The Taliban\u2019s swagger is unmistakable. From the recent bellicose speech of their deputy leader, boasting of \u201cconquests,\u201d to sneering references to the \u201cforeign masters\u201d of the \u201cillegitimate\u201d Kabul government, to the Taliban\u2019s own website tally of \u201cpuppets\u201d killed \u2014 Afghan soldiers \u2014 they are promoting a bold message:<\/p>\n
We have already won the war.<\/p>\n
And that belief, grounded in military and political reality, is shaping Afghanistan\u2019s volatile present. On the eve of talks in Turkey next month over the country\u2019s future, it is the elephant in the room: the half-acknowledged truth that the Taliban have the upper hand and are thus showing little outward interest in compromise, or of going along with the dominant American idea, power-sharing.<\/p>\n
While the Taliban\u2019s current rhetoric is also propaganda, the grim sense of Taliban supremacy is dictating the response of a desperate Afghan government and influencing Afghanistan\u2019s anxious foreign interlocutors. It contributes to the abandonment of dozens of checkpoints and falling morale among the Afghan security forces, already hammered by a \u201cnot sustainable\u201d casualty rate of perhaps 3,000 a month, a senior Western diplomat in Kabul said.<\/p>\n
Read it all<\/a>.<\/p>\n While the Taliban\u2019s current rhetoric is also propaganda, the grim sense of Taliban supremacy is dictating the response of a desperate Afghan government and influencing Afghanistan\u2019s anxious foreign interlocutors. https:\/\/t.co\/bvehHT6CIe<\/a><\/p>\n — New York Times World (@nytimesworld) March 31, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n \n