Nine months into the Taliban re-taking of Afghanistan and US withdrawal 20 years after 9/11, the country is internally riven, regressing on human rights and shifting to China’s authoritarian sphere of influence. Omar Samad was a senior advisor to former Afghan presidents Hamid Karzai and Abdullah Abdullah and served as Afghanistan’s ambassador to Canada from 2004-2009. Now a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council in Washington, D.C., he did the following email Q&A with Policy Deputy Publisher and Associate Editor Lisa Van Dusen on May 13th, 2022.

Lisa Van Dusen: Our last Q&A was done immediately after the Taliban takeover last August. Nine months later, early lip service to a “kinder, gentler” Taliban has predictably given way to a return to form, with gender segregation in public — even between husbands and wives in Herat, for instance — restrictions on girls’ education and a country-wide burqa order (that may or may not be as drastic as it sounds). Can you give us your status update on how things are going in Afghanistan?

Omar Samad: Nine months later, we are almost at the end of a problematic honeymoon of sorts as the Taliban are finding out that it is easier to fight a much more powerful and resourceful enemy on the battlefield than it is to govern a country of more than 35 million inhabitants that is isolated, hungry and void of a recognized and de jure government. I think that complex internal Taliban dynamics, external pressures, chronic dependencies, short-sighted policy-making verging on extreme tendencies and experiencing a brain-drain have contributed to a sense of resignation mixed with despair and a silent power-struggle between pragmatists and old guard ultra conservatives.

Their decisions to clamp down on grades 7-12 girls’ schooling and the recent controversy caused by new hijab rules that are still being finessed, have drawn attention away from more pressing needs and priorities, and hurt the country and its population. Furthermore, despite recent indications that they are willing to form a consultative grand assembly to broaden the scope of governance, they are still dragging their feet as they continue to debate the pros and cons amongst themselves. There is also internal frustration with international sanctions that prevent access to sovereign funds and foreign aid. This has been used as leverage by some countries but has also stiffened the hands of more retrograde elements within the secretive system.

LVD: Your Twitter account is widely followed by close watchers of Afghanistan, presumably because you offer a pragmatic take on developments that falls somewhere between diplomacy and journalism, while acting as an interpreter for events on the ground to western observers. But you never seem to panic — it must be hard to maintain that public posture about a country you care so much about.

OS: I try my best to not get entangled in the online/offline partisan bickering, the emotional outbursts and provocations, as well as the spin that borders on fake news and outright propaganda, while some fringe groups use any tool for intimidation and slandering. A waste of time in my opinion that serves no good purpose except that it keeps a few former corrupt officials, provocateurs or angry trollers busy muddying the waters. I do understand and empathize with Afghans who have been wronged or abandoned, but there is line between being engaging constructively versus destructively.

I try to connect to ground realities and engage with people on all sides who are responsibly looking at facts, figures and trends in order to be able to offer a deeper analysis and maybe some practical solutions. The banking sector crisis has been an area of focus, or intra-Afghan engagement via dialogue helping to build a political roadmap for participatory and representative politics, professional governance and assuring basic human and civil rights of men and women in the country. The economic downturn after the collapse of the corrupt republic and imposition of strict sanctions on one of the world’s poorest nations is also a priority issue.

Some want to pick up arms again and fight in a civil or proxy war. I think that after 45 years, the country is out of breath but still has the will to learn from the past and apply practical solutions. Others are calling for partition or a political system that requires negotiations and a lot of give and take. I think that we need to not repeat past mistakes while we seek solutions that are practical given Afghan realities. We need to push for a middle-of-the-road agenda and pull the country away from the abyss. The Taliban are in the driver’s seat at this stage, but they cannot do it alone without a functioning engine, a skilled co-pilot or a map showing the way out. It’s not just their country, and their system is not accepted by all social and political constituencies. Afghans want peace, justice, prosperity and their basic rights respected.

LVD: When the US-led, NATO-backed coalition, including Canada, went into Afghanistan in 2001, the world — even in the wake of 9/11 — seemed far less complicated than it is now. Today, a new great power competition is playing out in proxy narratives across the globe, including a new hot war in Ukraine. Do you worry about a sort of “chaos fatigue” making Afghanistan just one more disaster dateline?

OS: I do worry because we live in a highly interconnected world where good and bad are shared at some point along the spectrum and events such as war, economic or financial upheavals or climate change prospects impact us all even if we are in a competitive mode. Obviously, some benefit and most lose when dealing with catastrophic or large-scale developments. After having spent more than $2T in the Afghanistan arena post 9/11, instead of strengthening self-reliance, the country became an international ward as a result of profiteering and bad strategy, bad management. The size of the global pie hasn’t changed much but resources are flowing and distributed differently now as others claim or draw attention and funds. What happens as a result, is that Afghanistan becomes a secondary issue on the global power grid while it moves up a notch on the regional and neighborhood grid. That can lead to more competition and proxy posturing with added risks. What we need to do is focus on rebalancing interests, on stability and win-win solutions by not repeating the mistakes of the past.

LVD: The Taliban-led Afghanistan has, not surprisingly, declared an affinity with Beijing. How do you see China’s role in Afghanistan’s story going forward?

OS: China is a patient, calculated and long-game player. I think it is learning about the risks versus opportunities that a country like Afghanistan presents while mindful of its own security and economic priorities. Relations between the Taliban and China are cordial and less volatile than most other relationships in the region. They are engaged and Chinese demands and expectations are different when it comes to human rights or democratic criteria used by Western nations. The Taliban, for their part, are careful to not be seen as a nuisance or threat to the Chinese.

LVD: Canada has committed to welcoming at least 40,000 Afghans. More than 10,000 have arrived since last August but the government has been slammed for not doing enough for Afghans who helped Canadian troops and diplomats on the ground in Afghanistan. What’s your sense of what Canada has and hasn’t done to help Afghans flee to safety?

OS: Although there are complaints, I think that Canada has been generous and has tried to do as much as is possible under the circumstances. That task has been challenged now by the Ukrainian crisis, but I think that there is no reason not to continue with the Afghan resettlement program of those who are eligible and deserving even if the pace is slower.

Omar Samad was Afghanistan’s ambassador to Canada from 2004-09 and to France from 2009-11. He was spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Kabul from December 2001 to September 2004. He is currently a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council in Washington, D.C.

Lisa Van Dusen is associate editor of Policy Magazine. She was Washington columnist for the Ottawa Citizen and Sun Media, international writer for Peter Jennings at ABC News, and an editor at AP National in New York and UPI in Washington.