{"id":27315,"date":"2018-10-23T13:08:10","date_gmt":"2018-10-23T07:38:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=27315"},"modified":"2018-10-23T13:08:10","modified_gmt":"2018-10-23T07:38:10","slug":"seeking-a-managed-exit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/seeking-a-managed-exit\/","title":{"rendered":"Seeking a managed exit"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/opinion\/lead\/seeking-a-managed-exit\/article25010407.ece\">Seeking a managed exit<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong><u>Article<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Rakesh Sood, former ambassador, discusses the current geopolitical scenario in Afghanistan.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><strong><u>Important Analysis<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n<ol start=\"2\">\n<li>Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani was on a day-long visit to India on September 19.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<ul>\n<li>It was a low key visit with no announcements because of the growing sense of uncertainty that prevails in Afghanistan.<\/li>\n<li>India reiterated its support for <strong>\u2018an Afghan-led, Afghan-owned and Afghan-controlled peace and reconciliation processes\u2019<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ol start=\"3\">\n<li>A year after U.S. President Donald Trump unveiled his new Afghanistan policy, the stalemate there continues:<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<ul>\n<li>High profile attacks continue to engulf Afghanistan.<\/li>\n<li>There has been slow erosion of the population under control of Afghanistan government, which is now limited to 56%.<\/li>\n<li>Parliamentary elections in Afghanistan are due since 2015 and Presidential elections are due in April 2019.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ol start=\"4\">\n<li>The <strong>objectives of the U.S. policy announced last year<\/strong> were to:<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<ul>\n<li>Break the military stalemate in Afghanistan by expanding both the presence and the role of the U.S. and NATO forces.<\/li>\n<li>The Obama approach of announcing timelines for withdrawing U.S. troops from Afghanistan was replaced by a <strong>conditions-based approach<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ol start=\"5\">\n<li><strong> America\u2019s dependency on Pakistan vis-\u00e0-vis Afghanistan:<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<ul>\n<li>America\u2019s relationship with Pakistan has oscillated for 17 years between cajoling using pay-offs and punishing by withholding or cancelling pay-offs.<\/li>\n<li>S. remains dependent on Pakistan for its communication and supply routes to Afghanistan.<\/li>\n<li>America\u2019s 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.<\/li>\n<li>Despite the ups and downs, America-Pakistan relationship can be described as an unhappy marriage that neither side is able to terminate.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ol start=\"6\">\n<li><strong> Pakistan\u2019s interest Vis-\u00e0-vis Afghanistan:<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<ul>\n<li>Any shift in geopolitical scenario in Afghanistan is not in the interest of Pakistan\u2019s security establishment.<\/li>\n<li>The Pakistani military and the ISI do not support the idea of a stable Afghanistan.<\/li>\n<li>At the same time, the ISI is unlikely to support the idea of a complete Taliban takeover in Afghanistan as it prefers a <strong>controlled instability<\/strong> in Afghanistan where Taliban enjoys some power but remains dependent on ISI.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ol start=\"7\">\n<li>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.<\/li>\n<li>All key players, including the U.S., have now opened their own communication lines with the Taliban.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>S<\/strong>. opened direct talks with the Taliban from July and the first round was held in Qatar.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Russia<\/strong> and <strong>Iran<\/strong> 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.<\/li>\n<li>With U.S. encouragement, <strong>Uzbekistan<\/strong> has also entertained senior Taliban leaders in Tashkent to persuade them to engage in talks with Afghanistan government.<\/li>\n<li><strong>China<\/strong> is planning to train and equip an Afghan brigade even as it seeks Taliban help in securing its China-Pakistan Economic Corridor projects.<\/li>\n<li>This has given the Taliban a new legitimacy exactly as Pakistan had wanted.<\/li>\n<li>With the emergence of the IS, a distinction between good Taliban and bad Taliban is no longer necessary.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ol start=\"9\">\n<li>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.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Seeking a managed exit 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&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/seeking-a-managed-exit\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Seeking a managed exit<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-test-1","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1704899757},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27315","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27315"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27315\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}