Not good idea to leave Afghanistan in lurch

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Not good idea to leave Afghanistan in lurch

Sunday, 08 March 2020 | Makhan Saikia

Not good idea to leave Afghanistan in lurch

The peace deal between the US and the Taliban, sans the involvement of the Afghan Government — purported to ensure US forces’ drawdown and the later ensuring no safe haven to radical Islamists on the Afghan soil — has, on the contrary, raised several uncertainties about what comes next in Afghanistan. One thing is certain, the Taliban will fill the vacuum and play Pakistan’s game

The hope of tranquillity returning to war-torn Afghanistan following the peace deal signed between the Taliban and the US, sans important stakeholder — the ruling Afghan Government — at the end of the last month has been dashed as the Taliban resumed attacks against Government forces after it declined to release Taliban prisoners.

Following nine rounds of discussions, the negotiators had reached the peace agreement that addresses four main issues: Ceasefire, withdrawal of foreign forces from Afghanistan, intra-Afghan negotiations and finally, counter-terrorism assurances from the Taliban. The deal was signed by US Special Envoy Zalmay Khalilzad and the political chief of the Taliban Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, with the Secretary of State Mike Pompeo as witness. It was concluded in Doha, the capital city of Qatar. After the agreement was signed, US President Donald Trump said, “I really believe the Taliban want to do something to show we’re not all wasting time. If bad things happen, we’ll go back with a force like no one’s ever seen.”

This precisely underlines that America is expecting a positive outcome from the truce. And if the Taliban leadership falters on its commitments, Washington would come with an extraordinary force to ensure the stability of Afghanistan.

America invaded Afghanistan weeks after the historic terror attack on its soil in September 11, 2001. This was the first ever such jihadist onslaught carried out in the US by the al-Qaeda, then based in Afghanistan. Since then the US-led NATO forces have been there to fight out the scourge of the Islamic fundamentalists mainly spearheaded by the al-Qaeda and directly supported by the Taliban regime (1996-2001) headed by Mullah Omar.

In this war to stamp out Islamists, the US has lost nearly 2,400 soldiers and about 12,000 are still stationed in Afghanistan. But then the offensive against the NATO forces was initially led by the Taliban fighters, and today, it is a multi-cornered campaign launched by other jihadists such as ISIS, al-Qaeda and Haqqani Network. And over the period of almost two decades, the two civilian Governments under Hamid Karzai and now Ashraf Ghani have not been able to establish full control all over the

country.

So far, the situation on the ground has not worsened, but has not improved qualitatively, both for the successive regimes in Kabul and most importantly for the ordinary Afghans. In such a situation, the next move on the part of Trump Administration in Afghanistan would definitely have a serious impact on the sustenance of the Ghani Government and normal civilian life across the country.

Should America withdraw from Afghanistan? Clearly, America should not leave or desert Afghanistan the way it is trying at the moment. Looking at the current imbroglio in the country and an emerging offensive of the Taliban on the backyard, Trump should not withdraw from Afghanistan.

In fact, it is now almost two long decades, the US forces are fighting a bloody war against the al-Qaeda, Taliban and finally ISIS insurgencies across the war-torn nation.

Another question arises to the international community: Is ISIS growing at the cost of the current stand-off among the Taliban, the US and the Ghani Government? To a great extent, yes it is. Time has come for the Taliban leadership to fight out both the al-Qaeda and ISIS menace, else its very identity would be vanished from the Afghan soil. As the traditional strongholds of both these groups are fast obliterating, they are either searching for new grounds or fighting to survive wherever they were existing earlier. For the al-Qaeda, Afghanistan is considered to be its breeding ground as once Osama bin Laden had a strong tie-up with the Taliban regime. Since the killing of Osama and its top leadership at the hands of US-led global coalition known as “global war on terrorism”, the group had to literally look for both its existence and relevance. On the other hand, the ISIS was born from the very womb of the al-Qaeda, but it has gradually lost its roots and set out a complete new journey for redefining Islamic radicalism.

However the joint operation of the US and its allies in West Asia, particularly in Iraq and Syria, and the birth of the united forces, brought forth by the Syrian Government, Russia and Iran-backed militia, have dealt a death blow to the ISIS. So at this juncture, resettling differences within the Taliban factions and immediately reclaiming their lost command could be a top priority simply to prevent further undermining its strength.

Obviously, since the Taliban have not been in power after 2001, the cadre hardly have any hope of regaining Kabul. However, with the signing of the much awaited peace deal with the US, and also on conditions favourable to their main demands, the Islamists and their current leadership have seen a new road to Afghanistan’s power corridor. At the moment, the peace deal just meant sidelining the Ghani regime. But in future, who knows he may meet the same fate Najibullah met on September 28, 1996, that ensued in the Taliban snatching power.

However, against all odds, one can hope the current Government will have enough might to fight back any such monstrous attempt by Baradar. The heaviest onslaught of the war would be encountered by the Afghan National Army. They have to deal with the rag-tag insurgents, apart from the high-handed and most violent Taliban. Therefore, instead of fulminating against the Ghani Government, both Abudullah Abdullah and Rashid Dostum (currently threatening to form their own governments) must come along to strengthen the status quo. Else all of them will have to face a resurgent Taliban very soon. Their differences would be fully exploited by Baradar.

How India should respond at this juncture? This time formally, India has become a part of the Taliban talk process in Qatar, represented by its Ambassador in Doha P Kumaran. Earlier in November 2018, two Indian diplomats, former Indian envoys to Afghanistan and Pakistan respectively Amar Sinha and TCA Raghavan, participated in talks with the Taliban, simply as observers.

Traditionally, India has shied away from engaging with the Taliban leadership, though many realists in the foreign policy domain have demanded the country’s active participation in the Afghan peace process.

But this time with the Trump-Taliban agreement, Delhi has recalibrated its position with a cautious note. India has always insisted on its role in development and security assistance in Afghanistan. Frankly speaking, an Afghan-led, and an Afghan-owned deal could be possible, but an Afghan-controlled one is near impossible. The reason behind this is that all the truce agreements or discussions were either led by influential players such as the US or may have been complicated by the presence of Pakistan.

Apart from India’s interaction with the US, it has also been in touch with other major players in Afghanistan such as Russia, China, Iran and Saudi Arabia for quite some time.

However, a new Taliban coming back to power would certainly remind India of its dark memories of the 1990s, particularly of the hijacking of the IC-814 and its aftermath, leading to the release of Masood Azhar and the establishment of his Jaish-e-Muhammed. Later this group was involved in the Parliament attack in 2001 and in Pulwama attack in 2019. For Delhi, Taliban’s retake of the nation would mean strengthening Pakistan’s sinister Islamist terror design against India.

Thus since the beginning of the talks led by the US, Russia and China, the Indian Government has been stressing on the involvement of all sections of Afghan society and the legitimately elected Government of Ghani, to respect the constitutional legacy and political mandate and finally, not to offer any ungoverned spaces where terrorists and their proxies can be relocated in that country.

These three aspects clearly indicate how India wants a future Afghanistan deal look like. In the recent past, Delhi has suffered and lost both man and material in the hands of Af-Pak based terror groups. Therefore, its major concern is not to have space left for the relocation of radicals such as the al-Qaeda, the ISIS and the Haqqani network. Rather they all must be moved out of Afghanistan. On the other hand, the Lashkar-e-Tayyeba, the Jaish-e-Mohammed and the Jamaat-ud-Dawa kinds of Pakistan-based jihadi organisations should not be offered a safe haven in Afghanistan.

It seems Afghanistan would turn into another chaos sooner or later. The main reason behind it is that Washington has never ever emphasised on involving the Ghani regime in the peace process. The Taliban has been encouraged to sidestep the popularly elected Government in the country, it has dealt with America and the rest of the major international players in Afghanistan as the sole representative of the country. It would be prepared to run a parallel set of Government.

Now only the reconciliation process between the Ghani regime and the Taliban would start wherein many tricky issues would arise like prisoner swap arrangements.

Finally, what the peace deal has achieved is a relative calm for the war-ravaged Afghanistan at the moment. And the central to the deal is the drawdown of the US forces from Afghan soil and guarantees from the Taliban that the country will not be used as safe haven for terrorists. However, the bigger challenge would be negotiating an agreement between the Taliban and the Ghani Government on the future of the country.

(The writer is an expert of international affairs)

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