The US’ role in Afghanistan suffers from a fundamental flaw: It wants to win but is not prepared to do what it takes to achieve a victory. As a result, the Taliban surge continues
Developments in Afghanistan over the last several days have brought to the fore the question whether the United States’ policy in Afghanistan has been a failure. One dimension of the developments is the surge in Taliban/Islamic States’ attacks which have been steadily escalating since the US-led NATO forces ended their combat mission in the country in December, 2014. Consider the recent incidents. The Taliban’s five-day siege of the important city of Ghazni, which eased on August 15, 2018, killed, according to a report in The New York Times by Fatima Faizi and Mujib Mashal, at least 165 soldiers and police officers and 40 civilians. According to another report, 194 Taliban fighters, including 12 key commanders, were also killed. Other reports stated that “hundreds” of Taliban fighters had been killed.
On August 15 again, Taliban fighters over-ran an Army post and a police checkpoint killing 45 soldiers and eight police officers in Baghlan Province, while an attack by an Islamic State suicide bomber killed at least 48 students preparing for university examinations in a Shia neighbourhood of Kabul. Early on August 15 morning, a Taliban attack on a police checkpoint in the southern Zabul Province killed four police officers and wounded three while seven attackers were also reportedly killed. On August 13, Taliban fighters killed 21 and injured 33 soldiers — while the rest surrendered — in Faryab Province. Fifteen border guards were also killed.
The Afghan security forces, bedeviled by desertions and casualties, have been struggling to hold their own. According to the Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction (SIGAR), a US watchdog body, casualties among Afghan security forces soared by 35 per cent in 2016, with 6,800 soldiers and police personnel killed. Civilians have suffered terribly. According to a report by the United Nations, nearly 1,700 of them were killed between January 1 and June 30, 2018 — a total higher than that in any corresponding period in the last 10 years.
Understandably then, people are asking whether the US policy has failed in Afghanistan. To start with, what were its goalsij Announcing a new policy for Pakistan and Afghanistan, President Barrack Obama had said, with reference to the Taliban and Al Qaeda, in Washington DC on March 27, 2009, that his message to the terrorists “who oppose us” was, “We will defeat you.”
That defeat has not happened and there has been a policy shift toward talks with the Taliban who, one has been told, included good and bad elements. As early as December 1, 2009, President Obama had stated in an Address to the Nation on “The Way Forward in Afghanistan and Pakistan,” “We will support all efforts by the Afghan Government to open the door to those Taliban who abandon violence and respect the human rights of their fellow citizens.” There have been talks about talks on a number of occasions. Kabul’s repeated attempts to initiate peace talks, however, got nowhere. Americans have also been — and are still — trying. According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, American diplomats met Taliban representatives in Doha in July to prepare the groundwork for peace talks. Nothing has materialised till the time of writing.
The US role in Afghanistan suffers from a fundamental flaw — it wants to win but is not prepared to do what it takes to achieve a victory. This is compounded by its frequent inability to read ground realities. The rapid Taliban collapse in the face of the post-9/11 invasion in October 2001 by forces assembled, guided and led by the US, convinced President George Bush’s Administration that the war in Afghanistan had been won. Hence its focus shifted to preparing for the invasion of Iraq. Even before it embarked on it in 2003, weapons and equipment critically needed in Afghanistan were removed for deployment in Iraq.
The Taliban, which had been reorganising and regaining their strength with Pakistan’s help, began to strike back. The year 2003 marked the beginning of the Taliban revival, which no subsequent increase in US troop-strength and war effort, could halt, particularly since Taliban forces, whenever hard pressed, withdrew to their sanctuaries in Pakistan.
Steadily gaining ground, the Afghan Taliban now controls about 40 per cent of the country’s rural areas while the Government in Kabul controls the cities which too, as underlined by the attack on Ghazni and other cities, including Kabul, are coming under pressure. It should then be hardly surprising if the Taliban feel they are winning and view US offers of talks as being tantamount to suing for peace. Nor should it be surprising if they feel that they will achieve peace on theirs terms if they continue with their offensive. Besides, they could hardly have stopped even if they had wanted to. Pakistan, which is using them to have a Government in Afghanistan subservient to it, will not accept any solution which does not hand over Afghanistan to the Taliban.
The new US Afghan policy, unveiled by President Trump in August, 2017, doubtless involves the deployment of more American troops and more air attacks. The US now has over 14,000 troops in Afghanistan against the attenuated figure of 8,400 earlier. The number of bombs and other munitions dropped by US aircraft increased steeply from 1,337 in 2016 to 4,361 in 2017. As a part of the air attacks, the US dropped a GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast, dubbed the “Mother of All Bombs”, on Islamic State hideouts in Achin district in eastern Nangarhar Province, killing, according to unverified figures, nearly 100 militants.
According to some, the escalation in Taliban attacks in the last few months is aimed at making the US abandon the new strategy by showing it to be counter-productive. Abandonment will not lead to talks as the earlier reduction in operations by US-led NATO forces did not. As said, Pakistan, unaffected by US aid cuts, will accept nothing short of the installation of the Taliban to power in Kabul. The US should be under no illusion about the consequences of this. President Obama said while announcing his new Af-Pak policy on March 27, 2009, “If the Afghan Government falls to the Taliban — or allows the Al Qaeda to go unchallenged — that country will again be a base for terrorists who want to kill as many of us as they possibly can.” And, of course, it will mean return to the middle ages for Afghanistan and slavery for its women.
(The writer is Consultant Editor, The Pioneer, and an author)
