The road to Biden’s announcement and ahead for Aghanistan
https://arab.news/vfuxs
Biden announced this week that his administration has decided to stay in Afghanistan till September 11, breaking the commitment to the Taliban made by his predecessor that the US would withdraw its troops completely by May 2021. Is this the most imprudent foreign policy decision the US has made over the course of its modern history? Is it a double-edged sword hanging only on the head of US and NATO partners and benefitting the Taliban?
Biden said that the withdrawal will not be conditions-based and that the one with conditions over the past two decades had only been a recipe for staying in Afghanistan forever. US, however, wants to ‘stabilize’ the Afghan government against the Taliban after its exit, hence buying more time.
Taliban, who feel stronger than ever, announced that they will not attend the summit planned in Istanbul later this month. The summit is considered crucial for the future of Afghanistan since it intends to bring all Afghan sides together to hold talks. The Ghani government’s ‘principled position’ is to make the Taliban agree to an interim government which the Taliban say goes against their stance. After a lot of stumbling and failures, it took 18 months to draft a paper as plain as the Doha agreement. It would be too benign to assume that a mere five-month timeframe can resolve an issue as grave as the Taliban and Afghan government’s sharp differences.
By delaying troop withdrawal, the US tore up the agreement with Taliban where the latter was obliged to refrain from attacking US and NATO troops. If one NATO soldier is killed, it will bring all the efforts back to square one and both sides can engage in confrontation unparalleled to past events.
Many practitioners and policy makers argue that exiting Afghanistan will leave the Kabul government at the mercy of the Taliban and that it will struggle to stand its ground against the ‘confident’ group. But the United States has poured in support to the Kabul government over the past two decades which still remains corruption-laden, continuing to lose power to the Taliban.
Naila Mahsud
Many practitioners and policy makers argue that exiting Afghanistan will leave the Kabul government at the mercy of the Taliban and that it will struggle to stand its ground against the ‘confident’ group. But the United States has poured in support to the Kabul government over the past two decades which still remains corruption-laden, continuing to lose power to the Taliban.
The Afghan government needs to stand on its own two feet and be accountable for all the funding and support they have received and win public support.
Some might argue that haphazard troop withdrawal will definitely lead to an Iraq-like situation where the power vacuum after the US exit led to the rise of Daesh. This argument might not be totally convincing. In Iraq there was no balancing force against the rise of Daesh after the US left. In Afghanistan, the Taliban, with and without the support of the US, has fought off Daesh from areas under their control.
Taliban have largely kept their word by not attacking US bases and facilities. But no party should have a false sense of security because delaying troop withdrawal doesn’t only have consequences for Afghanistan but also for the US as a global hegemon.
2,500 troops are simply not enough to save Afghanistan from becoming a hub of radicalism or a safe haven for militants, or to help the Afghan government fight against the Taliban.
Neither is a five-month period enough to wind up the mess made on the ground. With a broken promise to the Taliban, America might have lost the opportunity to exit with face-saving.
The situation on the ground reminds me of the famous words of Walter Cronkite in the wake of the Tet offensive in Vietnam: We are mired in Stalemate [and] the only rational way out then will be to negotiate, not as victors, but as honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy and did the best they could.
By extending the deadline of troop withdrawal, that too without conditions, America has indulged itself in a situation where they will either have to go back with a black eye or be mired in the war longer than it wishes to stay.
*Naila Mahsud is a Pakistani political and International relations researcher, with a focus on regional politics and security issues. Twitter: @MahsudNaila
