Ahmad Massoud, the leader of the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan, recently declared he will defeat the Taliban “no matter the odds.”

For Massoud to mount a military threat to the Taliban, he would need the cooperation of the Central Asian republics, Iran or Pakistan (among others) to do the job. However, Afghanistan’s neighbors have no interest in another civil war in Afghanistan, as the violence and refugees would spill over their borders and cause economic dislocation and unrest all the way to Europe.

After two decades of U.S.-sponsored mayhem in the Hindu Kush, all the region wants is to recoup the missed opportunities of the “lost decades” of 2001-2021.

None of Afghanistan’s neighbors prefer the Taliban to any other group, and they object to the regime’s unrepresentative government and policies toward women. That said, their leaders must solve today’s problems despite their distaste for the Taliban’s retrograde ways.

The republics’ approach to Kabul has long been “neighbors forever” — or, for the pessimists, “captives of geography." Kazakhstan removed the Taliban from its terrorist list in December 2023; Uzbekistan never declared the Taliban an extremist group, and in 2018 it publicly encouraged the Taliban to start negotiations with the Islamic Republic. Turkmenistan was mum on the topic of the Taliban in line with its policy of permanent neutrality. In September 2024, the chief of Tajikistan’s security service visited Kabul for talks that were described as “productive,” and the same month the Kyrgyz Republic removed the Taliban from its list of terrorist organizations.

Afghanistan........

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