Ghani Under Pressure as Taliban Advance Continues

Here is today’s Foreign Policy brief: Taliban forces capture a sixth provincial capital, Western powers impose new sanctions on Belarus, and Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi signals openness to Vienna nuclear talks.

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The Taliban’s advance across Afghanistan continued on Monday with the capture of Aibak, the capital of Samangan province, marking the sixth provincial capital to fall to the group in less than a week.

Monday’s seizure was hastened by the defection of Asif Azimi—a prominent warlord with ties to the now defunct Northern Alliance—a worrying sign of shifting allegiances due to a rapidly changing situation on the ground.

In the face of the urban onslaught, the Biden administration has held firm to its plans to remove all combat troops by the end of the month. Speaking on Monday, Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby left responsibility with the Afghan government, citing the Afghan Air Force’s capabilities. “They have a lot of advantages that the Taliban don’t have. … Now, they have to use those advantages,” Kirby said. “They have to exert that leadership. And it’s got to come both from the political and from the military side.”

A lack of direction from the Afghan government is stoking panic among Afghanistan’s citizenry. Writing for Foreign Policy from Kabul on Monday, Lynne O’Donnell reported on the country’s internal exodus—putting pressure on the capital as nearly 3 million more people are expected to seek refuge there in the coming months.

Ghani in trouble. As the fighting drags on, pressure is building on President Ashraf Ghani to get a handle on the situation or get out of the way. Reports in Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal paint a picture of an isolated leader whose best hope lies in rallying support from anti-Taliban groups ahead of an all-out civil war. Presidential spokesperson Mohammad Amiri said on Monday that Ghani would “mobilize and arm” local people to take the fight to the Taliban.

A chance for peace? Despite the carnage on the ground, the United States has not given up on diplomatic channels. The State Department announced on Monday that U.S. Afghanistan envoy Zalmay Khalilzad had traveled to Doha on Sunday to “formulate a joint international response” and to “press the Taliban to stop their military offensive and to negotiate a political settlement.”

Among Afghanistan’s neighbors, the Biden administration is banking on Pakistan—a longtime haven for the Taliban—to prove decisive in any international peace effort. But, as Foreign Policy’s Michael Hirsh observed on Aug. 6, there are plenty of reasons to be wary of Islamabad’s true intentions as the Taliban surge continues.

Raisi’s first call. Iran’s new president, Ebrahim Raisi, chose to talk to his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, when making his first phone call to a Western leader on Monday, asking him to help secure Iran’s “rights” in nuclear negotiations—a sign that Tehran has not closed off the possibility of another round of talks in Vienna.

Raisi also criticized the Trump administration for withdrawing from the deal and imposing new sanctions. In a nod to recent accusations from the West on Iranian maritime attacks, Raisi said Iran was “very serious about providing security and preserving deterrence” in its surrounding waters, Iranian state media reported. Macron urged Raisi to resume the stalled negotiations and to stop nuclear activities outside the 2015 agreement, according to a statement from the French government.

9/11 disclosures. The U.S. Justice Department is reviewing classified documents relating to the 9/11 attacks, with a view of releasing them to the public, the agency said in a court filing on Monday, in a move that could exacerbate already strained ties with Saudi Arabia. The disclosure came in a long-running case against Saudi Arabia brought by the families of those killed by the mostly Saudi team of hijackers in the 9/11 attacks.

U.S. President Joe Biden welcomed the news, saying his administration was “committed to ensuring the maximum degree of transparency under the law.” Biden was told by the families of 9/11 victims not to bother showing up for 20th anniversary memorials next month if he did not move faster in declassifying the documents.

Belarus sanctions. The United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom imposed another round of sanctions on Belarus’s economy and financial sector on Monday, one year after a fraudulent election that kept President Aleksandr Lukashenko in office. Individuals targeted by the sanctions include participants in a violent crackdown on protesters last year as well as those involved in the forced landing of a Ryanair flight to arrest a Belarusian dissident in May. Speaking at a press conference on Monday, Lukashenko reacted calmly to the sanctions. “While we take it with patience, let’s sit down at the negotiating table and start talking about how to get out of this situation because we will get bogged down in it with no way back,” Lukashenko said.

North Korea tensions. Kim Yo Jong, the influential sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, has called upcoming U.S.-South Korea military drills an “unwelcome, self-destructive action” in a statement on Tuesday, accusing the country’s southern neighbor of “treacherous treatment” after recent moves to ease tensions on the Korean Peninsula. The United States and South Korea have begun laying the groundwork for computer-simulated exercises on Aug. 16-26, although South Korea’s defense ministry said on Tuesday that the scale of the exercises was still under discussion.

Canada’s “Two Michaels.” China is expected to rule as soon as Wednesday in the case of Canadian Michael Spavor, one of the so-called “Two Michaels” arrested by Chinese authorities in a move seen as retaliation for the detention of Huawei Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou by Canadian police on a U.S. extradition request. Both Spavor and another Canadian, Michael Kovrig, went on trial in March after being charged with spying. Barring diplomatic interventions, the prospects for Spavor and Kovrig’s release look dim, as Chinese courts have a near 100 percent conviction rate.