Premature
euphoria
Rashed Rahman
January 27, 2019
media reports gave the impression that six days of talks in Doha, Qatar between
the US Special Representative Zalmay Khalilzad and the Taliban had all but
delivered a peace deal for Afghanistan. The reports outlined the agreement as
consisting of the US agreeing to withdraw its troops over 18 months after the
draft agreement was signed and delivered in exchange for ‘guarantees’ by the
Taliban that Afghan soil would never again be allowed by al Qaeda, Daesh or any
other terrorist group to attack the US a la 9/11 or indeed any other foreign
country. The reported draft also spoke of the Taliban agreeing to hold talks
with the Afghan government of President Ashraf Ghani after the withdrawal of foreign
troops and a ceasefire.
It now turns out
that the euphoria over the ‘done deal’ may have been premature. The Taliban,
sensing they have the US over a barrel because of battlefield successes and the
signals from Washington that it would dearly love to get out of Afghanistan,
adopted their trademark strategy of negotiating through shifting the goalposts
every time peace seemed to be at hand or at least looked promising. They have
poured cold water over the highly optimistic twist given to the result of the
Doha talks by refuting the reports that a ceasefire and talks with the Afghan
government had been conceded. They did contend that further talks were
scheduled in Qatar on February 25, 2019, but this announcement merely served to
underline that there remained many a slip yet between the cup and the lip
before the champagne could start flowing in celebration.
Zalmay Khalilzad
is in Kabul as these lines are being written. He is briefing President Ashraf
Ghani and the Afghan government on the substance of the talks in Qatar and their
outcome. The Taliban meanwhile have indicated they too are consulting their top
leadership regarding the talks. In addition, they have delivered the troubling
message that until and unless there is a firm agreement on the foreign troops
withdrawal, there can be no progress on any other issues. The Taliban
negotiating strategy therefore boils down to getting the US to commit to a
definite withdrawal date/process before they will take up any other issue
seriously.
They say success
has many fathers, failure is an orphan. Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah
Mahmood Qureshi, along with other Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf (PTI) government
ministers have already started crowing about a huge diplomatic success for
Pakistan in facilitating the talks that have vindicated the PTI’s long standing
stance that there is no solution to the Afghan conflict except dialogue between
the contending parties. On the one hand, Qaumi Watan Party chief Aftab Ahmed
Khan Sherpao has cautioned all stakeholders to refrain from unnecessary
statements taking credit for the ‘breakthrough’ since it could jeopardise the delicately
poised negotiations. On the other, it could be argued that it is the situation
on the battlefield, where the Taliban are inflicting unsustainable losses on
the Afghan security forces and Washington having conceded its foreseeable failure
to raise, train and support the Afghan security forces to be in a position to
defeat the Taliban rather than the PTI’s talks mantra that has won the day. And
perhaps we should not overlook the role played by Pakistan in providing
sanctuary and safe havens to the Taliban in bringing about this result. The
talks arranged between Zalmay Khalilzad and the Taliban in Islamabad before the
Qatar parleys failed to achieve any results because the Taliban adamantly
refused Pakistan’s blandishments and pressure through the arrests of some Taliban
leaders in Peshawar, etc, a tactic unlikely to succeed given the character of
Afghans and particularly the Taliban.
If US Secretary
of State Mike Pompeo’s statement dubbing the developments post-Qatar talks as “encouraging”
is taken on board and stripped of its diplomatic veneer, it becomes obvious that
the US is now desperately clutching at face-saving straws to justify what will
be seen as a predictable and resounding defeat in one more foreign war that is
part of many the US has fought abroad since the Second World War to expand its
control of the globe but in which it has sometimes faced ignominious defeat. No
such debacle was bigger than the Vietnam War that ended with the US retreating
with its tail between its legs after massacring millions of the Vietnamese
people in the name of combating communism.
The US defeat in
Afghanistan leaves Washington little choice but to accept the Taliban’s assurances
regarding never again allowing Afghan soil to be used against it by terrorists
as well as their soothing noises about engaging in a peace process and possible
power sharing arrangement with the Afghan government. How cast iron any such
guarantees or soothing noises will prove only time can tell. But if the
sentiment of the Afghan people is taken on board, it shows the degree of panic
setting in at the prospect of the Taliban ascending, partially or later fully
after overthrowing the Afghan government, into power and resorting once again
to imposing their narrow, misguided and draconian interpretation of sharia on
the long suffering people of Afghanistan.
Pakistan seems
to find itself caught in a cleft stick. Since 2001 it has had to shoulder the
blame for harbouring the Taliban, now it seems unable to persuade its proxies
fully to engage in the negotiations process and arrive at a peaceful resolution
to the Afghan conflict. This is a risk inherent in the process of backing
proxies, which only works so long as the mentor and proxy are in agreement on
the goals and how to achieve them. The moment, however, divergence, strategic
or tactical, emerges between the two, the going gets sticky. This is an even
bigger risk if the proxies happen to be religious extremists and fanatics, such
as the Taliban. The whole project of pursuing foreign policy and strategic
objectives through proxy wars against neighbouring countries in the region has
long passed its sell-by date. Unfortunately, partly because there is always a
lag in trying to change direction in such a long standing and imbedded venture,
partly because the Pakistani military establishment does not want to make fresh
enemies in the shape of erstwhile proxies, the turn is throwing up greater
difficulties than were perhaps envisaged.
However, thorny
as this nestle is, it needs to be grasped firmly if Pakistan is to be rescued
from relative international isolation in the interests of reviving the
struggling economy. In today's world, interconnected and inter-dependent on
goodwill, flow of investment to a capital accumulation deficit economy like
ours, poking our fingers into proxy wars in the region no longer seems viable.
In fact, its cost-benefit ratio may well have turned negative.
rashed-rahman.blogspot.com
No comments:
Post a Comment