Afghanistan exit: Asylum-seeker mass exodus ‘on the cards’

New warnings are being sounded of a mass exodus of refugees and asylum-seekers from Afghanistan following the withdrawal of Western forces.

Australian National University emeritus professor William Maley.

New warnings are being sounded of a mass exodus of refugees and asylum-seekers from Afghanistan following the withdrawal of Western forces amid heightened concerns the Taliban will escalate attempts to seize control of the war-torn nation.

Australian National University emeritus professor William Maley, who specialises in Afghanistan, said differences international forces had made over the past two decades were “simply huge”, their presence leading to the emergence of a more modernist, pluralist society. “Civil society is very vibrant,” Professor Maley said.

“The difference the inter­national forces made was to enable Afghans to be exposed to the forces of globalisation in a way that probably no other country in the 21st century had been.”

However, he said there was now a serious risk of a “cascading sweeping away of what has been secured over the last 20 years” and criticised the US decision to withdraw, saying it would have been possible for America to maintain a niche force in the country that would have been fiscally sustainable into the future.

Rodger Shanahan, a research fellow at the Lowy Institute, said the presence of international forces in Afghanistan had resulted in the improvement of a “whole raft of social indicators”, including in “infant mortality rates, women’s education, the creation of a middle class, increased healthcare, access to healthcare and increased access to education”.

“Those are tangible results for the people in Afghanistan. The question is are they sustainable and do they justify 20 years of conflict to implement and maintain them?” Dr Shanahan said the US withdrawal should have come as no surprise and it was impossible to “stay there forever” but ongoing support was critical to defending the advancements for Afghans.

“The devil will be in the details,” he said.

Peter Leahy, Australia’s chief of army in 2002-08, agreed the Australian presence in Afghan­istan was worthwhile because of the progress made for the people, but said “the strategy was missing” in the two-decade conflict.

“We worked to provide schools and hospitals (and) roads to give the people some hope for the future and, yes, I think it was worth it for that,” he told Sky News. “The soldiers, sailors and aviators have done a magnificent job.”

Australian Strategic Policy Institute defence director Michael Shoebridge said the coalition’s deployment to Afghanistan prevented the country from becoming the “centre of global terrorism” but the full withdrawal of US and Australian troops risked Afghanistan regressing on social progress, inclu­ding for women. “Education of children and girls is one example. It also makes it even more difficult to get some kind of political deal between the Afghan government and the Taliban,” he said.

Mr Shoebridge said the risk of a growing terror base under the Taliban was greater after foreign troops withdrew from the country but there were still “paths for the Afghan government to keep getting training and assistance and to seek help with counter-terrorism operations.”

Professor Maley said there was a real danger the foreign withdrawal would “embolden the Taliban to attempt to seize complete power … There is an associated danger that people in Afghanistan who are not supporters of the Taliban might nonetheless feel the best way to save their skin is to switch sides — not out of affection but out of prudence.”

He said one strategic consequences the US appeared not to have considered was “very large movements out of Afghanistan — far larger than we’ve seen before.”

“These are people who have seen the wider world and will probably flee Afghanistan (to) ­ Europe or other parts of the world.”