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Article
- Rakesh Sood, former ambassador, discusses the current geopolitical scenario in Afghanistan.
Important Analysis
- Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani was on a day-long visit to India on September 19.
- It was a low key visit with no announcements because of the growing sense of uncertainty that prevails in Afghanistan.
- India reiterated its support for ‘an Afghan-led, Afghan-owned and Afghan-controlled peace and reconciliation processes’.
- A year after U.S. President Donald Trump unveiled his new Afghanistan policy, the stalemate there continues:
- High profile attacks continue to engulf Afghanistan.
- There has been slow erosion of the population under control of Afghanistan government, which is now limited to 56%.
- Parliamentary elections in Afghanistan are due since 2015 and Presidential elections are due in April 2019.
- The objectives of the U.S. policy announced last year were to:
- Break the military stalemate in Afghanistan by expanding both the presence and the role of the U.S. and NATO forces.
- The Obama approach of announcing timelines for withdrawing U.S. troops from Afghanistan was replaced by a conditions-based approach.
- America’s dependency on Pakistan vis-à-vis Afghanistan:
- America’s relationship with Pakistan has oscillated for 17 years between cajoling using pay-offs and punishing by withholding or cancelling pay-offs.
- S. remains dependent on Pakistan for its communication and supply routes to Afghanistan.
- America’s dependence provides Pakistan a degree of influence while negotiating with U.S. and that has enabled it to receive over $33 billion over the last 17 years.
- Despite the ups and downs, America-Pakistan relationship can be described as an unhappy marriage that neither side is able to terminate.
- Pakistan’s interest Vis-à-vis Afghanistan:
- Any shift in geopolitical scenario in Afghanistan is not in the interest of Pakistan’s security establishment.
- The Pakistani military and the ISI do not support the idea of a stable Afghanistan.
- At the same time, the ISI is unlikely to support the idea of a complete Taliban takeover in Afghanistan as it prefers a controlled instability in Afghanistan where Taliban enjoys some power but remains dependent on ISI.
- The U.S. appears to be seeking a managed exit, leaving after conducting 2019 elections successfully, so that the expenditures of the Afghan war is justified as having delivered an honorable outcome.
- All key players, including the U.S., have now opened their own communication lines with the Taliban.
- S. opened direct talks with the Taliban from July and the first round was held in Qatar.
- Russia and Iran have started their own talk process with Taliban individually. One of the key focus area of their talk is the presence of Islamic state in Afghanistan.
- With U.S. encouragement, Uzbekistan has also entertained senior Taliban leaders in Tashkent to persuade them to engage in talks with Afghanistan government.
- China is planning to train and equip an Afghan brigade even as it seeks Taliban help in securing its China-Pakistan Economic Corridor projects.
- This has given the Taliban a new legitimacy exactly as Pakistan had wanted.
- With the emergence of the IS, a distinction between good Taliban and bad Taliban is no longer necessary.
- With so many different players pulling in different directions, peace will remain illusory but it is likely that after the 2019 election, the U.S. will get its managed exit.