By: Azhar Azam
*This is one of my opinion pieces (unedited) that first appeared at "China Global Television Network (CGTN)" https://news.cgtn.com/news/2020-03-03/Challenges-loom-as-Afghan-peace-process-enters-critical-phase-OyqMlCWymQ/index.html and was republished by "China Daily" https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202003/03/WS5e5f0703a31012821727c222.html
During a luncheon attended by UN Security Council (UNSC) representatives in January 2018, the US President Donald Trump spurned any possibility of talks with Afghan Taliban, screeching its deadly attacks in Afghanistan. But the “long time” he sought for initiation of peace talks lived short as top US diplomat Alice Wells secretly met Afghan insurgent group on July 23 in Doha.
Washington had originally coveted to sit on the sidelines of “Afghan-led, Afghan-owned” peace negotiations but Taliban’s sheer knockback, to hold direct talks with Afghan government and before a definite US commitment to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan, forced it to change track and first involve itself in discussions with it.
So, the deal between Taliban and the US is fundamentally a gateway to an all-inclusive intra-Afghan dialogue, which was covertly started at a hotel in Qatar and outlasted two American commanders in chiefs and has lately reached at a defining moment as the two sides signed a milestone agreement in a five-star resort on February 29.
Saturday’s signing of the concord would, however, would pave the way for meaningful and substantive dialogue between Afghan political parties and Taliban that indeed would be the key to a peaceful and stable Afghanistan and will eventually decide the fate of the people and war-riven country.
By promising to cut down its troop level initially and within 14 months completely, the US emphatically capitulated to Afghan insurgents’ heartland precondition to vamoose from Afghanistan and plausibly autographed a testimonial that would elevate the tally of the graves in the “Graveyard of Empires.”
Though US stance across the countries fluctuates quickly but its perspective about Taliban has specific chameleonic characteristics. While number of the group members is on the US Treasury Department’s Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) list, it never been a terrorist outfit for White House.
Jason Blazakis, who served as Director of the State Department’s Counterterrorism Finance and Designations Office from 2008 to 2018, put it this way –“It really makes for a lot of confusion.” A US official previously defended “They (Taliban) do carry out tactics that are akin to terrorism” but they had a “different classification” since they were different from al-Qaeda, which targeted American interests around the globe.
But his revelation that the US does not pay ransom or give concessions to a terrorist organization expressed all. The labeling of Taliban as a terrorist group would have towed the world’s biggest economic and military power into an embarrassing situation once it had initiated peace negotiations with it.
The jumbled American statements about Taliban also emphasized that from Bush to Trump, all the successive US administrations knew that they are not going to overwhelm Afghan militants or conquer Afghanistan by force and at some day, they will be required to pursue a political dialogue with them and flee Kabul.
Commander of US Forces-Afghanistan (USFOR-A) General Austin Miller’s last year’s disclosure of dialing up pressure on Taliban to “shape the political environment” and chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staffs General Mark Milley’s recent remarks “The only possible way to end the war in Afghanistan is through a negotiated political settlement” – were the military endorsement of American submission in conflict-ridden country.
It was very interesting that the United States would solicit the very UNSC to “remove members of Taliban from the sanctions list” which it had approached about 20 years earlier to ratify its invasion of Afghanistan, topple a government that provided safe-havens to Al-Qaeda terrorists and turned down any prospects of consultations with.
With UNSC likely to extend its backing in the wake of peace prevalence in the battle-hit country, it is otherwise pretty shocking how the US frequently incurred major diplomatic shifts toward Taliban through its course of bumpy and grainy Afghan war and engineered international peace and security institution for its consistently patchy objectives.
One must not neglect that any deal between Taliban and the US does not necessarily mean that Afghanistan will lean into peace and stability or it would turn into a utopian state immediately. The real bug lies in intra-Afghan dialogue that was the initial goal and for which the about two-year of hectic process is wielded.
In case the peace process derails, Afghanistan could steer into a deeper pandemonium and once it does, no one would be in a position to bring back the country from state of anarchism due to its history of being a notorious country to govern and existence of plethora of tribes, which are equally hostile to each other as they are to the foreign interlopers.
While Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani rejected an all-important clause of US-Taliban deal, the swap of up to 5,000 Taliban prisoners in exchange for 1,000 Afghan security personnel detainees, and his differences with Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah expands from presidential elections to formation of negotiation team – the road to peace is threatening to halt.
Release of thousands of fighters was one of crucial Taliban demands along with complete extraction of US forces from Afghanistan. It is also the vital pretext that allowed Taliban leadership to overcome the hardliner elements in the unit. Now Ghani’s denial could stir up the disciplinarians in armed faction to trumpet their opposition to peace talks and split up further divisions with Taliban ranks.
As Pakistan, a key facilitator of Taliban-US talks, on Sunday warned the international community and the US to be cautious of “spoilers” that aren’t pleased with the deal and can coin hiccups in restoration of peace in Afghanistan – the peace process is threatening to chunk before it enters into a critical phase in a few days.
If not addressed and settled right away – Afghan government’s renunciation of freeing Taliban fighters, divisions in the Afghan political parties and the prowlers of Afghan peace process could disrupt global peace efforts that would be disastrous for Afghanistan, the US and region.
*This is one of my opinion pieces (unedited) that first appeared at "China Global Television Network (CGTN)" https://news.cgtn.com/news/2020-03-03/Challenges-loom-as-Afghan-peace-process-enters-critical-phase-OyqMlCWymQ/index.html and was republished by "China Daily" https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202003/03/WS5e5f0703a31012821727c222.html
During a luncheon attended by UN Security Council (UNSC) representatives in January 2018, the US President Donald Trump spurned any possibility of talks with Afghan Taliban, screeching its deadly attacks in Afghanistan. But the “long time” he sought for initiation of peace talks lived short as top US diplomat Alice Wells secretly met Afghan insurgent group on July 23 in Doha.
Washington had originally coveted to sit on the sidelines of “Afghan-led, Afghan-owned” peace negotiations but Taliban’s sheer knockback, to hold direct talks with Afghan government and before a definite US commitment to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan, forced it to change track and first involve itself in discussions with it.
So, the deal between Taliban and the US is fundamentally a gateway to an all-inclusive intra-Afghan dialogue, which was covertly started at a hotel in Qatar and outlasted two American commanders in chiefs and has lately reached at a defining moment as the two sides signed a milestone agreement in a five-star resort on February 29.
Saturday’s signing of the concord would, however, would pave the way for meaningful and substantive dialogue between Afghan political parties and Taliban that indeed would be the key to a peaceful and stable Afghanistan and will eventually decide the fate of the people and war-riven country.
By promising to cut down its troop level initially and within 14 months completely, the US emphatically capitulated to Afghan insurgents’ heartland precondition to vamoose from Afghanistan and plausibly autographed a testimonial that would elevate the tally of the graves in the “Graveyard of Empires.”
Though US stance across the countries fluctuates quickly but its perspective about Taliban has specific chameleonic characteristics. While number of the group members is on the US Treasury Department’s Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) list, it never been a terrorist outfit for White House.
Jason Blazakis, who served as Director of the State Department’s Counterterrorism Finance and Designations Office from 2008 to 2018, put it this way –“It really makes for a lot of confusion.” A US official previously defended “They (Taliban) do carry out tactics that are akin to terrorism” but they had a “different classification” since they were different from al-Qaeda, which targeted American interests around the globe.
But his revelation that the US does not pay ransom or give concessions to a terrorist organization expressed all. The labeling of Taliban as a terrorist group would have towed the world’s biggest economic and military power into an embarrassing situation once it had initiated peace negotiations with it.
The jumbled American statements about Taliban also emphasized that from Bush to Trump, all the successive US administrations knew that they are not going to overwhelm Afghan militants or conquer Afghanistan by force and at some day, they will be required to pursue a political dialogue with them and flee Kabul.
Commander of US Forces-Afghanistan (USFOR-A) General Austin Miller’s last year’s disclosure of dialing up pressure on Taliban to “shape the political environment” and chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staffs General Mark Milley’s recent remarks “The only possible way to end the war in Afghanistan is through a negotiated political settlement” – were the military endorsement of American submission in conflict-ridden country.
It was very interesting that the United States would solicit the very UNSC to “remove members of Taliban from the sanctions list” which it had approached about 20 years earlier to ratify its invasion of Afghanistan, topple a government that provided safe-havens to Al-Qaeda terrorists and turned down any prospects of consultations with.
With UNSC likely to extend its backing in the wake of peace prevalence in the battle-hit country, it is otherwise pretty shocking how the US frequently incurred major diplomatic shifts toward Taliban through its course of bumpy and grainy Afghan war and engineered international peace and security institution for its consistently patchy objectives.
One must not neglect that any deal between Taliban and the US does not necessarily mean that Afghanistan will lean into peace and stability or it would turn into a utopian state immediately. The real bug lies in intra-Afghan dialogue that was the initial goal and for which the about two-year of hectic process is wielded.
In case the peace process derails, Afghanistan could steer into a deeper pandemonium and once it does, no one would be in a position to bring back the country from state of anarchism due to its history of being a notorious country to govern and existence of plethora of tribes, which are equally hostile to each other as they are to the foreign interlopers.
While Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani rejected an all-important clause of US-Taliban deal, the swap of up to 5,000 Taliban prisoners in exchange for 1,000 Afghan security personnel detainees, and his differences with Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah expands from presidential elections to formation of negotiation team – the road to peace is threatening to halt.
Release of thousands of fighters was one of crucial Taliban demands along with complete extraction of US forces from Afghanistan. It is also the vital pretext that allowed Taliban leadership to overcome the hardliner elements in the unit. Now Ghani’s denial could stir up the disciplinarians in armed faction to trumpet their opposition to peace talks and split up further divisions with Taliban ranks.
As Pakistan, a key facilitator of Taliban-US talks, on Sunday warned the international community and the US to be cautious of “spoilers” that aren’t pleased with the deal and can coin hiccups in restoration of peace in Afghanistan – the peace process is threatening to chunk before it enters into a critical phase in a few days.
If not addressed and settled right away – Afghan government’s renunciation of freeing Taliban fighters, divisions in the Afghan political parties and the prowlers of Afghan peace process could disrupt global peace efforts that would be disastrous for Afghanistan, the US and region.