The American University of Iraq-Baghdad (AUIB) hosted a seminar organized by AUIB Press, celebrating the release of its latest publication, the Arabic edition of “The Return of the Taliban: Afghanistan after the Americans Left,” authored by Dr. Hassan Abbas and translated to Arabic by Dr. Saad al-Hasani. The original version of the book was published by Yale University Press in 2023. A distinguished assembly of university professors and scholars, among whom were officials in a number of ministries, took part in the seminar, in addition to a host of university students, especially in International Studies.
The seminar was moderated by Dr. Abbas Kadhim, Director of the Iraq Initiative at the Atlantic Council in Washington, who discussed with the author, Dr. Hassan Abbas_ a Pakistani American researcher and Professor of International Relations at the Near East South Asia Strategic Studies Centre (NESA) of the National Defense University in Washington DC_ the developments in Afghanistan from the year 2014 till the present day. Dr. Hassan Abbas had published in 2014 the title, “The Taliban Revival: Violence and Extremism on the Pakistan-Afghanistan Frontier,” examining how the Taliban movement not only survived as an organization after the U.S. invasion in 2001 and the subsequent efforts to eradicate the movement over a period exceeding a decade, but also reorganized and regained control of large portions of the country by 2014, before reclaiming Kabul and reestablishing control over the entire country last year.
We are before “a new Afghanistan,” one that has been “forced to modernize,” as per Dr. Hassan Abbas who points out the evolution of Taliban from an organization that was mostly based in rural areas and held a “dogmatic, rigid, religious world view” to one whose leaders “have much more exposure” to life in cities such as Doha, and whose members “each has a (smart) phone in hand,” as indicators that the movement is “not as dogmatic, illiterate, or backward” as the former version of itself, and is thus open to dialogue. That last point is crucial, as, in Dr. Hassan Abbas’s view, there is a distinction to be made between Taliban’s religious elite in Kandahar, that is not much interested in recognition or dialogue, and the “pragmatists” in Kabul who are open to discussion.