Failure to create 'political cohesiveness and unity' led to collapse of Afghan republic: Ex-NSA Mohib
Jan 23, 2022
Kabul [Afghanistan], January 23 : Hamdullah Mohib, the National Security Advisor (NSA) for the previous Afghan government on Sunday said that failure to create "political cohesiveness and unity" led to the collapse of the Afghan republic.
Mohib made the statement in an interview with Foreign Policy, where he recounted multiple factors which, according to him, led to the collapse of the republican system on August 15, 2021, reported Tolo News.
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.
Mohib also said there were divergent views on security issues inside the government which complicated analysis, according to him, it made security analysis problematic and security meetings ineffective, reported Tolo News.
"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 priorities, reported Tolo News.
Mohib said that 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, reported Tolo News.
