Last week, on Friday, USA handed over the Bagram airbase to the Afghan authorities, marking a symbolic end to its military presence, as US forces complete their withdrawal well ahead of the September 11 deadline, announced by American President Joe Biden on April 14. A familiar air of uncertainty surrounds Kabul as the Afghans ponder over the future of their land, ravaged by conflict for nearly 50 years. Afghanistan’s immediate neighbours are now faced with a new challenge – how to persuade the Taliban against overplaying their military hand?
A costly misadventure
Could anyone have predicted when the US commenced its military intervention in Afghanistan in October 2001 that it would get embroiled in an endless war for 20 years and to exit safely, it would have to negotiate with the Taliban, the same entity that it went in to punish?
It has been a costly lesson. The war effort has cost $ 980 billion, over 2400 US soldiers (plus 1144 allied troops) and 3800 private military contractors have lost their lives. It also spent $143 billion on reconstruction; about $90 billion went for the Afghan army, police and other security forces, $36 billion for governance and economic development activities (the rest of the international community contributed an equivalent amount) and the balance on counter-narcotics and humanitarian relief works.
Yet, the real price has been paid by the Afghans. The 20-year war has claimed the lives of nearly 50000 Afghan civilians and nearly 70000 Afghan security forces (a majority during last seven years); add to it another 60000 Afghan Taliban, and the scale of the Afghan human loss becomes evident.
There have been gains too. In 2001, there were 900000 boys in school. Today, eight million children attend school and one-third are girls. Literacy is up from 12% in 2002 to 35%; life expectancy from 40 to 63 years. Urbanisation is 26% and 70% of the population watch TV. From 320 miles of paved roads in 2002, today tarred roads cover 10000 miles. Infant mortality rates are down from 20% by over half. With a median age of 18.5 years, a majority of Afghans have grown up in a post-Taliban era. Today, they bear the brunt of 130 daily Taliban/IS-Khorasan (IS-K) attacks, the highest since the US ended combat operations in end-2014. Tomorrow, even these limited gains are at risk.
Taliban gains legitimacy
For US President George Bush, the objective was “to build a stable, strong, effectively governed Afghanistan that won’t degenerate into chaos”. As US shifted from counter-terrorism to counter-insurgency, shades of Vietnam began to emerge. To Hamid Karzai’s credit, he saw the writing on the wall when he protested about the night-raids and warned the Americans “to either take the fight to the safe havens and sanctuaries across the Durand Line or make peace with the Taliban” but it only soured his relations with the US.
Eventually, US President Barack Obama diluted the objective to “preventing Afghanistan from becoming a safe haven for global terrorism”. He oversaw a successful operation to eliminate Osama bin Laden in 2011, implemented an unsuccessful military surge concluding with an end to combat operations in end-2014 and Taliban opened the Doha office in 2013.
US President Donald Trump saw himself as a deal-maker and in 2018, initiated direct negotiations with the Taliban. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad (US Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation) began by setting out four elements – a ceasefire, cutting ties with Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups, intra-Afghan peace talks, and, a withdrawal of all foreign military forces, declaring that “nothing is agreed till everything is agreed”. Within months, Taliban had whittled down the US demands till it got what it wanted – a withdrawal timeline not linked to the other factors. In addition, Taliban managed to get the US to push the Kabul government to releasing over 5000 Taliban cadres in custody. In short, the US ended up legitimising the Taliban at the expense of the government in Kabul that they had worked to create and support.
US President Joe Biden was no stranger to the Afghan dossier. He was convinced that US had to exit from its quagmire of “forever wars”. US may have decided that it had no military options but Taliban are still pushing ahead militarily.
From less than a fifth, today, over a third of Afghanistan’s over 400 districts are under Taliban control. The day after the exit from Bagram, 13 districts, in Badakshan, Takhar, Paktia and Kandahar fell to the Taliban, adding to the fifty that have fallen since May. In many cases, the locals manning the security posts and checkpoints have just surrendered. From villages and towns, there is already a move towards the cities. Intra-Afghan talks in Doha have been in limbo for months.
Questions about the future
Gen Austin Miller, the US commander in Afghanistan, indicated in a recent press conference, “Civil war is certainly a path that can be visualised if it continues on this trajectory”. Dr Abdullah Abdullah, Chairman of the High Council for National Reconciliation warned on June 30, “Today, the survival, security and unity of Afghanistan is in danger…”
Ironically, the most vocal critics of US overstaying in Afghanistan and hinting that US would never leave are the ones now blaming the US for a hasty and irresponsible withdrawal.
In coming months, as uncertainties mount, there will be increasing Taliban presence in the countryside as the Kabul government concentrates on ensuring security in urban areas and of the road networks. Taliban military strategy has been to target districts that enable them to surround provincial capitals. The clutch in the northeast including Badakshan, Takhar, Kunduz and Baghlan enable them to control the Afghanistan-Tajikistan border and the Wakhan corridor that links to China. In the east, they exert control in Ghazni, Zabul and Paktia while Haqqani network is active in Khost and Paktika, and IS-K in Nangarhar, Kunar and Laghman. Further south, Taliban control large parts of Kandahar, Helmand and Farah (bordering Iran).
As the reality of the US withdrawal takes hold, how events unfold by end-2021 depends on three factors. First, have the Taliban changed their ideological colours? The US in recent years, and Pakistan for much longer, have been pushing this line but Taliban leadership have given no clues about it. Related to this is the question of Taliban unity. Distances have grown between the Quetta shura, the Doha negotiators and the fighters who want to guard their individual preserves. This works as long as everyone is pursuing the military option but when it comes to power sharing, who calls the shots? Or does it lead to no power sharing?
Second, can the Kabul regime present a unified front? If the leaders in Kabul and the government continue sniping at each other, it will adversely impact the integrity of the chain of command of the Afghan security forces. If opportunistic leaders are tempted to strike their own deals with the Taliban, it will only hasten the collapse and even Western funding will dry up.
The Pakistan factor
Finally, is Pakistan still seeking strategic depth in Afghanistan or has it realised that a Taliban-dominated Kabul will be a magnet for its own home-grown extremists as well as those from the neighbourhood? Can they persuade the Taliban that its legitimacy will be at risk unless it shares power? Pakistan’s influence will weaken once the Rehbari Shura decides to move back from Quetta to Afghanistan.
History tells us that in Afghanistan, there have only been winners and losers, seldom any lasting compromises.
Everyone agrees that 2021 will be a year of reckoning for Afghanistan; thereafter, the narratives begin to diverge. For the US, it marks the end of America’s longest war. For the Taliban, 2021 marks their victory over the most powerful military force, the sole superpower. In popular mythmaking, it adds to the notion of Afghanistan as the graveyard of empires.
For the Afghans, it is the opening of yet another page in their unending conflict that began in 1973 with the coup by Sardar Mohammed Daud who deposed his cousin, King Zahir Shah, replacing the 200 year old monarchy with a socialist republic and sparking a chain of events leading to the Soviet intervention in 1979, the CIA-ISI jihad against the godless Communists during the 1980s, the collapse of the Communist regime and the deadly infighting among the Mujahiddin, emergence of the Taliban in 1994 and US entry in 2001 a month after the 9/11 attacks.
What makes the current chapter tragic is that the US intervention enjoyed the support of the international community and was also welcomed by the vast majority of the Afghan population. More than thirty countries contributed troops to the International Security Assistance Force; the UN Security Council backed it unanimously; and a large UN Assistance Mission for Afghanistan was set up to coordinate international assistance for Afghan reconstruction and development.
Two decades later, having spent nearly $1.5 trillion on its war operations and nearly 2400 US soldiers killed, the US has no good options. A cumulative set of errors have led to a US fatigue with the Afghan project: A belief in 2002 that the Taliban was defeated when they had only dispersed to sanctuaries in Pakistan; introducing a centralised presidential system that lacked institutions for checks and balances, resulting in weak local governance; shifting focus to the disastrous war in Iraq in 2003; gradual return of the Taliban beginning in 2005 and US failure to check Pakistan’s duplicity on the matter; inability to curb opium production that fuelled the insurgency; President Barack Obama announcing the troop surge in 2009 along with the drawdown 18 months later; a growing legitimisation of Taliban as a political force, cemented by the opening of the Doha office in 2013, prodded by UK, Norway and Germany; and finally, the Doha agreement last year, packaged as a peace deal but essentially a US withdrawal deal.
During the past two decades, as Senator, as Vice-President, and now as President, Joe Biden has been through hundreds of briefings on Afghanistan and visited the region over a dozen times. He believed that the objective of delivering justice to those who perpetrated the 9/11 attack on the US had been achieved and the terrorist threat to the US homeland from Afghanistan was such that it did not require a permanent US military presence in Afghanistan. Yet, he did give diplomacy a chance. There was a new peace plan and a flurry of diplomatic activity for a Bonn 2 conference under UN auspices. Within a month, it was clear that it wouldn’t work. Taliban rejected any idea of a ceasefire; many Afghan politicians liked the idea of Ghani stepping down; and an unhappy Ghani suggested early elections instead. Biden announced the new deadline of implementing the withdrawal before 11 September.
However, a Taliban takeover is not a foregone conclusion as long as US funding continues and the Afghan security forces maintain the integrity of the chain of command. The Taliban will also learn that the Afghanistan of 2021 is very different from that of 1994. Nearly three-fourths of the Afghan population is below 30 and is used to living in a conservative but open society.
If the Kabul regime is divided so is the Taliban. There are at least five groupings: Mullah Haibatullah, head of the Quetta shura, Mullah Baradar, head of the Doha office and the public face, Mullah Yaqub, son of Mullah Omar, Sirajuddin Haqqani who is the deputy leader and heads the Haqqani network out of Waziristan with his independent link with the ISI and ties with Al Qaeda, and the most hardline Helmand group led by Mullah Zakir and Mullah Sadr Ibrahim; in addition, there are many front line fighters whose commanders accept little external authority. Moreover, the region hosts 5000 foreign fighters with shifting allegiances.
Now that the US exit is a reality, concerns in Russia, Iran, Pakistan and China about restraining the Taliban from emerging as the sole power centre are surfacing. In a meeting in Moscow last month, the extended troika consisting of China, Pakistan, US and Russia issued a joint statement opposing the restoration of an Islamic Emirate. At the Raisina Dialogue recently, Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif bluntly warned that an Islamic Emirate “is an existential threat to Pakistan and a national security threat to Iran and India.” He emphasised the need for an inclusive peace, not a Taliban-dictated peace.
For the last few years, India has been content with the mantra of “an Afghan led, Afghan owned and Afghan controlled” peace process. In the new environment, we need to get over our hesitations and actively explore new coalitions that will safeguard our national interests.
In October 2001, when US Special Forces and CIA operatives went into Afghanistan with the express objective of removing Taliban and dismantling Al-Qaeda, could anyone have predicted that 20 years later, the US would still be militarily engaged and debating its choices?
It is this stark realisation that made President Joe Biden announce on 14 April that “it is time to end the forever war in Afghanistan,” and that all US soldiers would leave before 11 September this year. Yet, the harsh reality is that this may wind up US’s war in Afghanistan, but for the Afghans, their endless war shows no sign of ending.
Initially, Biden was critical of the arbitrary deadline of 1 May negotiated in the Doha Agreement by Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, saying “it was not a very solidly negotiated deal.” Secretary of State Antony Blinken emphasised “a responsible withdrawal” and NSA Jake Sullivan assured that the Doha deal would be reviewed to see if the Taliban was delivering on its assurances “to cut ties with terrorist groups, to reduce violence in Afghanistan, and to engage in meaningful negotiations with Afghan government and other stakeholders.”
After weeks of hectic diplomacy, it was clear that the original flaws of the year-old Doha agreement could not be fixed. It may have been sold to the world as a ‘peace deal’ but for the Taliban, it was a ‘US withdrawal deal’ under which they had stopped targeting US troops and in turn, the US was supposed to leave by 1 May. For the Taliban, a ceasefire was an outcome of the intra-Afghan talks and their continuing military pressure was part of strengthening their bargaining position.
Biden is the fourth US president to deal with the Afghan war and was determined not to pass the legacy on to his successor. His deadline is as arbitrary as Trump’s, only more symbolic. The key change was made clear in Biden’s interview to CBS that if the Taliban returned, “the US bore zero responsibility for it.” In short, the Afghans were responsible for their future and the US was not providing any guarantees.
This is perfectly consistent with the long held Indian position of supporting “an Afghan led, Afghan owned and Afghan controlled” peace process. Why then are we so perturbed by the impending US departure? India’s geography will ensure our presence though our role will undergo changes. US leaves because it can India stays because it belongs.
At the 2001 Bonn Conference, India was invited because it had been a key supporter (along with Russia and Iran) of the Northern Alliance that had emerged as an influential player, following the Taliban’s ouster. During the last twenty years, India’s economic cooperation programme has earned it the distinction of being Afghanistan’s preferred development partner. We may have relied on ‘soft power’ for two decades but we need to remember that it is not the only instrument in the ‘smart power’ tool-kit.
The common perception that with the return of the Taliban, India will be marginalised, is an oversimplification. It is true that India has been lethargic in pushing a visible engagement with the Taliban but its projects in every province of Afghanistan gives it the political heft and the linkages, cutting across ethnic and sectarian divides.
Nobody really knows if the Taliban’s ideology has changed but, as the Taliban themselves will soon realise, Afghanistan in 2021 is very different from the Afghanistan in 1990s when they came to power. Nearly three-fourths of Afghan population today is below 30 and though conservative, is used to living in an open society. There is a belated realisation among significant external partners like Iran, Russia and China that while they all pushed for US’ exit, their reservations about Taliban taking centre stage are only growing.
Speaking at the 2021 Raisina Dialogue last week, Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif emphasised that “Taliban have to be engaged but on democratic and inclusive terms”. Russia reflected similar concerns and at the Moscow extended troika conference on 18 March, got US, Pakistan and China to sign on to a joint statement expressing a shared opposition to any restoration of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.
There are ample opportunities for India to explore new engagements but it needs to overcome its diffidence because its vision for Afghanistan is one shared by the large majority of the Afghan people.
President Joe Biden is the third president to grapple with the challenge of managing a U.S. exit from Afghanistan. Both Barack Obama and Donald Trump undertook detailed policy reviews, announced new initiatives but ended up passing the buck. And each time, the problem became more intractable. After 20 years of military engagement, during which U.S. troop presence exceeded 100000 a decade ago and is now down to 2500, U.S. policy is again at cross roads. President Biden is no stranger to the Af-Pak challenge, having visited the region nearly a dozen times as Senator and as VP but the cumulative errors of omission and commission over two decades make Biden’s challenge greater.
What Obama and Trump Achieved Obama had pledged to end what he called the “dumb war” in Iraq and turn around the “good war in Afghanistan that we have to win”. Eventually, his policy review in 2009 led him to announce a surge in US troop presence to battle what was increasingly seen as a counter-insurgency (COIN), with a drawdown beginning 18 months later, in mid-2011. The goal was to seize and clear territory, hold and re-build on the peace and hand it over within 18 months to the Afghans. Gen David Petraeus, who had overseen a similar surge followed by a drawdown in Iraq, took command in Afghanistan to implement Obama’s policy. By end-2014, US troop presence was down to 8,500 and Operation Enduring Freedom was replaced by Operation Resolute Support. US troops no longer had a combat role; their primary role was to train, advise and assist the Afghan security and defence forces that had been increased and whose capabilities were enhanced. The downside of Obama’s policy was that with more drone attacks and heightened counter-insurgency operations, the fight became increasingly seen as one between Americans and Afghans. According to the US COIN handbook, the operation needed a force of 20 soldiers per thousand of the population, amounting to a US-NATO force of 500000, that was politically impossible to muster (1) .
Taking over in 2017, President Trump ordered another review and then declared in August that the “U.S. was seeking an honourable and enduring outcome”. He agreed to Gen John Nicholson’s request to send an extra 5,000 soldiers to turn the tide against the Taliban, raising U.S. troop presence to 13,500 (2) . A year later, he changed course and Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad was appointed to pursue peace and reconciliation talks with the Taliban; thus did the Doha process begin (3) .
On 29 February 2020 in Doha, Khalilzad signed an agreement with the Taliban Dy Leader Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar. The document bore a curious title – “Agreement for Bringing Peace to Afghanistan between the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan which is not recognised by the US as a state and is known as the Taliban and the USA” – which perhaps reflected the mistrust between the parties and consequently, the fragility of the deal (4) . It is just as well that the deal was signed on 29 February with its anniversary due in 2024, by which time its ignominy would be forgotten.
Biden’s Options More than a year since the Doha agreement was inked, it is commonly held that it is in tatters. The problem is that it was packaged as a “peace deal” while it was, in reality, a “withdrawal deal”. As the latter, it was initially on track but the US elections in November intervened and growing violence levels in Afghanistan shifted the focus back to a ‘peace deal’. Under the Doha terms, the US is to withdraw its remaining 2500 (and the 1000 troops for counter- terrorism operations) troops from Afghanistan by 1 May in return for unverified counterterrorism guarantees and the open-ended negotiation of an intra- Afghan peace agreement that would bring some stability to Afghanistan. The latter two conditions have not been met, and Biden is faced with the choice of either keeping to the deadline or finding other options.
The problem is that there are no good options. If Biden pulls out all 3,500 troops by May – as Trump had promised during the campaign – it is a foregone conclusion that the fragile government in Kabul would collapse, possibly within the year, and ignite a bloody civil war. The US could try to negotiate a brief extension of the deadline but this would need cooperation from the Taliban – something that is not forthcoming. Nevertheless, an extension is unlikely to help unless the Taliban are pressured to fulfil their commitments; this is not possible without cooperation from Pakistan, Iran and Russia. The US could also decide to extend its stay unilaterally, since NATO has already declared that “the conditions of withdrawal have not been met” and the alliance will withdraw “only when the time is right” 5 . NATO members, (other than the US) have another 7,500 soldiers in Afghanistan. While this may give comfort to the Kabul regime, it is unlikely to stem the steady military gains of the Taliban over the last twelve months. Given that Taliban links with Al Qaeda have remained intact and IS – Khorasan is active in some of the eastern provinces of Afghanistan, the US could also decide to extend its war indefinitely, by maintaining a small counterterrorism force, together with NATO, to ensure that Afghanistan does not become a safe haven for such terrorist groups in future. This is unlikely to go down well in Afghanistan or in the region. Therefore, the Biden administration must find the lesser evil. This could be a short extension of stay, perhaps for six months until November, with Taliban acceptance and some reduction in violence as part of a renewed push towards intra-Afghan negotiations.
President Biden has acknowledged that “it was not a very solidly negotiated deal”. (6) However, the administration’s helplessness is apparent in the fact that Ambassador Khalilzad has been retained – he who delivered the flawed February 2020 agreement under Trump has been retained and is now tasked with transforming the old agreement into a new one that will enjoy support in Kabul, with the Taliban and in key global capitals.
The U.S. Dilemma The US’ problem is not in withdrawing from Afghanistan; it is in managing the optics of such an exit. It needs to ensure a decent interval after its departure so that the Afghan chapter can be finally closed. This will need a deal with Taliban, who can sense military victory and therefore have little reason to oblige. They emphasise that a ceasefire was never promised and they have upheld what they did commit: “no attacks on departing U.S. forces”. Since a ceasefire cannot now be introduced on the agenda, Khalilzad is reduced to pleading for a “significant reduction in violence”, hoping that the quantum of reduction and its duration (if the Taliban agrees) will be a politically sellable “decent interval” in the Western narrative.
The term ‘decent interval’ has a chequered past in US history. In the late 1960s, the administration of Richard Nixon had realised that a military solution in Vietnam was not possible and tasked Henry Kissinger to negotiate a US exit. During Kissinger’s covert visit to China in July 1971, he assured Premier Zhou Enlai that the US would completely withdraw from Vietnam in return for the release of US POWs and a ceasefire lasting a “decent interval” of perhaps 18 months or so. Kissinger and Nixon knew that the deal would leave their ally, the South Vietnamese government led by President Nguyen Van Thieu, vulnerable. In the declassified 1972 White House tapes, Nixon and Kissinger acknowledge that “South Vietnam is not going to survive and the idea is to find a formula that can hold things together for a year or two”. Nixon reaffirmed the assurance during his pathbreaking visit to China the following year in February (7) . The plan worked.
President Nixon was re-elected on a peace platform in November 1972, scoring a record margin against his rival. In January 1973, the Paris Peace Accords were signed and by end March, US had completed its withdrawal from Vietnam, ending its direct military involvement in the conflict. US POWs were released. By end-1973, the ceasefire was in tatters: Saigon fell to the North Vietnamese forces on 30 April 1975. To win re-election in 1972, Nixon promised an honourable peace and delivered a delayed defeat but by then, the world had moved on. Kissinger won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1973. The secret assurances given by Kissinger and Nixon in 1971-72 seeking only a “decent interval” surfaced after four decades.
Today, a “decent interval” does not have to be 24 months, only as long as it takes for people in the west to lose interest, easily manipulable in today’s 24/7 news cycle-driven, crisis-prone age. As former Defence Secretary Gen James Mattis put it, “U.S. does not lose wars, it only loses interest” (8) . But the problem both Obama and Trump faced was getting to the “decent interval” even as they realised that the US had outlived its welcome.
A cumulative set of errors fuelled the Western fatigue with the Afghan project: a belief in 2002 that the Taliban had been defeated when they had only dispersed to safe havens and sanctuaries in Pakistan; introducing a highly centralised Presidential system that lacked institutions to provide checks and balances, resulting in weak local governance; the focus shifting to the disastrous war in Iraq in 2003; the gradual return of the Taliban beginning in 2005 and US inability to check Pakistan’s duplicity on the matter; growing factionalism; rising opium production that fuelled the insurgency; corruption; announcing the troop surge in 2009 along with the drawdown beginning in 2011; and a growing legitimisation of Taliban as a political force, cemented by the opening of the Doha office in 2013, spearheaded by some European states like UK, Norway and Germany. Put simply, the Taliban sponsors (Pakistan’s ISI) remained consistently loyal and the government in Kabul lost its supporters. The US failure lay not in its inability to transform Afghanistan, but in failing to change Pakistan’s policy of “run with the hare and hunt with the hounds” or as the late Gen Zia ul Haq explained the art of handling the U.S. – “The water in Afghanistan must be kept boiling at the right temperature, but not boil over”.
What to Expect from Bonn 2 Pakistan has consistently maintained that the Bonn agreement hammered out in 2001 was fatally flawed because it excluded the Taliban and the only way to rectify it is to do a Bonn 2. Khalilzad has been able to sell this notion to the Biden team. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken has written identical letters (9) to President Ashraf Ghani and Dr Abdullah Abdullah, Chairperson of the High Council for National Reconciliation, indicating that while the policy review has not been completed, an initial conclusion is that peace talks need to be accelerated. A draft agreement to jumpstart the intra-Afghan peace talks is doing the rounds -it contains provisions for bringing in a transition government based on power sharing with the Taliban and proposes a Bonn 2 under the auspices of the United Nations (10).
This may provide the elusive “decent interval” to enable a “responsible U.S. withdrawal” if the Taliban agrees and President Ghani steps down. Still, this is unlikely to bring peace to Afghanistan. The reason is that calling it “Bonn 2” implies a desire to turn back the clock, and yet as the old saying goes – you can’t step in the same river twice. Bonn 1 was not a peace conference. The four groups invited (Rome, Cyprus and Peshawar groups and the Northern Alliance) were not fighting each other and were not likely to do so; Bonn 1 only sought to set up a road map for political normalisation in Afghanistan with these four groups. These four would hardly have countenanced Taliban in Bonn; nor could U.S. have allowed it given the ties between Taliban and Al Qaeda. For Bonn 2, there are essentially two parties, Taliban and the Afghan government who are at war. The Taliban have gained legitimacy, expanded their presence and are militarily strong. The Kabul government is internationally recognised but has lost considerable legitimacy because of its disunity, consequent fragility and incompetence. Most important, the US can no longer count on the same kind of support it received from Russia, China, Pakistan and Iran in 2001.
The most important internal factor is Afghanistan’s demographics – a median age of 18.4 years with 46 percent of Afghan population below 15 years and another 28 percent between 16-30. This large cohort is used to living in a conservative but open society. If the Doha agreement generated concerns among youth, women and minorities (and the Afghan government), the new proposal confirms their worst fears. The only thing they are all agree upon is that they will not accept a return to the Islamic Emirates of Afghanistan. Taliban have remained opaque about their stand on issues of concern like democracy, constitution, human rights etc other than dropping vague hints that their positions have evolved. Fortunately for the Taliban (and for their Pakistani backers), there are quite a few “useful idiots” who maintain that the Taliban have changed, pointing to their clever use of social media or the fact that do not want to be isolated as was the case in 1990s. Yet, no Afghan believes that the Taliban will take part in elections or have any interest in sharing power.
There is consensus among all Afghans for peace but no consensus on the price that can be paid for it. On the other hand, the Taliban are not the Viet Cong; they are reportedly fractured and questions have surfaced about the control of the Quetta shura on all those fighting in the field. Lack of an internal consensus makes it easier for Afghanistan’s neighbours to find their preferred powerbrokers. A decade ago, Taliban numbers were estimated at 6,000; today, estimates are upward of 60,000. The US has assured that its financial commitment for Afghanistan stands but this will quickly dry up when the chain of command in the Afghan army or the police force starts breaking down because of disunity among the leaders.
The Afghan vision of a sovereign, independent, democratic and plural Afghanistan is not subscribed to by all its neighbours, preventing a regional consensus. With growing rivalry between the major powers, consensus too, is limited to ensuring an early US exit. As the Kabul government realises, proxy wars are easy but peace by proxy is not possible. In the absence of a consensus, the Afghans are not left with no good options that can bring them closer to their vision. Internal rivalries, conflicting interests among the countries in the region and divergent and often unstated objectives have rendered peace-making in Afghanistan an impossible act of political balancing.
Russia has stepped up its role in recent years by opening up channels with the Taliban, supporting the Doha process, sponsoring the troika of Russia, China and US, an expanded troika that includes Pakistan, and the Moscow format that includes India, Iran and Central Asian and other states. Its core interest is in preventing destabilisation in the region, any long-term U.S. presence and a check on the opium production. In returning to the scene, Russia has sought to wipe out the legacy of the 1979-89 intervention successfully as the attendance at the conferences it has sponsored shows.
Even a tenuous and vaguely worded Doha agreement between the US and the Taliban took 18 months to work out. It would be difficult to expect an agreement in the next eight weeks on a transition government and a significant reduction in violence. For the US, the “least bad” option of an exit even without a “decent interval” is still an option; for the Afghans yearning for peace, there is no quick solution that Bonn 2 can bring about. However, the call for President Ghani to step down in the interest for peace is gathering momentum. Iran, Russia and Pakistan favour it too (for their own reasons) as do a number of Afghan leaders who have been antagonised by his attitude and behaviour. This convergence creates the illusion of a consensus but it is only limited to seeing the exit of the Ghani government and not beyond.
India’s Options In the post-Taliban phase, India undertook an extensive development programme covering humanitarian assistance (food assistance, nutritious school child feeding and deploying medical teams), infrastructure development (Zaranj-Delaram highway, Pul e Khumri power transmission link to Kabul and sub-stations, Salma dam, parliament building), over 700 reconstruction projects covering health centres, schools, small roads and bridges) and capacity development by providing both short term and long term courses in India and setting up training centres in Afghanistan. Today, there are over 16,000 Afghan students pursuing higher education in India and during the last two decades, over 60,000 graduates, post-graduates and other professionals have returned to Afghanistan. Indian assistance, estimated at $3 billion dollars, has been spread across all provinces, cutting across ethnic lines. In undertaking these activities, India has sought to work with the newly created institutions rather than through preferred partners.
This approach has helped India to build upon the age-old cultural ties between the two countries. Zahiruddin Mohammed (Babur), founder of the Moghul empire finds his resting place at Bagh e Babur in Kabul, a favoured picnic garden was restored (funded by the Aga Khan Trust for Culture) by a renowned Indian architect specialising in preservation of Moghul era monuments and gardens. Afghanistan’s beloved national poet Abdul Qadir ‘Bedil’ (or Bedil Dehlavi in north India) died in Delhi in the 18th century. He earned his renown as a poet at the Moghul court and was also considered a Sufi saint. His shrine Bagh e Bedil, in Delhi remains popular among Afghan visitors to Delhi. Building on this, a sports stadium on the outskirts of Delhi, serves as the training ground for the Afghan cricket team, with India providing coaching and technical support. Hindi language movies (or the Bollywood industry) are an abiding link, surviving even the political upheavals.
India is also the traditional market for Afghanistan’s horticultural produce. In the absence of road links through Pakistan, a dedicated air freight corridor set up in 2018, has seen nearly 500 flights that have ferried 5000 MT of Afghan exports to India. However, India has not hosted Taliban delegations, preferring to follow the lead of the Afghan government, in keeping with its stated position of supporting “an Afghan led, Afghan controlled and Afghan owned” peace process. The absence of a shared border and focus on using ‘soft power’ reflects the reality that India lacks the leverage to play ‘spoiler’, unlike Afghanistan’s other neighbours.
At Bonn I, India was invited because it had been a key supporter (along with Russia and Iran) of the Northern Alliance. Today, India is invited because it has acquired the distinction of being the preferred development partner. This realisation is not lost on the Taliban either who have been supportive of India’s developmental role.
Conclusion
By the end of 2021, it is more than likely that the US and NATO troops would have already left Afghanistan. It is also likely that if Russia, Pakistan and Iran exert influence on Taliban to agree to a six-month extension, violence levels may come down for a brief interlude. A Transition Government is almost a certainty given the growing domestic and the international consensus that President Ghani should step down.
Given the wide divergences, however, the interim government might not last long once the US leaves. Under the circumstances, Taliban may not announce a Spring offensive for 2021 but the signs for 2022 are ominous.
Indeed, in Afghanistan, things come together in different ways but fall apart according to the same script: the fragmentation of the regime in Kabul (11).
(1) Obama’s Wars by Bob Woodward (Simon and Schuster 2010) provides a detailed account of the debates leading to the ‘surge’ decision. The January 2017 article in New York Times looks at how Obama saw his dilemmas when he was demitting office in January 2017 – https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/01/world/asia/obama-afghanistan-war.html
Afghanistan’s foreign minister, Haneef Atmar, was in Delhi this week to brief Indian authorities on the recent spurt in diplomatic activity as the Joe Biden administration approaches the May deadline for United States (US) troops to exit Afghanistan. The problem is that the intra-Afghan peace talks have barely moved forward since the Doha agreement signed a year ago between U.S. ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad and Taliban deputy leader Mullah Barader and violence levels have been steadily rising, especially since last October.
US policy shifts
Biden is the third president to deal with the challenge of bringing US troops back home. In 2009, Barack Obama described Afghanistan as “the necessary war that U.S. must win”. He approved a surge in troop presence, from 55,000 to over 100,000 soldiers, and also quadrupled the number of drone attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan but U.S. failed to blunt the Taliban insurgency. By May 2011, when Osama bin Laden was killed in Abbottabad, Obama realised that the real failure lay not in transforming Afghanistan but in changing Pakistan’s policy of continuing to provide sanctuaries to Taliban even while claiming credit as major U.S. partner in stabilising Afghanistan. Frustrated, he reduced the troop presence to 8500 by the time he left office in 2017.
Announcing his policy in August 2017, Donald Trump said that though his “original instinct was to pull out”, he had been persuaded by Pentagon to push for “an honourable and enduring outcome” and added 5000 troops while easing restrictions on use of airpower. However, after a year, he too changed track and Khalilzad was appointed to open negotiations with the Taliban that eventually led to the February 2020 deal. By the time Trump left, US troops were reduced to 2500.
The title of the deal – Agreement for Bringing Peace to Afghanistan between the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan which is not recognised by the US as a state and is known as the Taliban and the USA – showed that Taliban’s ideology had not changed and the deal was doomed to failure. Yet, such was the willingness to suspend disbelief that Khalilzad successfully persuaded everyone that it was “a peace deal” and not a “US withdrawal deal”, and the mouse he pulled out of the hat was a rabbit. A year later, that uncomfortable reality can’t be denied. While no American soldiers have died in combat in Afghanistan in last twelve months, the monthly death toll is 800 Afghan security forces and 250 Afghan civilians.
A new peace plan
The Biden administration is therefore seeking a “responsible withdrawal”. In an interview last week, Biden said that in view of the prevailing situation, it is difficult for the US to leave by May and a short extension may be needed. A new peace plan has been developed and Khalilzad retained to pull another rabbit out of a hat.
The new plan envisages replacing the present government by a transitional government that includes the Taliban, and establishing a 21-member commission (including 10 Taliban nominees) to draft a new constitution. Taliban and government should reach an agreement for a 90-day “significant reduction in violence” to create a conducive environment for diplomatic efforts. To energise the stalled Doha talks, Turkey has been invited to host a meeting between Taliban and the Afghan government and other representatives to work this out. A United Nations (UN) conference (on the lines of the Bonn Conference in 2001 that worked out the political road map for a post-Taliban Afghanistan) involving US, Russia, China, Pakistan, Iran and India, along with Taliban and other Afghan groups is proposed to discuss a unified approach.
Renewed diplomacy
UN Secretary General has announced the appointment of veteran French diplomat Jean Arnault as his Personal Representative to lead the UN efforts and prepare for the international conference. Arnault knows Afghanistan well, having been there from 2002-06, as Deputy and then head of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan.
Last week, Moscow hosted a meeting of the expanded troika (U.S., China, Pakistan and Russia) together with Taliban and Afghan government and other leaders led by Abdullah Abdullah, head of the High Council for National Reconciliation. While the intra-Afghan talks were contentious, the four ‘extended troika’ states issued a joint statement recognising the Afghan peoples desire for peace, calling for a reduction in violence on all sides, expediting negotiations for a political settlement, urging Taliban not to launch a Spring offensive and underlining that they do not support a return to the Islamic Emirate system.
President Ashraf Ghani is unwilling to step down to make way for a transitional government, suggesting early elections instead but the Taliban are not interested in the electoral route. Last two elections in Afghanistan were marred by controversy which were resolved only because US leaned heavily on Ghani and Abdullah to share power instead. A number of prominent Afghan leaders, unhappy with Ghani, have supported a transition as have Russia, Iran and Pakistan, leaving Ghani with no options.
The political reality is the Taliban had more loyal and consistent backers in Pakistan and the Inter-Services Intelligence, while the Kabul government steadily lost legitimacy because of its own incompetence and disunity, and because its backers in the West eventually lost patience and interest. By end-2021, the US may have ended its longest war, but for Afghanistan, the uncertainties are only increasing.
RAKESH SOOD 