The Taliban has been soundly defeated and our best friends, the Northern Alliance, have won. Maybe our troubles aren't over though.

Cursor has many links, this morning, on our "victory" and different looks at what this new situation means.

Taliban Withdrawal Was Strategy, Not Rout

In less than a week, Taliban fighters have been swept from most of northern Afghanistan, including the key cities of Mazar-e-Sharif, Herat, Kunduz, Taloqan, Bamiyan, Jalalabad and the capital Kabul. How did a force that only two months ago controlled most of Afghanistan get swept from the battlefield so quickly, and is the battle over? Evidence suggests it has only just begun.
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So, just who are these guys? You can't tell the players without a program.

My enemy's enemy

The patchwork of opposition forces that make up Afghanistan's armed resistance is as convoluted as the ethnic discord that plagues this war-torn nation. United solely in their hatred for the Taliban regime, many of these erstwhile rivals have a long history of enmity. Today, the dream of a representative government rises above dormant hostilities and the nagging rancour between factions has fallen away from the public eye.
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Another program for the players outside of Afghanistan.

The Hidden Motives of Bin Laden's Neighbors

Without the full cooperation of Afghanistan's neighbors, however, none of these solutions can achieve even a sliver of success. After all, it is they who have provoked and sustained much of the fighting there over the past 20 years. Hence the meeting that was held in New York this morning, between the U.S. secretary of state and the Russian foreign minister, along with representatives of China, Iran, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, all countries that border Afghanistan. Looking at that list of names, it is hard to feel much optimism: Perhaps only the Israelis, or maybe the Kurds, can claim to have a more unstable and unfriendly group of neighbors. Worse, each of these countries has a different set of interests in Afghanistan, and each has different views of what the Broadly Based Government should be trying to achieve. Here, for the record, is a much abbreviated explanation of everyone's hidden motives.
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And what other things might concern us?

In too deep with our friends from the north

Any city freed from tyranny is a place of joy. Yesterday the Afghan capital, Kabul, was joyful. Its people lined the streets cheering the demise of their latest oppressors. As the latter fled south, civilised people cried good riddance and wished the Afghans well. Any change must be for the better. Any change is an opportunity.

I could have written the above paragraph, more or less, in 1996, 1992, 1989, 1973, 1919, 1879, 1841, 1504, 1219 and possibly in 329BC. In each case my optimism would have been misplaced. What is different today? The answer can be seen in nervous Western responses to yesterday’s events. The fall of Kabul was unpredicted. Commanders hate the unpredictable. Until two days ago, the strategy being touted in London and Washington was of a Western ground assault on Afghanistan postponed until the spring. High altitude “psychological” bombing would assuage the Americans’ need for reprisal. This might undermine regional support, but American commanders would not commit troops to a grizzly and possibly inconclusive ground war over the winter. Patience must be the keyword. Something might turn up.
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I hope the word ethical never again crosses the lips of a British government minister. Not in modern history can Britain have forged a public alliance with such unsavoury characters as Abdul Rashid Dostum, Abdul Malik, Ismail Khan, Mohammad Ustad Atta and other northerners, mostly financed by heroin. These men have given a new dimension to the word terror. Ahmed Rashid’s admirable book, Taleban, should be avoided by any squeamish coalition partners. Yes, Kabul has been liberated, but as Mr Rashid makes plain, it is by the same gangs whose faction-fighting and brutality gave the Taleban their opportunity seven years ago.
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Kabul is also the mother of all traps. In fleeing, the Taleban respected the old saying, that in setting the mousetrap you must leave room for the mouse. Relieved that its troops will not have to fight their way through the Hindu Kush, America and Britain find themselves entering a vacuum. They cannot do nothing. They bombed Kabul. They must offer its citizens security, feed them and bribe the warlords not to seek revenge. In theory the search for Osama bin Laden should be easier. But is “justice against terrorism” best served by his being skinned alive or torched in a well by the Northern Alliance to avenge Masood’s death? Such vengeance was reportedly on the lips of the invaders of Kabul yesterday. Britain and America started a war to capture a man and appear to have captured a country. This was against the advice of states in the region not to inflame radical Muslim sentiment. A Pakistani Afghan whom I trust, told me that “bin Laden had outstayed his welcome even before September 11. He was vulnerable. Enough money would have found him.” Above all, he said, let Pashtuns do this. Do not use Tajiks.

The British and Americans are using Tajiks...
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And then there is the women's view.

Are these rapists any better than the hard-liners they replace?

EVERYONE appears pretty jubilant. Yesterday’s Sunday Times carried the headline: "Britain and US urge jubilant Alliance to march on Kabul". Forgive me if I am unable to share the joy.
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I am very sure that no Afghan wants these Northern Alliance rebels to take control of Kabul. They were the people that brought the bloodshed to Kabul, killing people who they thought were communists or Pushtun and so on.

The Taleban were awful as well. Many of them were foreigners, but at least they were not raping women.
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People are angry about the World Trade Centre, but they must not allow the Northern Alliance to come to Kabul in the same way as they did in 1992 bringing all those horrors. They may not be the Taleban, but that does not mean they are any better.
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