Th a e l i J b i a

fealty or at least gestures of tacit acceptance from most political 3) Finally, the speed of the Islamic Republic’s collapse and the leaders who remained in the country; appointed a caretaker totality of the Taliban’s takeover obscure the fact that on August government (or at least the façade of one); established a harsh, 15, the group was in quite a tenuous position, and consolidating its at time. [...] It is easy to discount the impact of this uncertainty leaders of the Western-backed Islamic Republic, or worse, that they in the aftermath of the swift defeat of the resistance mounted in were caving to the demands of foreign states. [...] Had the United States and other evacuating nations Prevention of Vice and Propagation of Virtue), the Taliban have not instilled fear without cause, as the Taliban put it, among many tacitly accepted the scope of the modern Afghan state as defined by ministry employees who sought to flee the country, the bulk of the the previous Western-backed government. [...] anchor the Taliban’s organizational culture, the greater the risk that k Another curious instance of Taliban openness to accepting a more modern in practice the authority of state ministries will be hollowed out, conception of the state came via the announcement from acting chief with the state governed by an opaque “shadow government” of the justice Abdul Hakeem that the new government would temp. [...] population in poverty by next year.86 The combination of the sudden The Taliban’s current resources appear insufficient to pay the halt in foreign assistance funding, the freeze of liquid assets, and salaries of civil servants in cities, a dilemma exacerbated by the the impact of mass displacement and other humanitarian crises United States and European nations’ freeze of billions of dollars of (i.