Afghan Commentary Post

  ده هزار سال بعد فرشتگان در تالار بزرگ آسمانی گرد هم آمده بودند. جبرئیل امین، پس از نواختن زنگ آغاز جلسه، گفت: «حضار گرامی، دستور جلسه امروز این است که ذات اقدس الهی درباره موضوعی مهم با شما سخن خواهند گفت.» سپس رو به خدا کرد و گفت: «ذات اقدس الهی، بفرمایید.» خداوند لبخندی زد و گفت: «از حضور همه شما سپاسگزارم. در جلسه گذشته شنیدم که شایعاتی در میان بعضی از فرشتگان رواج یافته است؛ شایعاتی مبنی بر اینکه گویا من پیر و فرسوده شده‌ام و عده‌ای در فکر انتخاب خدای دیگری هستند! راستش را بخواهید، این حرف‌ها مرا نمی‌رنجاند. من از این گونه شایعات بسیار شنیده‌ام. اما امروز می‌خواهم حقیقتی را برای همیشه روشن کنم. خوب گوش کنید. من بیش از آنکه یک شخص باشم، یک نمادم؛ نماد نظم و قانونی که بر سراسر هستی فرمان‌روایی می‌کند. من نه بهشتی ساخته‌ام و نه دوزخی. کسانی که در طول تاریخ خود را نماینده من بر زمین معرفی کرده‌اند، هرگز از سوی من مأموریتی نداشته‌اند. من حتی بسیاری از آنان را نمی‌شناسم. من هیچ انسانی را «بنده» خود نمی‌نامم؛ زیرا نه به بندگی کسی نیاز دارم و نه به عبادت او. من همه آفریدگان را یکسان ...

  PROLOUGE   The Checkpoint   In a searing summer, when the heat melted the asphalt, the smell of it hung in the air. A line of trucks and buses and passenger cars inched along, waiting to pass the Taliban checkpoint. A group of young boys ran alongside the moving traffic, tapping on windows — some offering bottled water, others chewing gum and maswak toothbrushes. A tall man with a long beard and long black hair resting uncombed on his shoulders, half-naked, wrapped only in the Taliban banner, ran up and down the line, tearing at his own hair, his face bloody, the blood dripping down and staining the white banner red. He had been fine a few days before. He was the commander of this checkpoint. Later, one of his mujahideen brothers described the story this way: The road between Kabul and Kandahar ran straight through Maidan Wardak, and on that stretch stood a checkpoint that had been there long enough to look like it had grown out of the ground — half mud...

  Juma Khan Fateh's rebellion grabs the headlines. The deeper threat is a government that has never earned its people's consent. Juma Khan Fateh is not the Taliban's real problem. The regime is. For the past month, Fateh, a former Taliban commander from Badakhshan, has dominated headlines after breaking with the group. A farmer, warlord, and opportunist, he took to the mountains and is said to command hundreds of fighters. His refusal of the deputy governor post in southern Zabul Province — he chose to go home instead — has been read by anti-Taliban observers as a major security threat, the start of a political earthquake in the non-Pashtun north that could, in time, bring the regime down. In a country with five decades of war behind it, anything is possible. But I don't believe Juma Khan is the greatest threat to this regime. The greater threat comes from the Taliban's own hands. Their policies are weakening the foundation of their rule the way rainwater seeps into...

  The Population Paradox: Why Afghanistan's Growth Is a Barrier to Stability Afghanistan cannot even agree with itself on how many people live within its borders. On July 11, 2026, marking World Population Day, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) put the country's population at 48.6 million. The Taliban's own National Statistics and Information Authority, using a different methodology, put the figure at 37.2 million — a gap of more than 11 million people. Independent demographic models, including the UN Population Division's World Population Prospects, converge closer to 45 million. That the country's rulers and the international community cannot settle on a shared set of facts is itself a symptom of the crisis: a state too fractured to count its own citizens is unlikely to be able to employ, educate, or feed them. In aging societies such as Japan or Germany, population growth is often welcomed as a remedy for shrinking workforces and decl...

  From Stingers to Patriots: Ukraine's Reagan Moment When President Donald Trump told Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the recent NATO summit, "We're going to give you a license to make Patriots. That's pretty cool, right?" the offhand remark masked the significance of what may become one of the most important strategic decisions of the war. If implemented, allowing Ukraine to manufacture Patriot air-defense systems would represent arguably the most consequential Western military policy shift since President Ronald Reagan approved the transfer of Stinger anti-aircraft missiles to the Afghan resistance in the 1980s. The significance lies not simply in the weapon itself, but in what the decision represents. The West is no longer merely supplying Ukraine's defense. It is helping Ukraine build the industrial capacity to sustain it. History does not repeat itself exactly, but it often rhymes. Vladimir Putin should remember how the last Kremlin leadership underestimated that ...

  Last week, Pakistan launched its deadliest strike on Afghan soil in months. Islamabad says it killed dozens of militants. Kabul says it killed civilians. Both are probably right, and both are certainly angrier. The attack lands against a grim backdrop: Pakistan now leads the Global Terrorism Index as the country most impacted by terrorism, recording 1,139 deaths and 1,045 incidents in 2025 — its worst year since 2013. The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan drove that surge, carrying out five times as many attacks as the next most active group and increasing its operations by 24 percent over the past year, almost entirely in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa near the Afghan border. Islamabad accuses Kabul's Taliban government of sheltering the TTP; Kabul, in turn, demands that Pakistan finally recognize the Durand Line as a legitimate international border. Neither side is bluffing. Neither is budging. But a decades-old pattern of proxy warfare does not require a new bilateral breakthrough — it requires ...