Differences persist?
US Special Envoy for Reconciliation in Afghanistan
Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad returned to Islamabad for meetings with Foreign
Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, outgoing Foreign Secretary Tehmina Janjua, and
the ubiquitous call on COAS General Qamar Javed Bajwa. Ostensibly, according to
reports, Zalmay Khalilzad was visiting Pakistan as part of his latest regional
tour, having spent some days in Kabul before arriving in Islamabad. He has been
shuttling between regional capitals for months now, including a marathon 16-day
negotiations session with the Afghan Taliban in Doha, Qatar, recently. Although
the Doha talks produced an agreement between the two sides for withdrawal of
all foreign troops (mostly US) and guarantees that Afghan soil would never
again be allowed to be used against the US and its allies, a la 9/11, the ‘new’
plan has yet to be explained. The only new thing to be gleaned from recent days
is the adoption by the US of the ‘Moscow Format’. This was a meeting arranged
by Russia between the Taliban and a delegation of Afghan opposition politicians
and civil society groups in Moscow, but which excluded the Afghan President Ashraf
Ghani’s government, with which the Taliban stubbornly refuse to meet since they
have declared it a US puppet. This exclusion has in turn raised sensitivities
in Kabul to the point where there was a sharp reaction from the Ghani
government to Pakistani Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan’s remarks about the need
for an interim government in Afghanistan to make possible peace and the holding
of impartial elections, a la the system we have adopted some years ago. The
spat with Kabul threatened to spin out of control, particularly when the US
Ambassador in Kabul reminded Imran Khan of the norms of diplomacy and was
trolled by our irrepressible Minister for Human Rights Shireen Mazari. In the
light of this recent controversy, PM Imran Khan should perhaps have taken note
of Kabul’s sensitivities and the delicate point at which the talks process on
Afghanistan is poised to refrain from bringing up the suggestion of an
impartial interim government in Afghanistan once again at a rally in Landi
Kotal on April 5, 2019. The PM’s intent may have been to clarify and justify
his earlier remarks, but the net result could well be more friction with the
increasingly insecure Afghan government.
While both Zalmay Khalilzad and his Pakistani interlocutors
were at pains to present an image of complete agreement and bonhomie, it is difficult
to resist the notion that in fact the diplomatese hides deep differences. For
one, the aims of the two sides vis-à-vis Afghanistan are clearly dissimilar.
While Washington wants to withdraw from an increasingly unwinnable war with as
much face saving as possible, Islamabad does not appear to have changed its
spots vis-à-vis support for the Taliban. This is perhaps what Zalmay Khalilzad
was referring to when he stated in Kabul that US-Pakistan relations could not
improve unless Islamabad changes its Afghan policy. The idea that the wolf (the
Taliban) and the lamb (the Afghan government) could somehow be persuaded to
drink from the same stream is overlaid with so much suspicion and uncertainty
that very different analyses of the likely future scenario have started making
an appearance. For example, Edward Luce, a famous author and analyst of
conflicts in a piece in The Financial Times
has drawn a comparison between what happened in 1975 when the US withdrew from
Vietnam and what may happen in Afghanistan when a similar withdrawal
transpires. Then US Secretary of State Dr Henry Kissinger had defined ‘face
saving’ for the defeated US as a ‘decent’ interval between the US withdrawal
and the collapse of Washington’s puppet regime in South Vietnam. As it
transpired however, the expected collapse happened as the last US helicopters
were leaving Saigon. Whether a similar scenario can be expected in Afghanistan
cannot be predicted with certainty, but there is enough suspicion regarding the
Taliban’s intentions when the prize they have fought so hard and so long to
attain is tantalisingly close and within their grasp. The repeated mantra of
peace and reconciliation in Afghanistan may not survive beyond the last departing
US aircraft.
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