Russian mediation in Afghanistan
The first meeting of the Moscow Format, a platform created
by Russia in 2016 whose membership has grown to 11 countries, saw a galaxy of
country delegations, observers, the Taliban and Afghanistan’s High Peace
Council coming together to exchange views and positions on ending the Afghan
conflict. But the proceedings were a reminder once again of how intractable the
US’s longest running foreign war actually is. For starters, the Taliban
delegation that attended an international diplomatic conference in Russia for
the first time reiterated its long standing position that it would not
negotiate with the Kabul government but talk to the US instead, with the
withdrawal of American forces from the country the irreducible main demand. The
High Peace Council, it was clarified by President Ashraf Ghani’s government,
did not represent it as Kabul did not send an official delegation to the moot and
it simply repeated Ghani’s offer of peace talks without preconditions. The
US-led west and Kabul view the Moscow meeting with some suspicion, seeing it as
an attempt by Russia to muscle its way into a process they say must be led by
Afghanistan. Pakistan’s delegation reiterated its view that only an Afghan-led,
Afghan-owned peace process could reap results, a formulation Islamabad created
some years ago and which has found steady traction in international opinion
since by now most stakeholders and interlocutors are convinced there is no
military solution to the war. It is interesting that this view holds in the
face of the recent advances in terms of attacks, mounting casualties amongst
the Afghan government forces and territorial control gains the Taliban have
been making of late. While these battlefield successes obviously bolster the
Taliban’s confidence, they too seem to have come to the conclusion that they
cannot achieve an outright military victory over the Kabul government,
especially as long as US troops and airpower can blunt their ability to take
cities whose surrounding countryside they may dominate. A military strategic
impasse of this nature logically should boost the chances of all the contending
parties looking for alternative conflict resolution means. However, experience
shows there is still many a slip between the cup and the lip.
The US had for many years resisted the idea of direct talks
with the Taliban. However, increasing war weariness amongst the American public
and the media may have finally persuaded Washington to at least explore this
path. The appointment of Zalmay Khalilzad as the US point man this year has led
to one meeting with the Taliban office in Qatar in October. Now another meeting
in Qatar seems on the cards as part of Khalilzad’s tour of the region, during
which he will also visit Pakistan, Afghanistan and the UAE. While the tenuous
and difficult direct US-Taliban talks trundle along, Pakistan’s public stance
of promoting a peaceful, negotiated settlement still arouses suspicions and
reservations in the US and the Afghan government. This is because of the
presence of the Taliban on Pakistan’s soil since 2001. Although Islamabad has
fluctuated between outright denial of any such presence now and its argument
that the Taliban control enough territory inside Afghanistan not to need a rear
base for military operations inside Afghanistan, these suspicions and
reservations refuse to die. Islamabad’s oft-repeated concern to the US at the
Indian role in Afghanistan, where it has resurrected its traditional friendship
with Kabul through offering aid and development, has not found enough mileage
in Washington. India sent an observer to the Moscow conference for the first
time, where it sat face to face with the Taliban.
Washington may have blundered into the Afghan quagmire
following 9/11 for faulty strategic and tactical reasoning to punish the
Taliban regime for hosting and protecting Osama bin Laden, but by now, the
analysis of astute observers of the Afghan conflict over many years is proving
correct. Afghanistan confirmed its reputation as the graveyard of empires
against the Soviet occupiers and has shown the will and means to at least deny
Washington satisfaction until it tires of the unending war. Difficult as the
turn from conflict to peace still appears, all stakeholders, regional and
global, must persist with even the small openings offered by the US-Taliban
dialogue and the universal consensus that since there appears to be no military
solution to the war, diplomacy and negotiations are the only way forward. Perhaps
some combination of power sharing in Kabul and decentralised provincial
governance may restore the lost compact that the Afghan monarchy offered the
diverse and fractured country till 1973. A return to the past therefore may
ironically pave the way to a peaceful future.
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