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Tuesday March 19, 2024

Prospects for Afghan peace

By Malik Muhammad Ashraf
February 19, 2017

General John Nicholson, who is the top US commander in Afghanistan, said – in an interview with Voice of America’s Afghan service after appearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee – that Russia, Pakistan and Iran were pursuing their own agendas in fragile Afghanistan, complicating the fight against terrorism and extremism.

He pleaded for more troops to bolster the 8,400 US troops in Afghanistan. However, he did not rule out the role of the Taliban in the peace process.

The fact is that the stalemate in Afghanistan is a sequel to the wrong policies of the US and the lack of clarity in its vision about how to resolve the Afghan conundrum. The US has been in Afghanistan for the last 15 or more years and the mandate has already been extended for another four years. But it has failed to make a realistic appraisal of the prevailing ground realities. They are talking about peace and, in the same breath, want to win the war against the Taliban.

The Afghan government has also failed to establish its writ and defeat the onslaught of the Taliban, even with US assistance. To add to its woes, the Afghan security forces raised by the US are simply not capable of defending the Afghan cities and frequent desertions have also rendered them quite ineffective. So the US and the Afghan government – in a bid to cover up their own failures and inadequacies – find it convenient to blame Pakistan and other countries in the region for the prevailing situation in Afghanistan.

Pakistan has an agenda regarding Afghanistan: to facilitate the process of reconciliation in a war-ravaged country. It firmly believes that peace in Afghanistan means peace in Pakistan. There is no other way the phenomenon of terrorism can be defeated. So the permeating notion among the US administration, its military leaders and the Afghan government that Pakistan was, in any way, involved in militancy in Afghanistan and providing sanctuaries to the terrorist outfits along the Pak-Afghan border, simply does not make any sense. Why would it like to jeopardise its own interests by trying to destabilise Afghanistan?

Pakistan has been making relentless efforts to promote the Afghan-led and Afghan-0wned process of reconciliation. Under the quadrilateral mechanism, Pakistan arranged the first-ever interface between the Taliban and the Afghan government in Pakistan. But unfortunately that process could not be carried forward due to the revelation about the death of Mullah Umar and the resultant tug of war within the ranks of the Taliban with regard to the successor of their leader. Pakistan has also been trying its best under the QCG and QCCG – and even the Russian-led initiative – to break the stalemate.

It initiated indiscriminate action against all the militant outfits based in North Waziristan, including the Haqqani Network through Operation Zarb-e-Azb. Their entire infrastructure has been dismantled. However, the leadership of these terrorist groups managed to escape to Afghanistan due to non-cooperation from the Afghan government – which was sounded before the operation commenced to make sure that terrorists did not cross over to Afghanistan. They have been orchestrating terrorist attacks within Pakistan from the Afghan soil. Intelligence about this was shared with the Afghan government and no action has been taken against them. Instead the Afghan government keeps blaming Pakistan. This is notwithstanding the fact that the Haqqanis are Afghan nationals and even if they are involved in acts of terrorism and attacks against the Afghan security forces and other targets, they are doing it from Afghan territory.

Pakistan has taken unilateral action to manage and monitor the border to prevent the across-the-border movement of the terrorists. Logically speaking, it would be the last country to wish for the continuation of conflict in Afghanistan. Similarly Iran, Russia and China also have an abiding interest in peace in Afghanistan as they all are affected by the scourge of terrorism in one way or the other. They along with Pakistan are also trying to nudge the process of peace in Afghanistan and to ward off the lurking dangers with the arrival of Daesh in Afghanistan. Contacts with the Taliban by Russia and China are therefore meant to find ways to untangle and defuse the Afghan crisis and not to make it difficult for US to stabilise the situation.

The US needs to realise that all these countries, as neighbours of Afghanistan, have larger stakes in peace in Afghanistan than the US and its western allies. The US therefore needs to back their efforts aimed at bringing the Taliban and the Afghan government back to the negotiation table. If the US has not been able to subdue the Taliban movement in the last 15 years with all its might, there is no hope of this effort ever succeeding in the near future. The solution to the fighting in Afghanistan lies in dialogue between the two local stakeholders facilitated and supported by neighbours of Afghanistan. It would, therefore, be advisable for the US to allow these countries to play a leading role and develop cooperation with them – including Russia – instead of holding them responsible for the trouble in Afghanistan.

Pakistan, in any case, has a pivotal role in this regard. The success of any peace initiative depends on cooperation from Pakistan which can be ensured by removing the ambience of mistrust with Afghanistan. The US can play an effective role to facilitate this. The geopolitical situation in our region is undergoing rapid changes. Although the US still has an important role in bringing peace to Afghanistan, a major role will have to be played by the regional countries.

Sartaj Aziz, while addressing a gathering at the Pakistan Institute of International Affairs, Karachi on February 12, rightly observed that Russia and China had a vital role in bringing changes in the region – which obviously meant Afghanistan. The US instead of begrudging the Russian peace initiative must lend its support to it, creating a win-win situation for all the stakeholder in the regional peace and tackling the menace of terrorism.

It is pertinent to point out that the Taliban have welcomed the Russian peace efforts. The US attempt to revive the trilateral dialogue with Afghanistan and India and keep Pakistan out of the loop is bound to fail and further complicate the issue. The US administration and its puppet regime in Afghanistan therefore need to develop a realistic view about the ground realities if they really want to put an end to the decades-old strife in Afghanistan.

The writer is a freelance contributor. Email: ashpak10@gmail.com