Brookings Institute senior fellow Michael O’Hanlon told CNBC that while there’s “no cause for celebration,” the current state of Afghanistan is not as bad as he predicted it would be one month after the Taliban seized power and Kabul fell.
“There has not been nearly as much killing as I would have predicted in a country where the Taliban and the government were at odds for so long … I expected a lot more revenge killing,” O’Hanlon explained during a Wednesday evening interview on “The News with Shepard Smith.” “I have to say, [it’s] less bad than I would have predicted one month into Taliban rule.”
While there are reports of less violence in some areas, the humanitarian toll in the country is becoming more dire. Foreign aid and food is running out, and the United Nations warned that one million children could starve to death.
O’Hanlon echoed the UN’s warning and pointed out to host Shepard Smith that the Afghan interim government is not inclusive and made up entirely of Taliban hardliners.
“No women, no modernists, no secularists, no reformers, no former government, so even though the amnesty that the Taliban promised seems to at least be keeping people alive, it’s not really giving them any kind of say in the new country.”
