The stalemate in Afghanistan war is turning out to be a bone in the throat of the United States. Albeit spending more than $1 trillion in 17 years on war operations and reconstructions in the ‘graveyard of empires’, the peace in the messy country remains a delusion.
All the US military and strategic tactics including massive troop deployment, carpet bombings, and to train, equip, build, and sustain the Afghan Security Forces (ASF) have precisely failed to prevent the situation from further erosion.
After eliciting an incalculable human casualties and widespread destruction, the US has now eventually conceded its vindictive stance towards Taliban – accepting their key role for sustainable peace in Afghanistan. It is now holding direct talks with Afghan Taliban.
The new US approach incorporates a significant change in its South Asian foreign policy – underscoring that it has spurned any kind of negotiations with Afghan Taliban since 2001 when it launched inimical attacks on Afghanistan to destroy Al-Qaida networks and to oust Afghan Taliban from power.
A US team, headed by Zalmay Khalilzad is holding marathon talks in Doha with an empowered Afghan delegation, led by Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar. The peace dialogue is composed of four major issues including troop withdrawal and ceasefire that will substantiate a draft for any future agreement, told State Department spokesperson in press briefing.
In January, Afghan Taliban nominated Mullah Baradar as chief peace negotiator. He was one of the four founding members of Afghan Taliban in 1994 and was released by the government of Pakistan last year.
It was the highest-ranking release of any Taliban official. Mullah Baradar held several position in Afghan Taliban regime and was considered to be the most-influential Taliban leader behind Mullah Omar.
When urged to elaborate Secretary Pompeo’s remarks about Taliban as terrorists in Afghanistan – State’s official declined to respond. 'The Secretary’s words speak for themselves, and I’m not going to go beyond that’.
It is important to recall that Afghan Taliban isn’t listed in the US State Department’s Foreign Terrorist Organizations.
To US, an organization (foreign) must engage in terrorist activities that threaten the security of US nationals or the national security of the United States and Afghan Taliban do not meet the criteria as it is largely an insurgent group that controls over vast swaths of territory and has aspirations to govern the country.
That is why, in January 2015 when the US needed to negotiate a prisoner swap with Afghan Taliban – they were termed as an armed insurgent group that were ‘different than (a terrorist) organization like Al Qaeda’. Also because the White House believed that such prisoner swaps were ‘traditional end-of-conflict interaction’ with the Afghan war wounding down.
The ongoing US-Afghan Taliban peace dialogue is not abrupt. There has been a gradual buildup to reach this point and the role of one country, Pakistan, has continuously been conclusive around looming peace in Afghanistan.
Going back to July 2015, the White House welcomed the Murree Peace Talks between Afghanistan government and Afghan Taliban, calling them ‘an important step toward advancing prospects for a credible peace’.
Observers from China and the United States attended these quadrilateral exchanges, which were choreographed by Pakistan.
However landmark dialogue between the two major stakeholders in Afghanistan was sabotaged after Taliban chief, Mullah Akhtar Mansour, was killed in a US drone strike in May 2016, toppling the rare hope of peace.
But the killing of Mullah Mansour did not make any difference to the situation in Afghanistan, which continued to deteriorate further as a BBC study in January 2018 found that Taliban are active in 70% of Afghanistan.
Same month, President Trump turned down any possibility of negotiations with Taliban after a series of deadly attacks in Afghanistan. ‘There may be a time, but it is going to be a long time.’ But the ‘long time’ quickly faded away.
In July, four Taliban members met Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for South and Central Asian Affairs Alice Well in Doha. The groundbreaking talks ‘were very helpful’, a senior Taliban member told The Guardian.
Just before the talks, the White House dropped its coarse stance about Taliban stating that while they are a source of instability in Afghanistan, it is unlikely that they could pose any kind of international danger.
Latter on August 21, Wells greeted Imran Khan’s statement on the importance of peace on both sides – Afghanistan and Pakistan – as well as emphasized on Pakistan’s key role in long-term stability in Afghanistan.
Thenceforth US Foreign Secretary Pompeo and General Dunford came on September 5 to ‘reset’ relations with Pakistan – once again highlighting the importance of Pak-US relationship and Pakistan’s vital role in negotiating Afghan peace process.
Meanwhile, US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis traced indications of reconciliation in Afghanistan – which were now away from an illusion. Mattis mentioned some ‘open line of communication’ – avoiding confirmation of Doha talks with Taliban.
In October, Afghan Taliban held a second round of talks, this time with Khalilzad that was followed by a two-day meeting in Abu Dhabi, including representatives from Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and United Arab Emirates (UAE).
In December, President Trump requested Prime Minister Imran Khan to support and facilitate the Afghan peace process. Pakistan welcomed the US desire, highlighting country’s ‘long-standing position to give peace and reconciliation a real chance in Afghanistan’.
The letter was followed by Khalilzad visit to Pakistan. Prime Minister Khan reassured that ‘Pakistan has helped in the dialogue between Taliban and the US in Abu Dhabi…..Pakistan will be doing everything within its power to further the peace process’. Pakistan denies any direct influence on Afghan Taliban.
The peace talks were occasionally interrupted when Afghan Taliban threatened to abandon the dialogue, accusing that the United States is pursuing ‘its colonial and military objectives in the guise of peace’. The dialogue however continued, though Afghan Taliban are still reluctant to talk to Afghan government, calling it a ‘puppet regime’.
So, once again the United States is desperately seeking Pakistan’s crucial role to resolve long outstanding Afghanistan conflict, in an apparent acknowledge that Afghanistan dispute cannot be resolved without the help of Pakistan.
Pakistan must not just observe the peace proceeding or go recklessly through the course. It must rather press the US to support Pakistan peace initiatives such as increased troop deployment, surveillance, and border management gages aimed at restricting terrorists’ movement on Pak-Afghan border for long-term, durable peace in both the countries.
But unfortunately the deliberate US denial to these peace initiatives explicitly coincides that the resolution of the Afghan conflict or sustainable peace in Afghanistan is not its ultimate goal and goes on to corroborate that it essentially needs a vulnerable country (and least violent) in South Asia to contain China.
The US approach touts that the US is baiting Pakistan in tracking relatively a prone Afghanistan that would provide it an ideal footprint in South Asia to keep check on its new cold war rival – China – as well as to serve its global political, trade, and strategic interests.