US-Taliban talks should serve Afghanistan first
Despite the repeated assurances by the Taliban Chief negotiator Sher Muhammad Abbas Stakenzai that there will be no civil war in Afghanistan after a peace agreement with the US is signed, the reality on the ground paints a different picture.
It is no secret that the Taliban and the Afghan government have been major rivals and each controls major portions of Afghan territory. The Afghan government, which has been excluded from the peace talks, warned that it will not accept any peace draft that undermines the current governing system and the progress made under it especially a recognition of human rights and women’s freedom.
The Taliban in their 5th February statement in Doha said that they will guarantee women their right and “in a way that neither their legitimate rights are violated nor their human dignity and Afghan values are threatened.” However, the Taliban’s interpretation of freedom and rights has always been controversial — even during the 1996-2001 period.
The gap between the ideologies of the two segments of the Afghan nation (i.e. the Taliban and the Afghan government), if not taken into consideration, will push the country into a potential civil war scenario whereby immense chaos will ensue.
The Taliban’s refusal to involve the Afghan government in the peace process, saying it is illegitimate and a ‘puppet regime’, provides a major obstacle to any peace agreement in Afghanistan. Without engaging the Afghan government directly in the peace process, the possibility of a peaceful Afghanistan is very small to say the least.
Though the entire peace process revolves around the guarantee that the Taliban will play a major role in any future political set up in Afghanistan and in counter terrorism efforts, the recent attacks on Afghan troops which resulted in civilian casualties, weakens the faith in these talks, and questions the intentions of the Taliban. The most recent attack by the Taliban was on August 07, 2019, were 14 people have been killed and 145 injured after a Taliban suicide car bomber detonated his vehicle outside a police station in Kabul. According to Police, women and children were among the victims of the attack.
The Taliban’s refusal to involve the Afghan government in the peace process, saying it is illegitimate and a ‘puppet regime’, provides a major obstacle to any peace agreement in Afghanistan.
Naila Mehsud
US Republican Senator Lindsay Graham has been at the forefront in terms of urging the US president Donald Trump to not withdraw all the troops from Afghanistan. He said, “If we leave and outsource our national security to the Taliban that they’re gonna take care of Al-Qaeda and Daesh, that would be a disastrous decision..”
Roughly, 14,000 US troops are stationed in Afghanistan and the Republicans are asking Trump to leave at least a little over 8000 troops in the region to monitor peace and security. But the presence of foreign troops is a deal-breaker for the Taliban as they have strongly declared that no peace agreement will be signed until US and the NATO forces withdraw from Afghanistan altogether.
At the moment, it is hard to imagine Afghanistan without any US presence.
President Trump, while expressing his satisfaction for the progress of the ongoing talks, emphasized that even in the event of a peace-deal with the Taliban that involves troop withdrawal, the US would leave behind a “very significant intelligence force” for operations against Daesh and Al-Qaeda, maintaining that Afghanistan is a “breeding ground” for terrorists.
The Taliban has fought foreign forces in Afghanistan for 18 years now and had forged strong contacts with Al-Qaeda. Indeed any miscalculation on the part of the US can erupt the fragile peace that might be developed following a troop withdrawal.
The Afghan peace process should not, by all means, only bring an exit of the US and foreign forces from Afghanistan; it should be comprehensive and address the post-withdrawal scenarios.
Any possible vacuum in power, as we saw previously when the US abandoned Afghanistan right after the former USSR collapsed in 1992, would push Afghanistan into a new bloody civil war, and create another foothold for militant groups, drugs and overflow of refugees.
This will pose a serious threat not only to Afghanistan but the entire region and the rest of the world.
– Naila Mahsud is a Pakistani political and International relations researcher, with a focus on regional politics and security issues.
