I’ve read more than a couple threads and articles mentioning the poor state of Afghanastan and the people living there. These threads/articles reason that the only reason the Taliban is in power is because everyone in the country it too weak, and concerned about where their next meal is coming from, to fight off the Taliban.
These threads/articles also say that bombing won’t do any good, because it won’t hurt the people in power.
So what I want to know is how the USA would go about getting the Taliban out of power and what we would do once they were?
I’ve also read some stuff that implied we did this with the Shah of Iran, is that true?
I think that all these things are confusing themselves in my head, so can anyone please help me out?
The main plan thus far seems to be to team up with the Northern Alliance to defeat (i.e. kill) the Taliban and reinstate the legitimate government of Afghanistan, who would then be very US-friendly.
friedo: I submit that the second part of that plan will fail. The Northern Alliance, in addition to being hopelessly corrupt and guilty of human rights abuses to rival the Taliban, are almost certainly incapable of acting in concert once the threat has been removed. They’ve already proved this once when the degenerated into warring factions after the Soviet pullout. This is a very disparate conglomeration, ranging from former pro-Soviet Afghan military officers to religious extremists of a different stripe than the Taliban. Indeed, the Taliban owes a great deal of their current success and what measure of popularity they have, to the failures of this group when they were in power.
I’ll further add that they mostly represent various minority ethnic groups in a rather tribal society. And they were not noticeably pro-U.S. before the Taliban ousted them.
As to the OP - I dunno, really. But first things first, I guess. Which probably means breaking the back of the Taliban, then stepping back to survey the mess and assess the possibilities. Perhaps a massive and costly re-building/education project with the careful nurturing of democratic elements might succeed, eventually. I think it’s worth a try, anyway.
As an aside, I’ll mention that the situation in Iran was very different. I can go into detail if you like ( not now, though - I have to go ).
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