The Taliban are set to reclaim some power in Afghanistan – if not orchestrate their own wholesale military takeover – as remaining U.S. forces prepare to withdraw and end America’s longest war by Sept. 11.

In the interim, a peace deal between the Taliban and the Afghan government in Kabul remains elusive, and the Taliban are gearing up for their annual spring offensive – even promising “every necessary countermeasure” against the United States for ignoring a May 1 pullout deadline that the militants agreed to in February 2020 with then-President Donald Trump.

It’s a vow that fits a pattern of uncompromising Taliban positions that appear to barely recognize – or to directly oppose – the dramatic social and political changes in Afghanistan since the U.S. ousted the Taliban’s self-proclaimed “Islamic Emirate” two decades ago.

And it raises questions about the danger to Afghanistan today posed by a Taliban leadership – returning after years in exile – equipped with thinking that analysts say is often still-calcified from a previous era.

Afghans have seen the results of out-of-touch outsiders returning from exile to rule, analysts say, in 1992 when faction chiefs long exiled in Peshawar, Pakistan, battled for control after the fall of President Mohammad Najibullah.

The result was a devastating civil war, further civilian exodus, and the fragmentation of the country by feuding warlords, a chaotic period that eventually gave rise to the Islamist Taliban, who seized control and ruled from 1996 to 2001.

To achieve their aims at the time, the Taliban used a heavy hand and imposed their strict interpretation of Islam – including unbending rules limiting the role of women and banning girls’ education, enforcing long beards, and even forbidding all music and photographic images of people.

There are some signs that the Taliban have evolved in their thinking, to accommodate changes in Afghanistan. But there are many other signs that echo a previous, violent era – from an assassination campaign that in recent months has killed scores of journalists, civil society activists, and government officials, to Taliban propaganda declaring continued jihad against the Western-backed Afghan government and “victory” over a superpower.

The Taliban’s Voice of Jihad website is among those that raise red flags for Afghan activists about the Taliban’s post-U.S.-withdrawal intentions. An article posted Wednesday, for example, titled “Feminism as colonial tool,” suggests that feminism for decades justified “invasion, subjugation and bullying of Muslims.”

“Western cries of ‘women’s rights’ appear a harmless demand,” the Taliban author states. “But when coupled with the incompatibility of much of these rights with the Islamic religion, their destructive effects on human society … and the dangerous agendas for Muslim societies curtained behind them, a more sinister perspective emerges.”

Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP

Former Afghan President Hamid Karzai (second from left) looks as members of the Taliban delegation arrive at an international peace conference in Moscow, March 18, 2021. Russia hosted the peace conference, bringing together Afghan government representatives and their Taliban adversaries along with regional observers in a bid to help jump-start the country's stalled peace process.

Also emblematic of the Taliban’s unwavering stance is their insistence on the term “Islamic Emirate,” the name of its regime in the late 1990s.

The Taliban “want everything, even this ‘Islamic Emirate,’ which could be changed to anything and doesn’t carry any value. But just to prove their point, they’re even sticking to that,” says Rahmatullah Amiri, a Kabul-based analyst who closely studies the Taliban.

“Imagine, if in these two years of this hardcore negotiation [with the U.S.], the Taliban didn’t even change that, which they can change in a minute,” says Mr. Amiri. “If I am not willing to change even the name, which is superficial, why would I be willing to change the content?”

American acquiescence is evident in the 2020 U.S.-Taliban deal, which refers 16 times to the Taliban with the unwieldy phrase “the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan which is not recognized by the United States as a state and is known as the Taliban.”

Taliban insistence on “Emirate,” without clarifying its import, even prompted a rare joint rebuke by the U.S., Russia, China, and Pakistan, who stated in March they “did not support the restoration of the Islamic Emirate.”

“Bringing back people who have been outside of the country for a long time, and who are ideologues, is a recipe for disaster,” said Thomas Barfield, professor of anthropology at Boston University and president of the American Institute of Afghanistan Studies, in a recent webinar.

“It looks like we are going to make the same mistake as in 1992, and invite some of these Taliban who have not seen Afghanistan for 20 years,” said Professor Barfield. “The Afghanistan that they remember no longer exists. It doesn’t. If they fly into Kabul, that is not a recognizable city from the ruins they left, nor is the population, its education, its communications.”

“These are not exactly people who are prone to compromise, or who even understand what Afghanistan’s problems are going to be,” said Professor Barfield.

Already, those challenging characteristics have marked the Trump-Taliban deal. The February 2020 agreement required mandatory withdrawal dates for U.S. and NATO forces, but few concrete commitments by the Taliban, other than preventing Afghan soil from being used for terrorist attacks abroad, severing ties with Al Qaeda, and not attacking foreign forces.

The Taliban also committed to “start” intra-Afghan peace talks, with a cease-fire “on the agenda.” Yet since signing the deal – and despite an unwritten promise to reduce violence by 80%, according to the U.S. side – the Taliban have kept up attacks on Afghan forces.

This month the Taliban refused to attend a U.S.-initiated conference in Turkey meant to jump-start the intra-Afghan peace talks that have stalled for months in Doha, Qatar.

Sapidar Palace/AP

Abdullah Abdullah, chairman of the High Council for National Reconciliation (center right), walks with Secretary of State Antony Blinken at the Sapidar Palace in Kabul, Afghanistan, April 15, 2021. Mr. Blinken visited to sell Afghan leaders and a wary public on President Joe Biden's decision to withdraw all American troops from the country.

With President Joe Biden affirming that the U.S. withdrawal will proceed, administration officials publicly are shrugging off concerns for the Afghan government.

“I do not believe the government is going to collapse or the Taliban is going to take over,” U.S. envoy Zalmay Khalilzad told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Tuesday. The Pentagon reportedly plans to send a 650-strong force in coming days to “protect” the pullout of some 2,500 U.S. and 7,000 other NATO troops.

Yet the annual U.S. intelligence analysis of global threats, published earlier this month, takes a darker view.

Prospects for a peace deal “will remain low” for the next year, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence assessed. The Afghan government “will struggle to hold the Taliban at bay if the coalition withdraws support,” it noted. And while Kabul continues to face battlefield setbacks, “the Taliban is confident it can achieve military victory.”

That is not news to Afghanistan analysts, who point to high Taliban expectations of triumph, expressed in a steady barrage of statements. Responding on April 15 to President Biden’s declaration of the September withdrawal date, for example, the Taliban said U.S. “warmongering circles have failed,” and that the Taliban “will under no circumstance ever relent on … establishment of a pure Islamic system.”

Taliban fighters have been promised complete military victory. The Taliban’s supposed partner for peace – the Western-backed government of President Ashraf Ghani – is “corrupt and illegitimate” and “must be replaced with an Islamic government.”

Meanwhile, years of increasingly effective insurgency already have brought the Taliban to control or have influence over more than half of Afghanistan today. They say their emirate was “taken from them” in 2001, and that victory now means their emirate must be given back, completely, says Mr. Amiri, the Kabul-based analyst.

“The issue with the Taliban being so stubborn is that there’s no peak to Taliban success,” he adds, noting that most insurgencies reach a point where they recognize that “this is all we can do.” But for the Taliban, “every year they get more territory, they get more success … so that makes it quite challenging.”

Yet even if an unconditional U.S. departure removes the leverage of foreign troops, other pressure points remain, including the Taliban’s long-standing desire for international recognition and sanctions relief.

“The enemy gets a vote on the battlefield, but not in the Security Council,” says Barnett Rubin, a former senior adviser on Afghanistan to U.S. and United Nations envoys, in an analysis written last month for the United States Institute of Peace.

There are nevertheless limits, notes Mr. Rubin, now at New York University, to how much influence diplomatic pressure can have.

Being “accepted as partners in ruling Afghanistan” would require them to “make difficult decisions that they have thus far avoided,” he says. “Negotiations … over a future political road map for the country cannot succeed if the Taliban behave as they did in the 1990s.”

Alex Brandon/AP/File

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer celebrate after signing the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill on Capitol Hill in Washington, March 10, 2021. The bill was popular with voters, but did not win any Republican votes in the Senate.

The last time Joe Biden gave a big speech on Capitol Hill, moderate Republican lawmakers were buoyed by what they heard. The newly sworn-in president might be a Democrat, but he had spent 36 years in the Senate. He understood Congress and how deals were done. On that blustery January day, as their former colleague talked of unity, hopes for bipartisan cooperation soared.

Tonight, as President Biden marks nearly 100 days in office with an address to a joint session of Congress, many Republicans are far more wary. Some say they feel rebuffed – or worse, like they’ve been used as window dressing for a White House that has no genuine interest in bipartisanship. 

“The administration should be on notice that the Lucy-and-the-football play can’t be run too many more times until people stop playing football with the administration,” says Sen. Todd Young of Indiana, one of 10 GOP moderates courted by the White House.

Mr. Biden’s campaign promise to be a president for all Americans – one who wanted results, not a revolution – set him apart from primary rivals like Sens. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. He was Uncle Joe, the genial dealmaker who would turn down the temperature in Washington and temper the policy ambitions of the progressive left. 

But in his first three months in office, he has been pushing through an ambitious agenda that expands the reach of government on everything from manufacturing to health insurance – so far without any Republican votes. “All of the sudden he’s trying to outdo FDR and LBJ combined,” says one GOP Senate aide, speaking on background.

The White House has called this approach “bipartisan” because it has incorporated some Republican ideas and garnered the support of some Republican voters, mayors, and governors.  

Andrew Harnik/AP

White House press secretary Jen Psaki speaks during a press briefing at the White House in Washington, April 15, 2021.

“Bipartisanship is not determined by a single ZIP code in Washington, D.C.,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said at a briefing last month. “It’s about where the American people sit and stand.”

Allies on the left are championing this redefinition of bipartisanship as a breakthrough. They say it will allow them to finally get things done for the American people and not be held hostage by GOP senators demanding compromise before they will sign onto legislation – something Democrats contend led to many “Lucy-and-the-football” moments for their side during the Obama years. Under this concept of “Main Street bipartisanship,” the White House points to polls showing the general popularity of the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill, which gave most Americans a $1,400 stimulus check and infused state and local governments with funding after a rough year. 

“We consider that a huge framing victory,” says Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, which has advanced the concept of Main Street bipartisanship. “It takes away all the leverage that [Senate Minority Leader] Mitch McConnell has.”

But Republicans warn that Democrats are misreading the broader political environment, and say that if the White House continues to shut GOP lawmakers out, they could be courting a backlash in the 2022 midterms. GOP pollster Bill McInturff has found that Republican antipathy toward Mr. Biden is nearly equivalent to that of Democratic voters toward former President Donald Trump at about this time in his presidency. The difference – for now at least – is independent voters, who view Mr. Biden more favorably than they did Mr. Trump. 

Political realities in Congress may also impel a change in approach. With the COVID-19 relief bill, Mr. Biden and his Senate allies relied on a fast-track mechanism that allows Democrats to pass budget-related bills with only a simple majority rather than the usual 60-vote threshold. But it can only be used a handful of times.

“They have the votes and so therefore they didn’t need us,” says Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, who called Mr. Biden’s efforts at bipartisanship on COVID-19 relief “totally insincere.”

“I think if they need votes, they’ll be sincere.”

“No genuine outreach”

Senators Cassidy and Young were among 10 Republicans whom President Biden invited to the White House for what the senators thought would be earnest negotiations. They felt the president genuinely listened to their ideas, and said he seemed receptive toward their proposal for a $618 billion package that focused more narrowly on specific forms of COVID-19 relief, including funding for testing and vaccination, and limited stimulus payments to people in a slightly lower income range. 

The very next day, Democrats announced they would be proceeding with their $1.9 trillion bill through the fast-track process, known as budget reconciliation. They wouldn’t need a single GOP vote.

“There was no genuine outreach or working together. It discourages a lot of us because we want to work with them,” says Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio, who was part of the meeting. 

Evan Vucci/AP

President Joe Biden speaks during a Cabinet meeting in the White House in Washington, April 1, 2021. From left, Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Mr. Biden, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. Mr. Biden will mark his 100th day in office on April 29.

While he says it was “courageous” of Mr. Biden to run a primary campaign on promises of working with Republicans and Democrats alike and getting back to a truly bipartisan style of governing, he adds, “We just haven’t seen it yet.”

Last week, the Democratic National Committee pointed to a poll showing that 70% of Americans support the American Rescue Plan, including 48% of Republicans and 73% of independents, though other polls have shown considerably lower support. GOP mayors from Arizona to Michigan also welcomed the initiative. Not one of the Senate’s 50 Republicans – whom Democrats have criticized as obstructionist at a time of urgent need amid a pandemic and related economic downturn – voted for the COVID-19 relief bill.

Senate Democrats say the COVID-19 bill actually included elements proposed by Republicans, such as Mississippi Sen. Roger Wicker’s Restaurant Revitalization Fund, and is popular with many Republicans across the country. If Republican senators as a whole ultimately decided not to support the bill, that was a political calculation, says Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia.

“If the content includes significant chunks of legislation that were bipartisan; if it’s popular with Republicans; if Republican stakeholders, mayors, and governors, U.S. Chamber of Commerce like it – then, yeah, I think it is bipartisan,” says Senator Kaine. “I don’t think Biden gets held responsible for [Republicans’] strategic call” to oppose it.

Now Mr. Biden has unveiled a $2.2 trillion infrastructure and jobs plan, which Republicans have panned as another liberal wish list since only about 15% of it would go toward traditional forms of infrastructure like roads, bridges, ports, and water systems. Tonight, he is expected to unveil a $1.8 trillion American Families Plan.

When asked earlier this month if he will have failed on his promise of bipartisanship if he can’t get Republicans on board with his infrastructure plan, Mr. Biden reiterated that he was willing to work with them. As evidence, he pointed to his meeting with the 10 GOP senators on the COVID-19 bill, saying he would have been willing to arrive at a compromise but that the senators proposing a more modest package “didn’t move an inch. Not an inch.”

The comment – made publicly, by the president himself – stung. 

“It’s like someone spitting in your face and then telling the world that it rained on you,” says another GOP Senate aide, speaking on background. 

Glimmers of cooperation, on some issues

To be sure, not all hope is lost for bipartisan cooperation. Both Mr. Biden and Senate Republicans continue to voice support for the idea, and bipartisan discussions are taking place on guns and infrastructure. Democratic Sen. Mazie Hirono’s recent bill to address hate crimes against Asian Americans passed the Senate 94-1 after nearly two weeks of bipartisan discussions. Senator Hirono credited GOP Sen. Susan Collins of Maine with helping her to broaden support for the bill while retaining its core purpose.

Democratic Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware, who filled Mr. Biden’s seat in the Senate when the latter became vice president and is a close ally, says the president’s calls for bipartisanship are not only genuine but imperative.

“Joe Biden has served in this body 36 years. He understands, better than anybody, that durable solutions are bipartisan solutions,” says Senator Coons, noting that the former vice president also dealt with GOP obstruction to President Barack Obama’s agenda. “So he actually understands ... both how hard it is to make progress in the face of partisan division, and how important it is.”

Many GOP senators say they’re willing to work across the aisle. If the administration sincerely wants to unify the public around common policy priorities, “then I will be on the front lines of that effort,” says Senator Young, who is working on a bipartisan bill with Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to keep America competitive vis-à-vis China. But, he adds, “If this is window dressing for a profligate spending spree that our children and grandchildren will be paying off, this United States senator will cease to take any part in it, in fairly short order.”

And they say they will be listening carefully as Mr. Biden delivers his address tonight. 

“I want to hear him outline clearly a commitment to bipartisanship in pursuing the remainder of his agenda,” said Senator Collins in a statement to the Monitor, adding that she liked the president’s inaugural address but has yet to see those calls for unity put into practice. “I want to see him pledge to be the unifier that he promised us he would be, and outline specific steps on how he plans to accomplish that.”

Senator Portman also expressed hope that the speech would address bipartisanship.

“But,” he adds, “I’ll be much more interested in seeing what actually happens. Words matter, but action matters more.”

Mustafa Kamaci/Turkish Presidency/AP

World leaders virtually attend the opening session of the Leaders Summit on Climate, called by President Joe Biden to raise global ambition on climate change. The new U.S. leader has reversed many of his predecessor's foreign policies, but will need bipartisan consensus on America's world role to make his legacy stick.

President Joe Biden’s first 100 days is a landmark that’s drawing attention abroad, as well as at home. And the signs are that friend and foe alike have concluded that he is delivering what he pledged when he took office: reengaging America as a leading force on the international stage.

Yet there’s an elephant in the room. Quite literally, because the elephant in question is the symbol of America’s Republican Party – still in the grip of former President Donald Trump, who took a very different view of foreign affairs. With midterm congressional elections just 18 months away, and another presidential vote two years later, both allies and rivals are keenly aware that America’s new engagement and leadership may not be set in stone.

The seismic shift Mr. Biden has already effected was vividly on show last week when he hosted some 40 world leaders at a virtual summit to reinvigorate the 2015 Paris Agreement on combating climate change. Mr. Trump dismissed human-made global warming as a hoax, and pulled the U.S. out of the Paris accord.

Allies were especially effusive in welcoming the new president’s approach. German Chancellor Angela Merkel professed herself “delighted to see that the United States is back to work together with us.” Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi declared, “It’s a complete change. Now we are confident that together we will win this challenge.”

Even potential holdouts were supportive. Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro, a fulsome admirer of Mr. Trump, praised President Biden for convening the meeting. In the wake of considerable pre-summit diplomacy by U.S. officials, he announced a new commitment to rein in deforestation in the Amazon.

Equally striking were remarks from the leaders of America’s main rivals, China and Russia. Neither Chinese leader Xi Jinping nor Russian President Vladimir Putin touched on the major areas of tension with the Biden administration, which had some pundits predicting they might not show up at all. Instead, they pledged support for the international cooperation on climate change that Mr. Biden was hoping to galvanize.

The only sting in the tail? Mr. Xi’s pointed allusion to Mr. Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris Agreement. Cooperation on climate change, he said, hinged on the assumption that “we must honor commitments, not go back on promises.”

The question that comment raised – the “elephant in the room” question on everyone’s minds – was whether a future American administration might not reverse course again.

Because the lesson other countries have drawn from the past two U.S. administrations is that America’s appetite for leadership, even for sustained involvement in the wider world, may ultimately hinge on the course of domestic U.S. politics.

To some degree, that’s always been true. “America first” isolationism has ebbed and flowed for more than a century: dogging President Woodrow Wilson’s failed effort to champion the League of Nations after World War I, challenging Franklin D. Roosevelt’s support for America’s entry into World War II, and questioning the role of America as the nascent superpower after that war.

Nevertheless, U.S. engagement and leadership enjoyed bipartisan backing throughout the Cold War, in a consensus that generally held until the turn of the 21st century.

What particularly unsettled U.S. allies about Mr. Trump’s administration was its unprecedented lurch away from foreign-policy-as-usual. It wasn’t so much any one particular policy change as the active denigration of long-standing partnerships and withdrawals from international agreements in which Washington had played a leading role.

Can foreign policy bipartisanship be rekindled? Perhaps. That’s actually been happening on two top-priority foreign policy issues: U.S. relations with China and Russia. Yet in areas like climate change, not so much, at least not yet.

The deeper challenge for Biden’s next 100 days, and beyond, is whether U.S. foreign policy can be insulated from bitter partisan battles over domestic politics.

In other words, whether Mr. Biden succeeds in another of his inaugural priorities: healing divisions at home and bringing the country closer together.

In the meantime, on the world stage, he is steaming ahead, cementing his commitment to active international reengagement. He’ll be going to Britain in June for the summit of the Group of Seven, made up of economically developed countries. Then he’ll head to Brussels to meet NATO leaders. The U.S. is also emerging as a key player in preparations for the Paris follow-up conference on climate change to be hosted by British Prime Minister Boris Johnson later this year.

He is leaving rivals like China and Russia, and less reliable allies such as Brazil and Turkey, in no doubt as to Washington’s new international resolve. Mr. Bolsonaro experienced that firsthand, in the form of U.S. pressure before last week’s climate summit to deliver a tangible commitment to tackle a problem he has long played down.

A few days ago, Mr. Biden sent a similar political message to Turkey, which has angered the U.S. and other NATO partners by purchasing anti-aircraft batteries from Russia. The U.S. president broke a decadeslong taboo, and ignored Turkish political sensitivities, when he explicitly referred to the Turks’ early-20th-century massacre of Armenians as genocide.

That comment cannot be unsaid, no matter what follows the Biden administration. But U.S. allies are waiting for more than that. Only when they see Republicans and Democrats agree on America’s role in the world will they be reassured.

An American soldier who had served with U.S. Army Rangers in Afghanistan, calling from a brutal war zone, launched Gayle Tzemach Lemmon on her latest book, “The Daughters of Kobani.”

“She said, ‘You have to get here. You have to come see what’s happening.’”

Women in Syria were fighting on the front line against the Islamic State (ISIS), serving as snipers, tacticians, and battlefield commanders. Through the Syrian Kurdish Women’s Protection Units, or YPJ, they were leading both men and women into battle. Some guys didn’t love the idea – at first. But they came around. Most strikingly, says Ms. Lemmon, “was that these women truly had the respect of the men they were commanding.” 

The women were fighting for their lives against ISIS, true, but also for their own equality: The YPJ was created in 2013 with a goal not simply of destroying a brutal terrorist organization, but of building a democratic and egalitarian society – and of defending the women of their region whenever they faced persecution.

Ms. Lemmon spoke with Monitor correspondent Anna Mulrine Grobe.

Q: Talk a bit about what these women’s lives were like before joining the YPJ.

There’s Rojda, whose uncle dressed up like a ghost to try to scare her away from playing soccer in her grandmother’s village, which he considered shameful for girls. She ended up commanding 4,000 soldiers – Arab and Kurdish, men and women – as the commander of the western front line in Raqqa [the capital of ISIS’s self-described caliphate in Syria].

Znarin is another amazing example, a decidedly naive entrant into militia life. She grew up in a conservative family – she’d never before heard the phrase “women’s rights” – but she wanted to go to university and dreamed of being a doctor. When she was 17, her father told her that he didn’t mind her getting an education, but his older brother did. He said, “Your uncle says that’s not for the women in our family.” A couple of years later, she fell in love, but her father comes to her again and says, “I’m sorry, your uncle has already picked out someone for you.” She refused.

She thought, “If I can’t marry the person I love, I’m never going to marry” – which is a huge act of defiance in a traditional society. For her, it was all about choice and dignity.

She goes from being part of a political movement focused on women’s equality to playing this role in the liberation of her hometown from ISIS, and having girls come up to her and see her as a role model. It’s a universal story for so many women – of turning a no into a yes, and rewriting the rules of a life that you didn’t play a part in writing.

Q: Their political inspiration is Abdullah Öcalan, who has been in a Turkish jail since 1999 for fomenting a Kurdish separatist movement. How is he an inspiration to the female fighters, and how is women’s equality central to his teachings? Also, how does a Vermont socialist come to play a role in all this? 

Here is this man, Öcalan, who, for the Syrian Kurds, lives in the public imagination somewhere between Nelson Mandela and George Washington. He came from a poor family of farmers with seven children, including a beloved sister who was married off for some money and several sacks of wheat.

It was central to his teachings that Kurdish society couldn’t be free until women were free. So women’s equality wasn’t on the periphery, as happens so often in politics. In this case, the notion that women should have full and equal rights was at the core of his ideology 

So you have a Kurdish liberation movement leader – Öcalan – who, sitting in prison, reads a former communist turned anarchist turned social ecologist living in Vermont – Murray Bookchin, [who advocated for equality between men and women]. These ideas converge with women at the center in a sliver of land in Syria recognized by no one outside its borders – but catapulted onto the global stage by the United States – because they offer the world’s best hope of stopping ISIS. 

Q: For them it really was an existential battle. If they didn’t win, their lives – literally and metaphorically – would be taken from them. In the midst of battle, they hear ISIS fighters saying over the radio, “Women, surrender,” and another telling a female commander, “I’m going to behead you, Azeema.” In spite of their fear, you write that you’d never seen women more comfortable with power and less apologetic about running things. 

I have thought a lot about the why behind this. They tested themselves, day in and day out, against one of the most brutal fighting forces the world has ever seen. They couldn’t separate the political piece from the fighting; without the military victories, the political experiment could not take hold. They believed – as one fighter put it – that “if we can lead in battle, we can govern in peace and no one can question that.” To win means living in a world where you [don’t] have to survive under the horrors of ISIS and their political structure. And it would also mean showing girls and women around the world what women can do. 

Q: And the YPJ soldiers were closely watched on the world stage. The wives and partners of U.S. special operations teams on the ground in Syria followed their battles on social media, right?

So many people spoke with me about this, because they were so deeply moved by the courage and the heart of these women, including the U.S. special operations forces. One of them said, “At the beginning, I wasn’t sure what it would be like working with them. But their warrior ethos is the same – we kind of want our daughters to be like them.”

It was new for the special operations teams that their families would be following their work in real time and rooting for them. Some of their partners went on social media to learn more about Rojda and the others, and started following them on Twitter and Facebook.

Their families were very much like the American public, watching this David versus Goliath story play out – except that David was a woman. 

Paul A. Hebert/Invision/AP/File

Currently an adjunct senior fellow for women and foreign policy at the Council on Foreign Relations, Gayle Tzemach Lemmon arrives at the International Women’s Media Foundation’s 2013 Courage in Journalism Awards at The Beverly Hills Hotel on Oct. 29, 2013, in Beverly Hills, California.

Q: How did this change the way the men in the region – and within their own families – saw women?

It’s much harder to say women aren’t equal, or women don’t merit equal rights, when you’re watching them put their lives on the line every single day for you. And that camaraderie, respect, and courage on the battlefield is what enabled more of this notion of equality to take hold.

To watch your family members protect your people from the existential threat of the Islamic State, it really makes you question all the limits that have been placed on women’s lives, because you can see for yourself how much they’re capable of.

In the case of Znarin’s uncle [who had forbidden her from attending university], and Rojda’s uncle [who once dressed up like a ghost to keep her from playing soccer], the fact that they now ask their nieces for advice about family and real estate matters – and that they call them friends – says everything. 

Q: You grapple with some questions in your book, like “Does it take violence to stop violence against women? Will real equality be possible only when women take up arms?” What conclusions did you come to about this?

I want readers to contend with these questions. I don’t want to give the answers, because I really hope that they’ll embrace the complexity.

Reuters

A shipment of medical supplies from the United Kingdom arrives in New Delhi, India, April 27.

Now the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic, India has received extraordinary offers of aid from other countries. Even archrival Pakistan made a goodwill gesture to help relieve its neighbor’s unprecedented health crisis. Some aid is being given for political or strategic reasons. After all, the world’s largest democracy, with 1.3 billion people and the fifth-largest economy, is difficult to ignore. Yet look closer and you’ll see another motive at work: an appreciation for India’s past generosity.

As for its aid, the U.S. says it is simply being grateful. “Just as India sent assistance to the United States as our hospitals were strained early in the pandemic, we are determined to help India in its time of need,” President Joe Biden said in a tweet (India also sent aid after Hurricane Katrina in 2005).

Since the coronavirus crisis began last year, India has assisted more than 100 vulnerable countries with supplies and training. Its open heart has opened the hearts of others. “It’s time for the world to extend aid & support to India,” tweeted Volkan Bozkir, president of the United Nations General Assembl. For his part, Secretary-General António Guterres said the U.N. was “extremely grateful” to India.

It was not always thus for India.

Only in the past two decades has it warmed up to being one of the world’s “donor” countries, helping mitigate the impact of foreign disasters and health emergencies. The more it has seen itself as a major power, the more India has embraced a moral obligation to assist other countries, especially as a first responder in food supplies, evacuations, and equipment.

Indian officials cite a spiritual basis for such aid in a Hindu term, daan, translated as “charity without motive.” In a speech in mid-April, the external affairs minister of India, Dr. S. Jaishankar, said, “Even before the pandemic, India has been providing humanitarian assistance, disaster resistance to all. We have demonstrated in a practical manner, our belief that the world is a family.”

Perhaps the turning point for India was its response to the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami. Its navy sent relief to coastal states hit by the tragedy, such as Indonesia and Sri Lanka. In 2015, it launched a large aid effort to Nepal after an earthquake. It has also assisted Iran during a locust attack, sent food supplies to South Sudan, and given flood relief to Cambodia and Vietnam.

Like other major donor nations, India sometimes withholds aid for strategic reasons or dispenses it as a display of soft power. But says Dr. Jaishankar, “We work ... on facing disasters together.”

No wonder so many countries now want to assist India. It has graciously accepted much of the aid, with little regard for whether it comes from friend or foe. Such giving is more than a type of mutual-aid society. When done out of gratitude, it also points to a greater good available to all, with no expectation of reciprocity or credit.