by M K BHADRAKUMAR
The locus of peacemaking has significantly shifted to regional states with the US out of the picture
The explosion of life is unstoppable. The first buds were sprouting no sooner than Ashraf Ghani fled Kabul on Sunday, without telling anyone, carrying a massive loot of ill-gotten wealth stolen from his people.
And the green shoots of political recovery are appearing. Tense and urgent care is needed. The region is rallying. Pakistan has taken the lead.
On Sunday afternoon, a galaxy of senior Afghan politicians, largely drawn from the erstwhile Northern Alliance of the late 1990s, arrived in Islamabad to cogitate with the Pakistani leadership regarding the mainstreaming of the Taliban.
The delegation included three top figures from the Panjshir Valley, veteran Hazara leaders, members of the Jamiat-e Islami party and, interestingly, Khalid Noor, the eldest son of the Tajik leader from Mazar-i-Sharif, Atta Muhammad Noor.
Without doubt, it is a spectacular development that Pakistan is hosting the top leaders of the erstwhile Northern Alliance, which spearheaded the anti-Taliban resistance in the 1990s.
Put differently, with Ghani out of the way, the non-Taliban Afghan “opposition” whom he had variously marginalized, humiliated or ignored during his maverick, corrupt dispensation, is surging.
By the way, Russian Embassy spokesman in Kabul Nikita Ishchenko has put on record a graphic account of Ghani’s shameful escapade: “As for the collapse of the [outgoing] regime, it is most eloquently characterized by the way Ghani fled Afghanistan. Four cars were full of money, they tried to stuff another part of the money into a helicopter, but not all of it fit. And some of the money was left lying on the tarmac.”
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