Afghan deal caught in Covid conundrum

President Trump is so deeply distracted by the Covid pandemic, sparring globally with China and his re-election campaign that the Afghanistan peace process consummated on February 29 has gone off the radar. Last month, both President Ashraf Ghani and chief of the High Peace Council for Reconciliation, Abdullah Abdullah, spoke virtually to the international community about reconciliation and the intra-Afghan dialogue. A deal  struck between Ghani and Abdullah in May led to Ghani being accepted by Abdullah as President and Abdullah named head of the reconciliation process, with some of Abdullah’s people made government ministers.

Speaking on June 11, Ghani mentioned that Afghanistan no longer had a ‘two-headed government,’ paid rich tributes to Americans taxpayers and soldiers, adding that Afghanistan would shift focus from security to development. On the peace process, he said while 3,000 of the 5,000 Taliban were released, very few of the 1,000 Afghan soldiers had been freed. He said Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa visited Kabul on June 9 and there was the closest alignment with Pakistan, adding that both agreed on India’s importance in the peace process. The Afghan talks’ team was inclusive and Abdullah had been elected by the Loya Jirgah to lead it. Gen David Petraeus, who was among the audience, said the US force level below 8,600 combatants (4,800 soldiers were taken out as part of the US deal with the Taliban) was unacceptable.

On June 24, Abdullah, attired in a Bond Street suit, observed that the Taliban violence was mounting, with 422 Taliban attacks in the past two weeks resulting in 291 Afghan soldiers killed and 515 wounded. He said 75 per cent of the Taliban prisoners were released and intra-Afghan  talks ‑ scheduled for March 10 ‑ were likely to start in June-end, but the agenda had not been drawn. He emphasised that US troop withdrawal was‘ condition-based’ and that even if foreign forces withdraw prematurely, the Taliban could not take out the government though only US  commando forces, air and logistics support were available. While a mutually hurting stalemate was missing, the Taliban was divided over talks. When asked who was the final decision-maker in Afghanistan, he admitted that it was President Ghani.

The Taliban have received an image makeover: recognised by the US as an Islamic Emirate (not Republic, as Kabul would like); Trump speaking to co-founder of the Taliban, Mullah Baradar; its deputy military leader, Sirajuddin Haqqani, carrying a US bounty of $10 million being published in an op-ed of the New York Times (February 20); and the Taliban promulgating a second three-day Ramzan ceasefire. In 2010, the Taliban control extended to 90% of Afghanistan; today, out of 421 districts, they control only 74 and hold just 22 of them. They have been unable to take and hold any provincial capital; even Konduz, which they have sought thrice. Serious differences exist between Baradar and deputy head of the Taliban’s Qatar office, Sher Stenakzai. Hardliners among the Taliban who worry they will lose their pay and perks are ambivalent about integration with the Afghan security forces. Questions remain on the Taliban’s commitment to the peace agreement with the US as a UN report of 2019 on terrorism confirms that the Taliban have not severed contact with Al Qaeda and other militant groups (as required by agreement), adding that 615 Pakistani nationals are fighting in Afghanistan. Doubts about the Taliban’s acceptance of Afghan constitution, power-sharing and cessation of hostilities abound. In a rare message during Ramzan, supreme leader Haibatullah Akhundzada said: ‘The US should not waste this opportunity to end its longest war.” Emboldened by the deal, the Taliban had launched, since the agreement, 3,800 attacks till May, with Kabul suffering an average attrition of 68 soldiers daily. While Mullah Yakub, son of Taliban founder Mullah Omar, has been appointed military commander which may create friction with Haqqani, four unnamed Taliban stalwarts have been included in the talks team.

According to all but the blind, Pakistan continues to remain in significant control of the Taliban through sanctuaries, training, armaments and logistics it provides. Rawalpindi’s obsession with strategic depth: a friendly government in Kabul or a government more amenable to its strategic concerns than it is to India’s is the bottom line. Pakistan’s Afghanistan policy is circumscribed by five Noes: no two-front situation; no Taliban in full control of Kabul; no hasty US withdrawal; no Islamic Emirate; no support for Pakistani Taliban. These concerns stem from deep insecurities from India. Changing Rawalpindi’s behaviour in Afghanistan will require combined pressure from the US, international community and FATF. But it has two friends in the P5 in the UNSC it can count on – China and Russia.

India has taken a back seat in Afghanistan despite its $3 billion investment in the development of Afghanistan which has won it affection and popularity but no political influence. Despite myriad advice on opening lines with the Taliban, whose role in a future government in Kabul is inevitable, New Delhi has consistently stuck to no contact with the Taliban, a terrorist organisation, till it is earnestly engaged in an intra-Afghan dialogue. Both the US and Kabul have been telling India it will have an important role in the peace process. India has ceaselessly repeated the mantra of Afghan-owned, Afghan-driven and Afghan-controlled peace process when it knows the Americans and Europeans are piloting it. On July 5, India signed five agreements with Kabul under its new Development Partnership. In his Afghan policy enumerated in 2017, Trump had called India the key development partner in Afghanistan.

As many as 135 days after the accords with the Taliban and Afghanistan, as agreed, the US has vacated five bases, retaining Bagram and Kandahar. A total of 420 dangerous Taliban prisoners not being released is being attributed to the spate of deadly attacks this month reflecting the Taliban’s bargaining leverage.

The historic peace deal with the Taliban is actually a US troop extrication agreement sans admission of military failure, the price for which is being paid by Afghans who curse the Taliban for sparing foreign troops but killing fellow Afghans. US Central Command’s Gen Frank McKenzie’s avowal that full withdrawal of US troops as per the agreement in 14 months (May 14, 2021) will depend on the Taliban has to be taken with a pinch of salt. The US elections, not the Taliban or the situation in Afghanistan, will dictate the pace of the US withdrawal.