Barnett Rubin is the author of numerous publications on Afghanistan, including his recent book, Afghanistan: What Everyone Needs to Know, which from my perspective, just superbly serves its purpose of providing a concise and interesting summary of what Americans should know about Afghanistan.
Rubin had an op-ed in the Washington Post yesterday, about the coming humanitarian disaster in Afghanistan.
Here are a few quoted paragraphs from what he says:
The United States and other aid donors have responded to the Taliban takeover by stopping the flow of financial aid and freezing Afghanistan’s reserves and other financial accounts. Yet Afghanistan is one of the poorest and most aid-dependent countries in the world. An internal document of the World Food Program warns that, “A humanitarian crisis of incredible proportions is unfolding before our eyes. Conflict combined with drought and covid-19 is pushing the people of Afghanistan into a humanitarian catastrophe.”
...
A former official familiar with government operations told me that, in addition to health workers, no other civil servants were paid in Afghanistan last month. He added that the ministry of finance, which funds the government payroll, is shuttered. That means that virtually all providers of essential services — both government-funded civil servants and employees of foreign-funded nongovernmental organizations — are unemployed. The official suggested that international financial institutions may be able to use some existing mechanisms to get the ministry of finance working without funding the Taliban.
Meanwhile, Afghanistan has no government. The Taliban’s deputy leader, Abdul Ghani Baradar, who led the group’s negotiations with the United States in Qatar, is now in Kabul, negotiating with former president Hamid Karzai and Abdullah Abdullah, who headed the former government’s talks with the Taliban, about the formation of a new government. These talks are likely to drag on as the Taliban takes a hard line and seeks to consolidate its unexpected victory.
The people of the country need assistance desperately. Even if there is no government to recognize or no government worthy of recognition, international organizations have experience delivering humanitarian aid in areas controlled by unrecognized authorities. That may require establishing U.N. humanitarian corridors to allow people to flee and to deliver aid to areas beyond Kabul. It may require supporting some government institutions with whatever safeguards can be put in place. Even as the United States uses its dwindling influence to affect the political outcome, it is vital to mobilize all possible international resources to rescue Afghanistan from an even worse humanitarian crisis.