Afghan peace
deal on the skids
Rashed Rahman
The difficult,
tortuous peace process in Afghanistan through talks between the US and the
Taliban in Doha, Qatar, has come to an abrupt and unexpected halt. At this
point, it is difficult to say whether the talks have been permanently halted or
will begin again. To recount how things have reached this pass, we need to
review the talks process and its ups and downs.
While US Special
Envoy Zalmay Khalilzad has held nine (and the recent half) rounds of talks with
the Taliban in Doha, he has been at pains to retain an optimistic outlook and
present the results of these parleys as almost a done deal. Ah, but that
‘almost’ has finally caught up with him and the draft agreement he has prepared
in collaboration with his Taliban interlocutors.
US President
Donald Trump has been unusually quiet on the issue during recent days, despite
his very public views on the futility of the 18-year-old US war in Afghanistan
and his desire, as a candidate and incumbent president, to quit before his 2020
re-election bid. One reason for this uncharacteristic silence may have been the
moves afoot behind the scenes to arrange a meeting of Trump with the Taliban at
the president’s Camp David retreat, alongside a separate meeting with Afghan President
Ashraf Ghani, perhaps in the hope of direct or proximity talks between Ghani
and the Taliban. The latter’s visit was reportedly postponed by Washington
after Zalmay Khalilzad failed to persuade Ghani to support the draft agreement.
After a spate of attacks by the Taliban in recent days in the western provinces
of Afghanistan and back-to-back attacks in Kabul that also killed a US soldier,
Trump cancelled the Taliban meeting, citing concerns about the Taliban’s
sincerity in delivering on their commitments. The Khalilzad plan rested on a
phased process of an agreement between the US and the Taliban on US troop
withdrawals in exchange for guarantees from the Taliban that Afghan soil would
never again be used for attacks on the US or its allies a la 9/11. The
Taliban’s strategy of fighting while talking, however, and the casualties it
was inflicting, raised serious questions about the ultimate goals and intent of
the Taliban. Their refusal to talk to the Afghan government, which they dismiss
as a US ‘puppet’, threw a dark cloud over what might ensue after the US forces
departed.
Now US Secretary
of State Mike Pompeo has declared the talks dead for the moment. Some reports
underline concerns whether the talks can be restarted at all. Trump has put the
onus for the breakdown squarely on the Taliban’s seeming ‘go for broke’ (i.e.
total seizure of power) intent. The Taliban in turn have blamed Trump for the debacle,
saying the cancellation of talks has exposed the US’s anti-peace stance, eroded
its credibility and reliability, and will invite more loss of American lives. The
last bit merely serves to put a lid (either temporary or permanent) on the
talks process.
The inherent
problem with the US approach to a negotiated settlement of the war has been
that Trump has exposed his hand even before the process began, and continued to
emphasise his desire to withdraw and end the war before the Taliban conceded
anything. Knowing the US president’s pressing desire for withdrawal
strengthened the Taliban’s negotiating posture as well as their will to press
home the strategic advantage they have gained on the battlefield by now. From
the Taliban’s point of view, there was no compelling reason to abandon their
successful military, political and diplomatic strategy. The only surprise in
this, if any, is the naiveté of the US in not seeing through the thinly
disguised Taliban thrust for a total takeover of power after the US withdraws.
After Trump’s
cancellation of the talks with the Taliban in Camp David, Zalmay Khalilzad has
been recalled to Washington for consultations from his travels in Kabul, Doha
and Brussels, in that order. If the future of the Doha talks is now uncertain,
that has implications for Khalilzad’s future too. Reports from time to time
have revealed the schisms in Trump’s administration over the agreement
Khalilzad has been trying to hammer out. The Pentagon, State Department,
National Security and any number of retired military and diplomatic experts
have been warning for months that the US is conceding too much on the
foundations of untrustworthy ‘guarantees’ by the Taliban negotiators. Those
warnings seem finally to have hit home and persuaded Trump to put the brakes
on. Now Pompeo has stated unequivocally that the US will not abandon its Afghan
allies and will continue its (military) support of the Afghan government.
This breakdown
and the Trump administration’s statements in its wake point to the foreseeable
future shape of things in the war-torn country. The fighting will continue, and
perhaps intensify. The US command in Afghanistan may be persuaded to go on the
offensive rather than its present seemingly defensive battlefield posture. If
this prognosis is correct, the negotiating process will be one more step removed
from a credible revival.
In the context
of the breakdown of the talks and possible intensification of fighting inside Afghanistan,
Pakistan has expressed its wish for a resumption of talks since there is no
military solution to the conflict. Pakistan was persuaded to press the Taliban
to engage in talks with the US after Trump, soon after taking office, withdrew
aid to Pakistan and expressed his anger and frustration at what he saw as
Pakistan’s ‘double-dealing’ (being ostensibly allied with the US but
surreptitiously supporting the Taliban with safe havens on its soil). Now
Pakistan may come under enhanced direct and indirect (FATF, IMF) pressure to
bring the Taliban back to the negotiating table with further concessions to the
US and the Afghan government to ensure a successful negotiated peace. Whether
Pakistan can deliver on this is an open question. But a continuation and
threatened intensification of the Afghan war will negatively impact Pakistan in
its quest for revival of its economy, a problem that promises ruction on a mass
level. The Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf government, already under criticism for
its inept and contradictory economic policies, will thereby be subjected to the
political fallout domestically of the Afghan peace process’s manifest failure.
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