Marching out of Afghanistan : The Tribune India

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Marching out of Afghanistan

President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw around 7,000 of the 14,000 US troops from Afghanistan confirms his strategic desperation to close America’s longest and seemingly endless war.

Marching out of Afghanistan

Fallout: The withdrawal is bound to strengthen the Taliban and Pakistan’s standing.



Vivek Katju
ex-secretary, Ministry of External Affairs

President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw around 7,000 of the 14,000 US troops from Afghanistan confirms his strategic desperation to close America’s longest and seemingly endless war. It was evident, ever since US special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad began direct and open talks with the Taliban in October, that Trump had decisively retreated from his policy to put military pressure on the group. Instead he had accepted to negotiate almost on terms set by the Taliban. If that was showing weakness, and also a willingness to disregard the position of Afghanistan’s National Unity Government (NUG) led by President Ashraf Ghani and Chief Executive Abdullah, US troop withdrawal will almost certainly ensure Taliban intransigence encouraged by Pakistan and erode the credibility of both the US and the NUG. 

As part of his Afghanistan and South Asia policy, which he had personally and publicly pronounced in August 2017, Trump had said, ‘A core pillar of our new strategy is a shift from a time-based approach to one based on conditions…We will not talk about number of troops or our plans for further military actions. Conditions on the ground — not arbitrary time-tables — will guide our strategy from now on. America’s enemies must never know our plans or believe they can wait us out’. Clearly, Trump has now abandoned this ‘core pillar’ and the lesson that the Taliban will inevitably draw is that US stamina is exhausted and it simply wants out.

It is true that, unlike he has in Syria, Trump has not ordered all US troops to leave Afghanistan. US military commanders have begun to undertake damage control. Gen Scott Miller, US and NATO forces commander in Afghanistan, told Afghan officials, ‘Even if I have to get a little bit smaller, we will be okay’. US diplomats and officials will stress that they are not going to abandon the country to chaos. They will also, no doubt, underline that they have all along wanted a negotiated settlement between the NUG and the Taliban and that that remains their aim. While there may be an element of truth in all these positions, the fact is that the decision to withdraw the soldiers will create the perception that Trump wants to leave Afghanistan sooner rather than later and that will enormously strengthen the Taliban and Pakistan’s standing, especially in the Pashtun areas, and cause fear and dismay among non-Pashtuns. It will also feed the Taliban belief that Trump is on his way to accept its condition that all foreign forces should leave Afghanistan.

Trump’s decision came in the wake of Khalilzad’s meetings with Taliban representatives in the UAE a week ago. Pakistani, Saudi and UAE officials were also present in some of these meetings. Significantly, a team of NUG officials was also present at the hotel lobby where these meetings took place, but the Taliban refused to meet them. Obviously, their interest was to show that they were now negotiating directly with the US and that the NUG was an inferior entity that will accept any dish that this negotiation process eventually cooked up. Khalilzad had the choice to abandon his meeting with the Taliban representatives as they were not willing to meet the NUG people. By not doing so, he embarrassed and compromised the NUG position.

At this stage, Ghani and Abdullah seem to want to convey an assurance of resolve to the Afghan people to prevent any impression of NUG’s helplessness because of a perceived waning of US interest in its well-being. In this context, it is important to recall the impact of the Soviet withdrawal in 1989 and later, the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 had led to the fragmentation of the support base of the then Afghan President Najibullah. There can be little doubt that the NUG leadership is aware of the lesson those developments hold for them. Hence, the need to act with confidence.

 Ghani has done well to persuade Amrullah Saleh and Assadullah Khalid to join the NUG as interior and defence ministers, respectively. They have both been head of the Afghan intelligence apparatus and have their roots in the Afghan jihad and are staunch opponents of the Taliban. While they are respected by the Americans, the Pakistanis are wary of them. They will be an asset to the NUG at this time. However, their real test will be how the security forces acquit themselves in the field against the Taliban.

Pakistan has welcomed Trump’s decision. Foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said it would help the US-Taliban talks in Abu Dhabi. He also said Pakistan had released some Taliban people in its custody to foster an enabling environment for the talks. This only confirms the Taliban-Pakistan nexus and Rawalpindi’s control over the Taliban. Naturally, with Trump now almost beseeching its help, Pakistan feels that it is back in the saddle on the Afghan issue.

The troop withdrawal only reinforces the need for India to play its cards extremely adroitly in Afghanistan. It must continue with its support for the NUG. The inclusion of Amrullah and Assadullah will provide India with more good interlocutors, for both know the good work that India has done in Afghanistan. One issue that will get greater attention is that of the Indian engineers who were kidnapped by the Taliban from Pul-i-Khumri in May. They seem to have dropped from the national consciousness.

India, like all other states, must maintain lines with the Taliban. India must also consult widely with other states on the Afghan situation. The visit of the Russian special envoy on Afghanistan, Zamir Kabulov, was a welcome step at this stage.

Afghanistan is entering a critical stage and must become an Indian diplomatic priority.

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