The Taliban’s victory in Afghanistan is not surprising, former Czech President Václav Klaus believes. In a new statement from his institute sent to the Echo24 daily, he said that the West now suffers the consequences of exporting and enforcing its culture in countries that were not suitable for it.
“The defeat of the West, which we are watching in Afghanistan today, is also a defeat of Czech foreign policy, and we should be able to admit it,” says the ex-president.
According to Klaus, international organizations and world powers have underestimated the situation in Afghanistan.
“It is proof of the hypocrisy of those who profited profusely from the two-decades-long war and were interested in prolonging it, regardless of the results,” states the Václav Klaus Institute.
The radical Islamist movement Taliban entered the capital of Kabul on Sunday after gradually occupying the most important Afghan cities. Subsequently, it announced that the war in Afghanistan was over. In the meantime, hundreds of diplomats and their families are evacuated from Kabul. On top of that, thousands of Afghans are also trying to flee the capital.
The institute of the former president stated that it rejects the interventionism of Western countries, which is weak compared to traditional Afghan ideas about the organization of society.
“The speed of the collapse of the puppet pro-Western Afghan government and its army well-equipped by the West shows that its support in the country was nonexistent. On the contrary, the high morale of the Taliban fighters confirmed the authentic strength of the resistance against the occupiers and the firm rooting of the Taliban in the country and its traditions. That is not surprising. Afghanistan is returning to a regime that corresponds to the character of local society more than experiments with the export of liberal democracy. Therefore, let’s not allow hysterical efforts to abuse the situation in Afghanistan to start a new wave of mass migration to Europe,” warned the institute.
Title image: Vaclav Klaus, A former Czech prime minister and president, speaks at a conference inaugurating a conservative new university in Warsaw, Poland, Friday, May 28, 2021. The founders say the university is meant as a counterweight to liberal institutions, including the Central European University, which was founded by the liberal Hungarian-American investor George Soros, and which recently relocated from Budapest to Vienna under pressure from Hungary’s nationalist conservative government. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)
