THE swiftness with which Kabul fell to the Taliban without a shot being fired has taken the world by surprise. The Afghan Taliban now control the entire country and will dominate whatever interim government ultimately takes shape. With former president Ashraf Ghani fleeing Afghanistan, it is not clear how many of the key people who constituted his government would be acceptable to the Taliban in the new set-up.

An important delegation comprising non-Pakhtun Afghan leaders who once belonged to the Northern Alliance, held talks with Pakistani officials in Islamabad on Monday and it is expected that they would engage the Taliban to explore avenues for joining the new government. This holds great significance because it would be in the interest of the Taliban, and of the entire Afghan leadership, to agree to a broad-based, fully representative government that can bring all ethnicities and factions together to forge a consensus on how to govern together.

Read: Afghanistan is at the crossroads, yet again

It is too early to tell whether such an arrangement can take shape. However, what is fairly clear is that the Taliban, militarily victorious as they are, cannot expect to gain international credibility and recognition if they do not reach out to their former rivals. In addition, the Taliban have to also prove that they have changed since the last time they ruled Afghanistan. The global appetite for their brand of governance, marked by severe curtailment of women’s rights and rampant violations of human rights, is running thin. They now control a war-ravaged country that desperately needs international assistance to subsist.

The Taliban may feel flush with their victory, but they must realise that governing Afghanistan will require more than military muscle and grit. They have done well to engage key players like the United States, China, Russia, Pakistan and Iran, but from here onwards they will also have to display a behaviour that is acceptable not just to these countries but to the international community as a whole. It is in this respect that the Taliban should waste little time in establishing a broad-based set-up and show by their actions that they respect the rights of women. The world will be keenly looking especially at how the Taliban react towards girls’ education. So far the level of violence has been low. The Taliban will need to maintain this peace and calm even as they consolidate their position.

The grim images of Afghans crowding departing American aircraft at the Kabul airport, hanging on to the planes as they took off and falling to their deaths will remain etched in the world’s memory for a very long time. They will continue to haunt the memory of those policymakers who believed spending $83bn on the Afghan military would produce a force capable of withstanding the Taliban onslaught. There are sobering lessons in this for those willing to learn.

Published in Dawn, August 17th, 2021