going to be facing this? And what is the consequence of this? All these people who are suffering to the extent that they are under a culture of war and conflict. This would have consequences for the rest of the world, for the stability of the region, for how this power game in the world will be shaped and influenced. For people in the audience, if you want to submit questions, go ahead and submit them in the Q&A function and we'll sort of take them as we go. So you lived in Afghanistan at a time when it was more stable. How do you see what's happening now? Is the Taliban reformed, unreformed? What are the next weeks and months look like, do you think? I lived in Afghanistan for almost five years. I've been working on supporting better understanding of the conflict there for 13 years. I think anybody, including Ambassador Rahmani, who understands and has lived in Afghanistan well understood that this was a predictable outcome, absent the United States getting out of its own way. I think as early as 2011, when Obama first indicated that there would be the beginning of the drawdown in 2014, it was evident that what was needed was not necessarily a U.S.-led negotiation process with the Taliban, but rather a negotiation process led by a third party, preferably the United Nations, with enormous amount of support that didn't happen. That is the fatal flaw here more than anything else, and not, of course, envisioning what the exit would look like all the way to the end. In terms of the Taliban, I think we already see the evidence playing out in these scenes of shooting into crowds in Assadabad and Jalalabad, while they're talking about giving amnesty to former Afghan government officials and anybody else who kind of worked for a different vision of Afghanistan than the Taliban had. Clearly, their rhetoric does not match their actions. The words and deeds are completely opposition to each other, and that's nothing new. We've seen that for years from the Taliban, and it speaks volumes about the discipline within their ranks. Let's remember that thousands of prisoners have been released as a result of this process. Many of them held for years in Afghan government prisons and in other kinds of custody, and they are now joining the ranks of the Taliban. So these folks are going to be far less disciplined than perhaps the core cadre of the Taliban organization and movement, and that's concerning. As Ambassador Rahmani just noted, the situation right now on the ground in Kabul in terms of the airlift effort is an unmitigated disaster, a national embarrassment for the United States, a stain on the history of this country that we will never live down until the Pentagon and the State Department start talking to each other and coordinating and opening those gates, getting commanders on the ground to get those young Marines to open the gates and make sure people can get through without harassment and get on planes. There should be no planes leaving Afghanistan right now with empty seats, but there are. Unfortunately, the future of Afghanistan looks like more of this, but worse. I have one more important piece here that we're not talking about, which is today, Ahmad Massoud, the son of Ahmad Shah Massoud, of course, the great Northern Alliance fighter who fought the Taliban for many years, had an op-ed in the Washington Post calling for resistance. And you know this is an old story in Afghanistan that anybody knows. When there is a collapse, young men go to the mountains they say, right. And so we will now once again have a readout in the Panjshir Mountains, a pocket of resistance. And the Taliban, of course, have an enormous amount of power at this moment, but there's no reason to believe that they will have the kind of staying power that they had just even a week ago. I predict that we will start seeing all kinds of resistance. Some of it will be peaceful. Some of it will be violent. And you know the regional partners and players China, Russia, Iran, Pakistan, India, all of them are going to pay the price for their shot in Florida. All of them are going to pay a price for their inability to come to the table and press all the combatants and all the members who are part of the hostilities in Afghanistan for a negotiated settlement to the end to this conflict. Well, that raises a good question for Ambassador Rachmani, which is, you know, Ambassador, you know that for the vice president, Saleh, who of course was elected, has said he's the caretaker president. And he sort of identified himself as part of the resistance, the resistance that Candice is talking about Akhma Shah Masood's son is organizing militias in the Panjshir Valley as we speak. The Panjshir of course was never taken by the Soviets or the Taliban. How effective do you think that resistance will be? Or is it just simply hard to tell right now? I'm sorry to speak to this because all the time, whether you were talking about the resistance, a militia group, an insurgent, a weak central government and whatnot. For somebody like me, it is one thing. Continuation of conflict, more people dying, economy not functioning, justice, nonexistence. So this is, I cannot say whether they would be effective or not, but I would like to draw your attention to something else. And Afghanistan, any group who wants to impose their ideology to be one sided, not to be inclusive, they will be faced with resistance. This has happened over and over. So if the Taliban are going to really make an inclusive government, that would be respectful of the diversity of Afghanistan. That would be reflective of the aspiration of the people of Afghanistan that would not take the opportunities that they had, plus they preserved the gains they had. Then hopefully we could be set to somewhat the right course. Now, I'm not so sure of how that is going to happen with a very authoritarian, narrow worldview that basically sounds like my way or the highway. So it is actually just starting with the women. If their worldview continues to be that women are only able to get education to certain level or work in certain sectors and nothing else because this is their understanding of the religion. And everybody has to abide by that and live like that. That is intolerable. There would be resistance like Candice. So there is no question about that. Now, here is the problem. The problem is how all of this is going to be managed. The issue is right now the very little sense of security in a sense that people are not getting killed in mass numbers. I'm not sure it is going to be guaranteed or continue over the next weeks and months. Once the Taliban are trying to form their government and their people with disperse all around the country and all those, the people that they believe will infiltrate or they really able to govern the country. I was hearing today from the news that they are appointing a lot of religious experts to run cities. This is by itself questionable. And then getting all the women out of the equation, that's going to be very complicated. And the resistance, one way or another, to something like that will be formed, whether it is Vice President Saleh or the late Commander Sun or other groups. I'm aware that they are not the only one. They are more vocal, but there are many other groups who are already thinking about this and reaching out. So the result of it would be chaos and civil war. Let me ask you, you were the first woman to be appointed ambassador to the United States by the Afghan government. Will the Taliban control government be sending women ambassadors to the United States or anywhere else? Based on their statements so far, it does not sound very promising. Because they have made a statement that women can go back to their work and they can carry on whatever they were doing with the caveat that within the Islamic Sharia. And Afghan women already and Afghan people already believe that they were already complying with the Islamic Sharia. But then if it is a very specific version of that with a very specific interpretation of this is my understanding of that and now you have to abide by that and nothing else is tolerable. I don't think that there is any hope to believe that. One quick follow up there. So their understanding of the Islamic Sharia is a huge caveat and it means that, to correct me if I'm wrong, women might be able to work as doctors treating only female patients or women might be allowed to work as teachers only teaching girls. Is that what you think it might happen? Yes, I mean, in the past when they were empowered during the 90s, they weren't even open to that. And it seems like over the past 20 years and recognition of how Afghanistan has moved on, they have come to realize that okay, so they need to study because they need to treat other women. And then, but I don't so far, it doesn't seem that it would be any different. Let me turn to some questions and Candace, feel free to answer this one. Didn't the Pentagon have 18 months to plan for this? What happened? Oh, I mean, let's talk about that actually so the Pentagon is not the only player at the table when it comes to, you know, the wind down of a major diplomatic and military engagement in another country. And in this instance, you have the State Department, you have the Pentagon, and you have the US Agency for International Development, all three of whom need to coordinate in order to anticipate the kind of refugee flows that you would expect to be coming out of Afghanistan. No, the answer is no, because in fact, you know, I think we might remember that under the Trump administration, there was, of course, a lot of resistance inside the Pentagon to the way the deal was being negotiated. And rightly so, because it clearly did not anticipate all the different contingencies that we're seeing start to play out now. And, you know, more importantly, you know, without pointing too many fingers that, you know, the chief special envoy, Salmeh Khalilzad, I think was never given truly the remit that he probably would have needed to start thinking about what it would look like should the Afghan government disintegrate. And we will note the personal relationship with Salmeh Khalilzad and Ashraf Ghani that goes back many, many years. That is very complicated, in fact. And I think there are personalities here at work that made it very difficult. So I just speak to the personalities issue, and the politics just internally as a barrier to planning ahead. Once the Biden administration took office, and more importantly, once they made the decision to move up the timeline to August 31, as opposed to September 11. Already that was another sort of fatal flaw. And what was not apparently anticipated was that, you know, that would cause the government to collapse. And the actual naming of the date and the changing of the date would have a psychological effect. But it's exactly that two week window in which we have this kind of unraveling happening. So clearly the planning wasn't there. And clearly the coordination between the State Department and the Pentagon is very weak. And, you know, I'm aware, for instance, that there's a task force at the State Department right now of roughly 20 odd 25 people. They're doing their best. But in the meantime it is not clear what kind of conversation is being had between the Pentagon and that task force which is responsible for the exfiltration, you know, of thousands of Afghans. You asked earlier Peter about, you know, how many, how many Afghans, you know, will have worked with different countries, you know, for a different vision of Afghanistan than the Taliban have. The answer is probably in the hundreds of thousands, if not potentially more than a million or two. When you really think about it, Afghanistan is a country of 35 million people. And NATO is a coalition of 28 nations, and every single one of those nations had both diplomatic and military representation in the country. And every single one of them had therefore Afghan nationals working with them or for them directly. So when I think about all of the different aid organizations, civil society support organizations like my own the international crisis group that I worked with for many years. All of us had people in the country that we work very closely with, who are now at risk. And this contingency simply clearly was not planned for at all, not by the Biden administration, not by the Trump administration, which clearly was very pronounced and in its anti Muslim view of the world, and not by any previous administration and it's a, you know, as I say, unmitigated catastrophe. Let me turn then to the situation at the airport we have a question from Rachel Reed who has worked on Afghanistan for for many, many years. And she asked a good question. Essentially, you know, is there a role for the UN at the airport. So, so it's not just sort of America first because vulnerable Afghans aren't getting on to the airport. So related question from an anonymous attendee which is directed at you Candice which is, are you advocating further military action with the Marines to overturn Taliban checkpoints in Kabul to allow asylum seekers and citizens on the airfield. Well, certainly there would be a you enroll here implicated in fact that that would have been one potential planning points that could have been put in place, I think, months ago. And I would say that you know, Antonio Gutierrez really has now I think an obligation, if you know if anybody's listening out there to move swiftly to see what can be done within the Security Council to ensure that the corridor is protected. If it's possible to get that corridor protected by UN peacekeeping troops that would be fantastic, I think personally. I agree that that you know having the US lean forward is potentially a very risky position I'm certain that's why there's so much hesitation inside the Pentagon. In the immediate term in terms of what I'm advocating and I think probably others are advocating right now. You know we're hearing stories about the Taliban shaking people down for money as they try and approach the entryway, the roadway up to the airport right now. You know stripping them of the papers that they do have whatever precious little evidence they do have that they have, you know, the right to kind of approach the airport in the first place. That has to stop and I know it's going to be difficult. But that's that is where the UN I think probably could be very useful. I think that the US should be working very hard with its allies in NATO in the coalition to push back that perimeter, meaning making sure that there's greater, at least some sort of greater control to allow for the entry of Afghans, at the entry of 400 meters out from the entryway to the airport. And I will say this right now, if the Pentagon is not moving to get the commander on the ground at Kabul International Airport, Hamid Karzai International Airport to get eyes on at the gate that commander needs to physically walk to the gate right now, and assess the situation and get a solution in place. Is this one part of that solution ambassador rec money. I echo what Candice said. I would just just being realistic I'm not sure that at this point, trying to get consensus on what to do on Afghanistan at the UN level and the bureaucracies that they are going through would be a very fast solution. And I agree with her that if there was an urgent action and some peacekeeping troops would be deployed immediately like if they could really move that immediately that would be a very good solution number one. Number two, if not like Candice said, there is need for immediate action. It is chaos because people are panic people are taking their chances everybody has been called to the airport and organizing get is difficult but that's not rocket science so you really need somebody down on the ground to sort people out tell who should go home who should stay and what is the order. Right now the people who are getting calls that they will be evacuated they they spend days at the airport before they get evacuated. And they don't even know whether they would be evacuated or not. I am aware of play, like some, some people that I know closely have been evacuated and two, three times, because the plane wasn't sure where to go once they were in the plane the plane left and landed in one of the neighboring countries then they were turned back, then they came back to Kabul and they were supposed while they were supposed to go to a different country. Eastern Europe and then they came back again. So three times they had this back and forth before they finally landed to where they were intended to land. We were just having a side discussion before this conversation started and Candice we're telling me that because of this chaos, there are planes that are coming back with empty seats. So this is the level of this array that we are talking about. I think it is time that like Candice said that the commander goes down on the ground and organizes things, because it is going to get only more and more difficult moving forward. So the question for both of you from Tom Freston who's a new America board member who spent many years living in Afghanistan and also run MTV and Viacom and also was has played an important role in advising Tolo TV which of course is the main independent source of news in Afghanistan. So do you have a sense of how the Taliban will seek to deal with current independent media sector TV radio print social media internet access etc. Is a current more tolerant pose just temporary 100% what is the tolerant polls, I mean, they've been targeting journalists left and right killing them. I don't see any tolerance right. I think I think the floodgates are now open for an all out campaign, especially for the most independent Afghan voices but I'll defer to Ambassador Rahmani. I agree with you they already made an announcement of how they are going to be dealing with media with three conditions. One of them could be interpreted however you would possibly can and given the Taliban's record I think it wouldn't be very difficult for them to interpret it in a very harsh way saying that the journalists could do whatever the reporting in an impartial way in a professional but in accordance to Sharia. So they always leave that caveat I mean who is reporting against the Sharia what what does that even mean really clearly speaking as a Muslim and as somebody who has worked on Islamic laws I wonder what what does that even mean. Secondly, they say, we want to make sure that it is not against the national interest. Again, you say there is a free media independent media and then you cannot speak against the national interest and how you interpret that national interest is another thing. With the Taliban and their view, the way they are conducting themselves the whole thing is that they really use fear as a instrument of control. And many, many people are joining that they I'm sure that people will not be reporting necessarily independently for long because of fearing for their own lives and their family's life. If you were question regarding the the means of connections, internet and whatnot. And that's that's another concern because once there is a problem with the infrastructure for example lack of electricity which people are have been already facing. It could become even more difficult, or if they decide to ban certain applications, which is a means for people to connect to their outside world, then they will be Afghanistan will be completely isolated completely disconnected into this black hole. So let me start with you, starting with Ambassador Rachmani from Abdul Aziz Wahili. How do you explain the collapse of the Afghan army, the lack of resistance to the Taliban. I thought the military could be the one institution that can lift the nation to stand on its own for a better future. My understanding is that the collapse of the military was due to the lack of leadership from Kabul. They failed to support the military they failed to provide them with morale and to fight. They failed to lead them. In fact, it has been many of the commanders from the field shared that they were ordered not to fight they were ordered to surrender. And as a result, they did and as we progress as the time progress in the theater. We had announcement by the governors saying we peacefully handed over the provincial capital to the Taliban. And if you do that, then how could possibly the military fight the failure in their part was because of lack of leadership and lack of support. I agree with that as well. I mean I I want to talk about the mechanics though what lack of leadership looks like. Because I think that's kind of it's a little bit abstract sometimes when we talk about what it means to have a failure of leadership in a military context but in Afghanistan, you know, you have a very large military huge investment hundreds of thousands of troops. But, you know, the logistics chain, literally for getting, you know, ammunition food uniforms medical supplies, you name it, the logistical chain was always broken at best a because that the terrain is very difficult to navigate. And, but also because, even when supplies would reach, let's say a given base it could be in Kandahar it could be in helmet it could be anywhere in Afghanistan. It doesn't mean that the commander in charge of that base is doing his or her best his best often right to ensure that the supplies are properly used there was a lot of hoarding of materials. There was a lot of reselling of materials on the black market, and a lot of, you know, a lot of failure to manage the military material that was actually given to them. And that was a perennial problem that's not like yesterday's problem it's a problem from that's been going on for 20 years. And if you compound that with the fact that the loss of air resources, not just air strikes I'm talking about, again, Medevac for soldiers who are left on the battlefield, you know, taking things to and from places. Once the United States began to draw itself down and reduce its air presence, and its operations. That meant for the Afghan forces that they would have to step up. And they, and they had never been asked to step up. In fact it was sort of like step up overnight, right. And, you know, I, I, when I was there, you know, I spent a lot of time with Afghan soldiers and police as well. And it was, they lived in miserable conditions at you know eating rotten food and unable to, you know, bring their troops to safety once they were, you know if they were wounded or harmed, or even bury them. One of my last days in Afghanistan was to the Kabul military hospital which also contains the morgue for, you know, Afghan soldiers. I saw bodies stacked high. Okay, literally in the morgue itself but then shipping containers full of bodies that were rotting in the sun, left unclaimed, because either their families were afraid to claim them because they feared retribution of Taliban, or because the government failed to notify families, because it was so inept and incompetent we haven't talked nearly enough about the failure of competency in the presidential palace at the arg in Kabul. Can you tell us how many Afghan soldiers have been killed or wounded, because they're sort of a narrative that they just fold it, but that's not exactly as Candace indicates, there's a, there's a part of the story that's missing right now. Absolutely. And every single day when I wake up I think about them and their families and I wonder that many of them, why they lost their lives, why they lost their limbs. The number that we know about is over 70,000. They killed millions injured. And then just think about the impact of it, long term impact of it. As many of those people, those soldiers have been the breadwinners of their homes. They have left many children, their wives with absolutely nothing and no support system, dying for the country that now is basically their very institution is now the one that gets a lot of blame for not defending the country. While they were just left out dry. The way Candace just explained. A question from Ambassador Indefa, who, as you both know, played in. He was the top State Department official on South Asia in during the Bill Clinton administration, amongst other things. His question is about Pakistan Pakistan hasn't recognized the Taliban yet, unlike their previous recognition of the Taliban. What role do you think Pakistan will now play. What role do you think they should play. And by the way, then I'll add, is this kind of a double that short for them because, you know, maybe they the Taliban completely taking over has some problematic aspects for them after all Pakistani Taliban much of which is now in Afghanistan, has killed, you know, tens of thousands of Pakistani civilians and soldiers so to both of you Pakistan will they recognize the Taliban. That's something that they kind of made this kind of blow back on them. I would say that as the other Pakistan probably is holding because there is already hope that they would not be alone or anymore at the regional countries would step forward and recognize them and they would come along and recognize them too. It's just a matter of time. Also, it's a matter of time to see how things will unfold. Right now, Taliban should. There is nothing to recognize. They haven't established a government. They haven't announced their new government in fact to be recognized or not recognized. But then whether they could play a constructive role or what should they do is something that we have been talking about for the past 20 years. At least 20 years, I would say, but it has never necessarily materialized. Do they have an edge regarding the Pakistani Taliban, and how would that play for them. I think it is it is a good reason. It gives them like a kind of ammunition to talk about and justify why they have to be very good with the Taliban, but there is also another fact. Pakistan have been very good in managing Taliban. They managed them. They managed them during the 1990s. They managed them before that. And over the past 20 years with their leadership being house there with Pakistan, speaking for them and leading them. They have been very good in managing. So I would think that Pakistan should not be too worried about how the Afghan Taliban would possibly go against them in any possible way, including by supporting the Pakistani Taliban. Yeah, I would agree. I totally agree with that assessment. I mean, I think, you know, speaking to serve the Pakistan Taliban relationship it's important to understand. There's a lot of wealth, Taliban wealth, you know, in Karachi in Quetta in other parts to shower, right, that is just there completely protected and it's wealth that has been jointly raised between the Taliban and their sponsors in the ISI the Pakistani intelligence forces. So we have to be clear about the relationship that is an unbreakable seemingly unbreakable bond between the two. And I think investment Rahmani's, you know, assessment that the Pakistanis have managed that relationship well, and will probably continue to do so is spot on. In terms of recognition of the Taliban though. You know, while we're hearing from Iran Khan, of course, the head of Pakistan's government, you know that this is this marks a moment of the, you know, release of Afghanistan from slavery, which I think is Tom Foolery personally but you know, you know, everything it's actually driving them back deeper into slavery. It will cause enormous amounts of strain economically on the country but nonetheless, despite that rhetoric. I think Pakistan understands that it's not it's turned to go first and recognize the Taliban that that may have consequences diplomatically. You know, Iran may be tempted but again I think there are reasons why internally its constituencies may not be, you know, have much of an appetite for that fight. I would, if I was taking a bet. The first to recognize the Taliban government if there ever is a government that actually fully forms will probably be Russia and China. You agree. Yes. Can I say something you said earlier we're getting question about it. When you said that some of the Afghan forces were ordered to surrender. Can you clarify kind of what was that because there was a theory that we should just abandon some certain other more obscure districts and try and focus on the cities and what what what do you say who ordered Afghan military forces to stand down and why. I'm hearing a variety of different theories and actually narratives of what happened, I, and I will try to briefly recount them. Yes, one is the one that at the very initial stage as the Taliban made speedy progress in in gaining territory around the districts. There was a sensible military tactic to to just to stand down and leave the districts leave territory focus on the centers of population. That was a military tactic and that was a sensible thing and this is what happened. They told them to pull back so that we can. I'm also hearing that even that did not happen well enough in time, we already lost a lot of soldiers in a lot of checkpoints that were isolated that were not supported, they did not get the support that they needed in time, and we just lost them. That proposal was very early on on the table, as soon as President Biden announced that there would be a full withdrawal, it was anticipated, and it was a strategy but even that was implemented late after we lost a lot of soldiers. Number one, then second, then comes the next phase, the next phase was that the concentration was at the centers of population. Now, depending on what where those centers of populations were located, what I have heard is that in certain places, they were just left dry, they needed support and they did not get the support. And that resulted in loss of lives. Number one, number two, when that happened and a lot of the forces saw that, they witnessed that they were fighting for a system that did not respect them and support them. They also were demoralized and they pulled back. This, this did happen. And then comes the other phase where things are at the level of the provincial capitals. And this is, this is the most questionable one, and I do not necessarily know the answer why but there are different discussions and theories that I have heard I cannot confirm or reject any of them that the commanders, the governors were ordered to leave the capital, provincial capitals and surrender to the Taliban. Now, as why that happened, there are a variety of different narratives to just recount some major one is one is that they knew that they cannot resist and there would be a takeover in order to prevent the more killing of the people that happened. The second one is that there was a side deal between the Taliban and former Afghan government that it would happen and then they would make sure that there is, there is a peaceful kind of surrender to the Taliban. The third is that that the people disseminate that it was the Americans and the international community who had direct access to them, Afghan military and they know their structure and formulation, they told them not to fight. But when it comes to the provincial capital, and they, and the officials went public to the media, saying that we peacefully surrender the capital that could not, could not have happened without getting direct direction from policy. Yeah, I would also just, I mean, I, you know, not hearing everything, you know, there are lots of theories of the case, I'm sure. But I can, you know, I can imagine a situation, knowing what we know about Afghanistan and how provincial capitals, especially ones that are very remote and are less economically central to the, to the country's kind of viability. So there, you know, I can imagine that there were always side deals in place with the Taliban, between members of the military, and members of the provincial government, because you just, you would have had to make those deals to get goods and services through throughout the war. That's just a reality. And we know for a fact that the Taliban was constantly imposing taxes, you know, in some of these more remote locations, right, on everything from the movement of you know, fruit in and out of major provincial capitals, you know, and then down to, to Kabul, right, or other major cities in Afghanistan. So I can imagine a situation in which those deals were already in place. And it was just sort of a question of, you know, what was the tipping point in that relationship, which is probably pretty personal, actually, where essentially it was decided it was time to leave. And most of that probably had to do with personal decisions about, you know, to protect their own lives but also their own wealth, first and foremost, there's a lot of money leaving Afghanistan now, you know, in the personal pockets of a lot of people who really, you know, were extremely corrupt. So that kind of corruption is just so corrosive. And, you know, whether or not there was a direct order from the ARG, you know, I think we could probably point some fingers. You know, I think we know about the triumvirates, you know, those who are close to Toghani who might have been confused about what what giving orders was really about. But we also know that in the Afghan military itself at the higher level in the officer corps that there are, you know, there are three or four different factions they're very ethnically, you know, sort of divided. You know, the current wealth. I don't really know what to say anymore but the, the now the most recently appointed head of the Afghan military the Minister of Defense beast milk on was, you know, he's a very controversial figure. But he, you know, he represents one faction, and these factions were warring with each other so I don't envision this as a situation where there was a single order coming out of the ARG out of the palace in Kabul, but rather a series of different sub orders, you know, at the provincial capital level, and then, you know, deals, and even, you know, factional infighting inside the Ministry of Defense that led to this disaster. A question from Abdul Aziz Wahili. Which country do you think has the most leverage over the Taliban Qatar UAE Saudis and I'll add, you know, it's interesting at the pictures of Mullah Beraydar getting off Qatari military transport plane when he arrived back in the political leader of the Taliban when he came back for the first time in 20 years to Afghanistan. You know, obviously, Saudis and the Emirates recognized Afghanistan, the Taliban, pre 911. There's been a lot of changes MBS is outlawed was in brotherhood, for instance, in Saudi Arabia, labeled as a terrorist organization so do you think the Saudis and the Emirates. I mean, are they unlikely to recognize the Taliban what's their relationship going to be, and what role will cut her play going forward. I would say that the country that has the most leverage is of course Pakistan number one. And then when you go beyond that Qatar have been hosting them, housing them supporting and providing and that that gives them a channel of influence. Based on information I have, they do have influence. Now, if we expand that it is not only these three countries that you named, but it goes way beyond that and there is a variety of different channels that a lot of regional countries have been utilizing promoting specific agenda and influence on the Taliban. Yeah, I agree with the assessment obviously Pakistan holds the most leverage but it's important to also kind of calculate who actually, which country holds the most most of the Taliban leadership's wealth. So I think the UAE, I think hands down. So, I think it has a great deal of influence over what will happen next. It's not like, you know, it's not like the Taliban began sort of flying back and forth to Qatar. You know, you know, on flights out of Kabul. That's not how it's worked right. The relationship between the UAE and the Taliban and frankly Pakistan is sort of a three way relationship. And the UAE is the banker really at the end of the day. They're going to have a lot of leverage. A question for both of you. We're getting a number of questions about Afghanistan's mineral wealth, which estimates will range up to a trillion dollars. Is there, I mean, yeah. It's been a long discussion about this issue for many years. I mean, maybe kind of so you can begin and we'll wrap up with Ambassador Rachmani and the formulas we have left but I mean, clearly Afghanistan sitting on a goldmine of minerals but getting them out is another issue right. You know, a functioning government to get them out and actually like drive revenues. And, you know, that just hasn't occurred. And, you know, I get it, you know, particularly the rare earths, you know, that's enormous national treasure for Afghanistan that could literally transform into something, you know, on the scale of what we now see in South Korea or, I mean, it would be an enormously transformative, you know, moment if if there was a functioning government that could get more than dribs of drabs out of sort of artisanal minds that are kind of scattered around out of Afghanistan right. I think there's also probably a question about China. I know there's been a lot of discussion about, you know, China's ambitions in terms of the Belt and Road Initiative and now, you know, whether it can incorporate Afghanistan into that framework. So it hasn't been super successful actually even in Pakistan right there's a lot of security issues for Belt and Road Initiative projects in especially in southern Pakistan. You know in the area bordering Afghanistan. So, and I, you know, there are some mining enterprises of course that China has tried to get going, especially with copper in Afghanistan. And those have not really panned out either. And the reason is simply you just, you cannot move, you know, large goods and large amounts of, you know, minerals across the country that is insecure. And you cannot, you cannot just sort of take them out with no market to deliver them to. So, I think anybody who sort of has this idea that China will come in now in the next five years, and, you know, take over the rare earths of Afghanistan is still living kind of in a fantasy land. Thank you so much, Mane. Like Candice said, you need a functional government to exploit and extract these national what, however, the, the Iranian and the problem is that they have been already exploited so much illegally in the absence of a functioning government, which is a lot dangerous. We have seen countries coming and looting the kind of minerals that they could copper probably would be a little more difficult because it requires a lot of bigger scale infrastructure. And there are those that are not as heavy or would not require and throughout the past 20 years before that. And I'm worried that even more now, a lot of these natural self Afghanistan are completely in danger, not only for illegal extraction but also destruction, because as they are illegally mined, they usually destroy all the areas around it and at the same time, it is not efficiently done, and probably leaves all sorts of residuals and things that are harmful. So this is in fact, one of the reasons that the international community must pay attention. Now, we are where we are it's messy at this chaotic what needs to be done. So the ideal thing is scenario would be that there would be immediate peacekeeping mission deployed in Afghanistan. In order to just ensure that that mass atrocities will not happen. Number two is securing whatever assets of honest on has whether it's inside the fun is done or outside the fun is done. The international community has an obligation to prevent looting of Afghanistan once again, it is, it has happened, it is happening, and it would be such a shame to to lose that. The preservation or protection of our historic and cultural heritage that that could be looted and it is a loss for the entire humanity. And fourth, but not in this order, but and most importantly, and protecting the rights of Afghan women protecting women to begin with, because they are again, and those who will be losing the most and their rights is not simply a protection the protection of women of Afghanistan and their rights is not just a moral and ethical issue. It is a matter of national security, it ties directly with the counter terrorism strategies, and it ties with the economic development and how what would be the economic economy. They are the one that are running the local markets. They are the one that are producing majority of the agricultural products in Afghanistan, although it's some paid but that they are the one that are producing it. And their protection would determine the course that Afghanistan will be set to, as well as the stability of the region, whether extremism would find again a breathing ground, leading to terrorism in Afghanistan or not. Thank you Ambassador Raqmani and thank you Candace, and thank you for the 250 people or so who tuned in to listen to this, and we're just going to give both Candace and Ambassador Raqmani a virtual applause, and we'll wind it up now. Thank you.