Seeking a managed exit

Seeking a managed exit

Article

1. Rakesh Sood, former ambassador, discusses the current geopolitical scenario in Afghanistan.

Important Analysis

2. 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’.

3. 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.

4. 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.

5. 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.

6. 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.

7. 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.
8. 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.

9. 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.