Premature euphoria

January 27, 2019 media reports gave the impression that six days of talks in Doha, Qatar, between the US Special Representative Zalmay Khalilzad and the Taliban had all but delivered a peace deal for Afghanistan. The reports outlined the agreement as consisting of the US agreeing to withdraw its troops over 18 months after the draft agreement was signed and delivered in exchange for 'guarantees' by the Taliban that Afghan soil would never again be allowed by al Qaeda, Daesh or any other terrorist group to attack the US a la 9/11 or indeed any other foreign country. The reported draft also spoke of the Taliban agreeing to hold talks with the Afghan government of President Ashraf Ghani after the withdrawal of foreign troops and a ceasefire.
It now turns out that the euphoria over the 'done deal' may have been premature. The Taliban, sensing they have the US over a barrel because of battlefield successes and the signals from Washington that it would dearly love to get out of Afghanistan, adopted their trademark strategy of negotiating through shifting the goalposts every time peace seemed to be at hand or at least looked promising. They have poured cold water over the highly optimistic twist given to the result of the Doha talks by refuting the reports that a ceasefire and talks with the Afghan government had been conceded. They did contend that further talks were scheduled in Qatar on February 25, 2019, but this announcement merely served to underline that there remained many a slip yet between the cup and the lip before the champagne could start flowing in celebration.
Zalmay Khalilzad is in Kabul as these lines are being written. He is briefing President Ashraf Ghani and the Afghan government on the substance of the talks in Qatar and their outcome. The Taliban meanwhile have indicated they too are consulting their top leadership regarding the talks. In addition, they have delivered the troubling message that until and unless there is a firm agreement on the foreign troops withdrawal, there can be no progress on any other issues. The Taliban negotiating strategy therefore boils down to getting the US to commit to a definite withdrawal date/process before they will take up any other issue seriously.
They say success has many fathers, failure is an orphan. Pakistan's Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, along with other Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf (PTI) government ministers have already started crowing about a huge diplomatic success for Pakistan in facilitating the talks that have vindicated the PTI's long standing stance that there is no solution to the Afghan conflict except dialogue between the contending parties. On the one hand, Qaumi Watan Party chief Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao has cautioned all stakeholders to refrain from unnecessary statements taking credit for the 'breakthrough' since it could jeopardise the delicately poised negotiations. On the other, it could be argued that it is the situation on the battlefield, where the Taliban are inflicting unsustainable losses on the Afghan security forces and Washington having conceded its foreseeable failure to raise, train and support the Afghan security forces to be in a position to defeat the Taliban rather than the PTI's talks mantra that has won the day. And perhaps we should not overlook the role played by Pakistan through its support to the Taliban in bringing about this result. The talks arranged between Zalmay Khalilzad and the Taliban in Islamabad before the Qatar parleys failed to achieve any results because the Taliban adamantly refused Pakistan's blandishments and pressure through the arrests of some Taliban leaders in Peshawar, etc, a tactic unlikely to succeed given the character of Afghans and particularly the Taliban.
If US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's statement dubbing the developments post-Qatar talks as "encouraging" is taken on board and stripped of its diplomatic veneer, it becomes obvious that the US is now desperately clutching at face-saving straws to justify what will be seen as a predictable and resounding defeat in one more foreign war that is part of many the US has fought abroad since the Second World War to expand its control of the globe but in which it has sometimes faced ignominious defeat. No such debacle was bigger than the Vietnam War that ended with the US retreating with its tail between its legs after massacring millions of the Vietnamese people in the name of combating communism.
The US defeat in Afghanistan leaves Washington little choice but to accept the Taliban's assurances regarding never again allowing Afghan soil to be used against it by terrorists as well as their soothing noises about engaging in a peace process and possible power sharing arrangement with the Afghan government. How cast iron any such guarantees or soothing noises will prove only time can tell. But if the sentiment of the Afghan people is taken on board, it shows the degree of panic setting in at the prospect of the Taliban ascending, partially or later fully after overthrowing the Afghan government, into power and resorting once again to imposing their narrow, misguided and draconian interpretation of sharia on the long suffering people of Afghanistan.
Pakistan seems to find itself caught in a cleft stick. Since 2001 it has had to shoulder the blame for harbouring the Taliban, now it seems unable to persuade its 'proxies' fully to engage in the negotiations process and arrive at a peaceful resolution to the Afghan conflict. This is a risk inherent in the process of backing proxies, which only works so long as the mentor and proxy are in agreement on the goals and how to achieve them. The moment, however, divergence, strategic or tactical, emerges between the two, the going gets sticky. This is an even bigger risk if the proxies happen to be religious extremists and fanatics, such as the Taliban. The whole project of pursuing foreign policy and strategic objectives through proxy wars against neighbouring countries in the region has long passed its sell-by date. Unfortunately, partly because there is always a lag in trying to change direction in such a long standing and imbedded venture, partly because the Pakistani military establishment does not want to make fresh enemies in the shape of erstwhile proxies, the turn is throwing up greater difficulties than were perhaps envisaged.
However, thorny as this nestle is, it needs to be grasped firmly if Pakistan is to be rescued from relative international isolation in the interests of reviving the struggling economy. In today's world, interconnected and inter-dependent on goodwill, flow of investment to a capital accumulation deficit economy like ours, poking our fingers into proxy wars in the region no longer seems viable. In fact, its cost-benefit ratio may well have turned negative.
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