Debate on the Afghanistan mission: no return in sight

The consequences of the rapid withdrawal from Afghanistan are becoming more and more visible in the Hindu Kush. At the weekend, the Taliban also took Kunduz. But what options do the West have?

The Taliban’s military advance threatens to become a march through. Which also triggered a debate in Germany about whether and how it could actually be stopped. The spokesman for the Defense Ministry, Arne Collatz, made it clear that this is unlikely to result in a renewed deployment of the Bundeswehr in the short term: “We would need political goals for this, we would need a mandate if we want to go there and also political majorities.” None of this can be seen.

“And that’s why I’m not assuming that shortly or a good month after the German forces have withdrawn we should think about going back into combat there,” said Collatz.

Röttgen brings new use into the conversation

Then the minister replied personally: “Are society and parliament prepared to send the Bundeswehr to war and stay there for at least another generation with many troops?” Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer raised this question in a statement. And sent this answer immediately afterwards: “If we are not, then the joint withdrawal with the partners remains the right decision.”

The minister’s warning that the Taliban could only be defeated in a very tough and long combat mission was also a response to the considerations of her CDU party friend Norbert Röttgen. The chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee had brought up another international military operation in the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung” – if necessary with the participation of the Bundeswehr. However, Röttgen’s CDU party friend, Union faction vice-president Johan Wadephul, immediately contradicted this: “The Bundeswehr mission was ended at NATO level.” He sees neither politically nor militarily an approach for a new deployment decision.

The FDP politician Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann also believes that a debate about renewed military intervention by the Europeans is “not permissible”, as they have in common Morning magazine from ARD and ZDF said. “Now is the time for diplomacy,” said Strack-Zimmerman.

But will this diplomatic hour ever come? Will the extremists, who undoubtedly consider themselves militarily on the road to victory, now bend to any kind of pressure at all? Is it trying to persuade them to come to a negotiated solution after all or threatening the withdrawal of financial and development aid, in which the Islamists should also have an interest?

Federal government emphasizes negotiated solution

The events of the weekend and what is happening in Kunduz will not lead to the federal government changing “its premise on Monday morning” – and that means that only a negotiated political solution can bring lasting peace, said the Federal Foreign Office’s spokeswoman , Maria Adebahr. Germany will now once again intensify the “diplomatic push” to make progress in the negotiations in Doha.

But even when the West was still under military pressure, it had been difficult enough to move forward there. At the weekend, the Taliban had, among other things, brought under their control the strategically and symbolically important city of Kunduz in the north. Where until recently the Bundeswehr was still in action, where it had to fight its toughest battles.

One way or another, says the former Bundestag defense commissioner, Hans-Peter Bartels, how hastily the western troop withdrawal took place. The German attitude had always been to wait for the negotiations in Doha before bringing the soldiers home: “First to withdraw and then to hope that the Taliban will come to an agreement with the Afghan government, that was possibly naive of the American government “said Bartels in WDR.

The number of internally displaced people is increasing

In any case, the SPD politician now feels reminded of the end of the Vietnam War in view of the events in Afghanistan. He’s not the only one there. While some observers are still warning that another bloody civil war is looming in Afghanistan, as in the 1990s, many locals believe that the country has long been right in the middle of it. The number of internally displaced persons has risen rapidly since the beginning of May.