Ex-NSA Mohib lists causes for republic’s fall

KABUL (Tolo News): Hamdullah Mohib, the National Security Advisor (NSA) for the previous Afghan government, in an interview with Foreign Policy recounted multiple factors which, according to him, led to the collapse of the republican system on August 15, 2021.
According to Mohib, political unity was necessary to keep the security forces unified, saying that they brought in leaders from different backgrounds for the sake of national solidarity, but despite efforts they failed to create political cohesiveness and unity. “This became incredibly difficult to achieve during the 2019 presidential elections, which once again completely ruptured the work we had done on political cohesion. I believe that our inability to put national unity ahead of political rivalries and competition for power sources was one major reason we failed,” he said.
Divergent viewpoints on security issues inside the government was another problem which, according to Mohib, made security analysis problematic and security meetings ineffective. “In late 2020 and 2021, I developed divergent views on the management of the security sector with [then-Afghan] Vice President Amrullah Saleh. The analysis and information he was providing directly to Ghani did not correspond with the information that the Office of the National Security Council (ONSC) was receiving from the security ministries and the analysis produced by my own colleagues in the ONSC,” he added.
According to Mohib, the third factor behind the failure of the former government was tied to a stark transition in US foreign policy’s priorities. Mohib said the US was getting more involved in confronting other threats such as those emanating from China and cyberspace, adding that supporting engagement in Afghanistan gradually lost its importance in the US administration. “Whatever the reasons, and I am sure there are many, the United States did make that final decision in April 2021 during Biden’s administration to withdraw—at any cost—from Afghanistan. That announcement was a tipping point from which we were not able to recover,” he said.
Meanwhile, a number of political analysts said that the collapse of the previous government did leave Afghanistan in a very bad situation as the country is now facing a looming economic and humanitarian crisis. “They want to defend their dark and deceitful rule over the people even from overseas,” said Hafiz Naqi, a political analyst.
“Since the fall of the government, unfortunately, we have had problems of refugees leaving and poverty, as well as the formation of a political state that will take time. The reason is the selfishness of (president) Ashraf Ghani and his close aides,” said Toriq Farhadi, a political analyst. Before this, ex-president Ashraf Ghani in an interview with the BBC also said that his trust in the US was a mistake, stressing that one of the causes of the failure was the US’s unconditional withdrawal. However, Washington repeatedly has said that Ghani and his senior military officials’ fleeing the country was a main cause behind the fall of the previous government of Afghanistan.