America is ready to leave Afghanistan. Joe Biden’s solemn speech earlier on Wednesday announced a complete withdrawal of US forces by September 11, 2021, marking two decades since the tragic incidents of 9/11 and the ensuing war on terror. Back when he was VP to Barack Obama, Biden had opposed prolonging the Afghan war. Now as President, he has overruled generals and put diplomats in charge. The latter have concluded that America has achieved its objectives in Afghanistan. It is time to go home.
It is a happening presidency under Biden, with his experienced team able to address several difficult policy issues simultaneously. Getting the Afghanistan question out of the way early on makes political sense. There are no good or easy choices for America: there are costs to both staying and leaving. The administration must be confident that they can reduce or manage the costs of leaving. Time will tell. In a way, the withdrawal was already underway, in slow motion. Since Obama’s 2009 troop surge, US force levels (and NATO forces along with it) have gradually thinned in Afghanistan. The Trump administration’s February 2020 deal with the Taliban had set the clock ticking for a full withdrawal by May 1, 2021. Biden has brought his own clock, timing it with the symbolic, grim milestone later this year.
Analysts are now busy trying to understand what all this means for a post-withdrawal Afghanistan. The American troop presence was the biggest leverage that the Afghan political class and civil society had against the Taliban. Over the past 14 months, the Americans had tried to get an intra-Afghan peace process going, but it got nowhere close to a political pact that the US could wave to the world before leaving Kabul. The Biden administration also made a last-ditch effort in recent months, but to no avail.
While President Biden has assured the Afghans of future US assistance, the relevance of American aid will decrease after the pullout, as regional powers will jockey for influence on the ground. Afghans will be pretty much on their own amidst rising de-stabilization. It remains to be seen how effective the Afghan army and police, trained by US and NATO forces, will be in holding off the Taliban from marching in.
Some analysts suggest that the Taliban won’t go down the violent road because they feel confident of their eventual victory, and this time they seek international legitimacy for their future government. But it is hard to imagine cooperation among different factions unless there is a UN-backed or EU-brokered negotiation platform that can sit the parties down and have them agree on power-sharing mechanism or an interim government. The US tried to do this but failed.
Biden has called on regional countries, “especially Pakistan”, to support Afghanistan’s stability. The US leaving without an interim government in place has thrown Pakistan a curveball. It isn’t clear what expectations Biden’s emissaries have delivered to leaders in Pakistan. Keeping things quiet in Afghanistan for a couple of years is a political compulsion for Biden’s folks. Pakistan will likely be asked to shoulder the burden. But will the US play nice? So far, the Biden administration has played hardball.
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