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| Rahimullah Yusufzai | |||||
The United States fought its longest war ever — for 13 years — in Afghanistan and made some achievements, such as toppling the Taliban regime and degrading Al Qaida’s strength. But still, it largely failed to stabilise the war-ravaged country.
If the US and its allies couldn’t achieve most of their objectives in Afghanistan in such a long period, despite having up to 150,000 well-resourced troops from 49 countries, one cannot be optimistic about the chances that they will fare better with a residual force of around 13,000 soldiers in the next two years.
The US and others had to pull out forces from Afghanistan by December 2014 under a plan approved at a Chicago summit of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) in May 2012. The remaining 10,800 Americans and the few thousand soldiers from other Nato member countries in Afghanistan post-2014 would be primarily tasked with counter-terrorism operations and training of Afghan forces. They may occasionally undertake combat operations, as they have done in certain areas in Afghanistan in recent weeks, but this task would henceforth be the responsibility of the 350,000-strong Afghan troops.
Despite the drawdown of forces, the US could reinforce its troops if need be or in case a Republican president succeeds President Barack Obama in the White House. Republican Senators have been critical of Obama’s drawdown plans and are keen for greater US commitment towards Afghanistan. Already, there have been hints of adopting flexibility in the next phase of the drawdown plans in response to the request by President Ashraf Gani by slowing down the withdrawal of American forces. The US has concerns about the Afghan situation deteriorating so it has decided not to pull out its forces from Afghanistan completely and is willing to be flexible concerning its military plans.
However, these are half-hearted measures, as a small residual force in Afghanistan cannot bring the US any decisive victory against the Taliban and other militant groups. Such a force would help the Afghan forces to keep the Taliban at bay and ensure that America’s interests in Afghanistan and its military and economic assistance would continue. However, it won’t significantly alter the military situation because that would largely depend on the performance of the Afghan forces.
The continued US military presence in Afghanistan will preclude the possibility of a peaceful political end of the long Afghan conflict. The chances of a negotiated political solution would remain low as long as there are foreign forces in Afghanistan because it has always been the foremost Taliban demand that all foreigners under arms must leave before they could even consider stopping the fighting. Though lately hopes have emerged about peace talks first between the Taliban and the US and then between the Taliban and the Afghan government through Pakistan’s mediation. There is no guarantee that this initiative could ensure an end to the fighting and eventually lead to an agreement to bring the Taliban into the country’s political mainstream.
In its bid to improve relations between Islamabad and Kabul and persuade the latter to initiate action against the Pakistani Taliban fighters who have found refuge in Afghanistan’s border provinces of Kunar, Nuristan and Nangarhar, Pakistan’s powerful military has reportedly assured Gani that it would use its influence over the Afghan Taliban leadership to bring it to the negotiations table for the peace talks. However, Pakistan would have to deal with the Mullah Mohammad Omar-led Taliban movement sensibly, because putting undue pressure on it and forcing it to cut a deal with the Afghan government without ensuring the Taliban’s interests could go wrong and not only cause a split in Taliban ranks but also turn some of the splinter groups against Islamabad. They may join forces with the anti-state Pakistani militant outfits. Gani too would have to take along with him his Chief Executive Officer Dr Abdullah Abdullah in the unity government while making a deal with the Afghan Taliban through the good offices of Pakistan, due to the past animosity between the former Northern Alliance to which Abdullah belonged and Islamabad, and also Abdullah’s tougher position on concessions to the Taliban as part of any peacemaking agreement. Besides, Gani cannot ignore his country’s assertive parliament, vibrant media and the vocal civil society groups because offering concessions to the Taliban on issues such as democracy, freedom of the press and women’s rights has become a sensitive issue in post-Taliban Afghanistan and there is a broad consensus on preserving the gains of the past 13 years.
The continued presence of the US-led forces in Afghanistan could serve both as a stabilising and destabilising force. The enemies of the US and the West would be tempted to reach Afghanistan and neighbouring Pakistan and augment the fighters aligned to Al Qaida, Daesh (the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant), the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, the East Turkestan Islamic Movement and others already present in the region as they consider America the real enemy and such a fight as the true ‘jihad’. This would mean that the fighting in Afghanistan would continue for years and make it difficult for the Taliban to give up fighting in view of their long-held and stated position to continue to fight even if there was one foreign soldier present in Afghanistan.
Also, outside forces cannot stay in Afghanistan forever. Soviet forces had to leave after about a decade of fighting that failed to defeat the Afghan mujahideen. The US and Nato have taken longer to reach the same conclusion. The better course would be to strengthen the Afghan National Security Forces to be able to defend the country and sustain the government in power. The sooner the Afghan forces were made to realise that they would have to fight this war the better. The presence of foreign forces would continue to delay the mission to turn the Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police into a dependable fighting force. Moreover, more effort and commitment needs to be made to the Afghan peace process as a political solution for ending the conflict is a far better option to make Afghanistan peaceful than keeping foreign forces in the country. Foreign troops are not the answer.
Rahimullah Yusufzai is a senior journalist based in Peshawar.
