A short-lived 'peace deal'

Before the ink had even dried on the US-Taliban peace deal struck in Doha, Qatar, the other day, the Taliban started their attacks on the Afghan security forces and civilians, ending the brief 'reduction of violence' partial truce. On March 2, 2020, a bomb blast at a football match in Khost killed three brothers and wounded 11 people. The same day, an attack on an Afghan army post in Badghis killed at least one soldier. The Taliban have declared they will not attack foreign troops but will target Afghan government forces. Adding to the perception that the peace deal may unravel even before anyone expected are the diametrically opposed positions of the Afghan government and the Taliban. The former says the prisoners swap that forms part of the Doha deal could be discussed at the intra-Afghan talks while the Taliban have categorically rejected such talks until their prisoners are released. All that remains to watch now is whether, in the face of Taliban attacks on the Afghan forces, President Ashraf Ghani will continue to adhere to the partial truce till the intra-Afghan talks. Right now, all bets on this are off. While innumerable obstacles existed and have been pointed out by informed analysts regarding the prospects of the deal, the real sticking point that has come to the fore is the refusal of Afghan President Ghani to release 5,000 Taliban prisoners in exchange for 1,000 captives held by the militant group. Ghani argues that the Afghanistan government did not commit to the prisoner swap but left open the possibility that the issue could be discussed in Oslo at the intra-Afghan talks. But with the Taliban putting the prisoner release as a prior condition for those talks, their future too is under a cloud. Even the venue is now contested, with the Taliban saying they are discussing where the talks should be held (implying Oslo is no longer the settled location).

With the Taliban publicly celebrating the Doha deal as their victory over the US, Washington's position will come under stress in trying to keep the Taliban to their commitments. Seemingly irrevocably focused on bringing its troops home, the US may not have sufficient leverage to prevent the accord from unravelling. The prisoners swap conundrum has underlined a fatal flaw in the US's approach to its Afghan endgame. Keeping the Afghan government sidelined while Washington virtually handed the Taliban their main demand of the withdrawal of foreign forces on a platter is a strategy whose chickens now appear to be coming home to roost. The Afghan government and other anti-Taliban forces may not be in a position to assert it, but the deal has forced them to try and salvage some space for their continued existence in power. Whether this can be achieved by carving out a share in power for the triumphant Taliban remains a moot point. In an eerie replay, the US seems to be making the same mistake as in Vietnam when it virtually abandoned its propped up South Vietnamese regime, only to see it crumble within two years of the Geneva Accords of 1973. Withdrawing from an unwinnable war makes sense, but historians and others will have much to mull over when examining the confused and contradictory aims and objectives of Washington over the long course of 19 years on Afghanistan's battlefields. What should worry Pakistan is the possible fallout of a breakdown of the peace deal and reversion to war in its neighbouring country. Not only could this pose some old and some new security concerns, an Afghanistan continuing in turmoil would negate the possibility of the Afghan refugees returning to their homeland. All the hopes of peace ushering in new economic opportunities as a result of a peaceful Afghanistan providing a connectivity gateway to Central Asia and beyond could disappear in a puff of smoke. The plans for the CASA-1000 transmission line and the TAPI gas pipeline too could recede further into the distance. The stakes for the people of Afghanistan are so high as to answer to the description of a life and death matter, but Pakistan may not be able to escape the fallout of renewed and continuing hostilities between the Afghan factions.