9 September 2013.
Developments in
Afghanistan in recent months show that moves toward negotiations with the
Taliban are getting more serious. This was publicly underlined on 7
September, when Pakistan unconditionally released at least seven Taliban
prisoners, including some captured leaders. The previous day Afghanistan
released 11 such prisoners, who were likewise free to go where they wish. This
was explicitly called a move to facilitate a new round of talks.
During the same days,
however, the U.S. launched a drone strike against a truck travelling through
Afghanistan's Kunar Province, killing 16 people, many of them ordinary
passengers, according to local authorities. American officials made no comment
on this extraordinary prisoner release, and may have been behind it, but they
also seem determined to demonstrate their lethal power and determination, combining
violence and diplomacy until they get an outcome they can accept.
Even more dramatically
than the prisoner release, in June the Taliban were allowed to open an office
in Doha (Qatar) under the signboard of the "Islamic Emirate of
Afghanistan", the name used by the Taliban government during its rule, and
fly that government's white flag.
This move gave rise to
acute differences between the Karzai government and its U.S. backers. Karzai
exhibited his anger by protesting this move, which apparently led to the
failure of that initial round of talks. Karzai and other Afghan senior
officials labelled the process a conspiracy, accusing the parties involved –
the U.S., Pakistan, Qatar and the Taliban – of seeking to divide Afghanistan.
In protest he suspended negotiations with the U.S. on the strategic agreement
that is supposed to lay out the terms for long-term American involvement after
the announced pull-out of some or all of its troops next year
The Afghanistan
government complained that its preconditions for talks were ignored. Karzai, in
a letter to Obama on 19 June, wrote, "Our agreement to open an office in
Qatar was to achieve peace but not to lose our sovereignty and national unity
and lose the achievements of more than a decade. The peace process should be
led by Afghans." Karzai also insisted that a halt to Taliban military
activities should be a precondition for the start of negotiations, and that
such negotiations should take place in Afghanistan. (BBC, 27 June 2013)
But while denouncing the
Qatar process, in the same statement he once again called the Taliban his
brothers and demanded they should take part in the construction of Afghanistan
and not kill their own brothers. (BBC, 28 June)
The occupiers have found
the situation in Afghanistan very hard and complex, even though they seem to
have decided to seek a negotiated settlement to the war against the Taliban. To
a large extent these complexities have emerged as a result of the occupation
itself.
Why the sudden rush for
negotiation: the evolving U.S. position
It is not difficult to
see why so many forces involved in the Afghanistan war in the last decade and
beyond have suddenly become "peace-loving".
For a long time, the
U.S., the leader in occupying Afghanistan, continued to say, "We don’t talk
to terrorists." It was desperate to come out victorious from this war so
as to move forward with its global ambitions. But the war has taken far longer
than the U.S. expected, and, despite adapting one after another new strategy, a
clear victory has become less possible.
The U.S. announced its
intention to withdraw its main forces from Afghanistan by the end of 2014.
However, this would still be far from withdrawing completely from Afghanistan.
As of now, the U.S. says that around 10,000 of its soldiers will remain there
for the indeterminate future. That means the U.S. would still overall lead the
war from behind the scenes and even take part in more sophisticated operations,
along with training Afghan government forces. As of now, the U.S. plans to keep
military bases in Afghanistan indefinitely.
This is a continuation
of its original goals in invading Afghanistan, to secure its dominance in a
region that is the gateway to South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East, and
strategically placed in relation to Russia and China.
At the same time it
seems that the U.S. has come to the conclusion that the war in Afghanistan is
unwinnable without giving a share of power to the Taliban. When they launched
the war in 2001 American political and military leaders needed to win a quick
and impressive victory, in part to regain some of their lost power of
intimidation after the defeat of their invasion of Vietnam. Their strategists
believed that with the development of hi-tech and sophisticated weapons, they
now had the capability of waging short and victorious wars against third world
countries with small forces. Afghanistan was supposed to be an example of that.
In fact the quick
collapse of the Taliban government only two months after the start of the
invasion was considered evidence of the validity of that strategy. Drunk with
apparent victory in Afghanistan, they planned the occupation of Iraq and even
other countries. But it was too soon to conclude that hi-tech weaponry had
become the deciding factor in the war.
The Taliban took
advantage of the discontent of the masses against the occupiers and started to
make a comeback, and the U.S. found itself to some extent pinned down in both
Iraq and Afghanistan.
Some U.S. allies or at
least some of their generals concluded that with the resources they had and the
way they were fighting they could not defeat the Taliban. They argued that
their interests would be best served by starting to talk with the Taliban with
a view to including them in some way in the ruling power. The U.S. imperialists
seemed opposed to that idea for a long time. Under pressure from some European
allies and especially due to the deterioration of the war situation for the
occupiers, Washington retreated from its previous position, but a condition for
the start of negotiations was a prior achievement of a position of strength.
The purpose of the "surge'"
of more than 30,000 American troops in 2009 was to either finally defeat the
Taliban and/or strengthen the U.S. position if bargaining proved necessary. But
contrary to the claims of the U.S. military at the time, the "surge"
did not help much to change the situation.
The U.S. has been
seeking to talk to the Taliban since 2011. According to Karzai spokesperson
Aimal Faizi, “the opening of an office for the Taliban in Doha was the result
of negotiations between the Taliban and the US in 2011." He said that the
Afghanistan government was informed only days before the second Bonn
conference" in June 2011.
The Taliban position
The U.S.'s failure to
defeat the Taliban should not obscure their reactionary nature, nor that of the
other Islamist groups allied with them.
In the absence of a
revolutionary force (an alternative to both reactionary sides, the occupiers
and the reactionary Islamists), the masses who hated the occupiers and their
installed government for their atrocities could see only one option: the
Taliban. Some stayed away from both sides but some joined the Taliban.
However the Taliban's
reactionary nature brought them some serious limitations in this war. They did
not stop with the extreme oppression of women, half the population. They also
bitterly suppressed the poor masses of all nationalities and religions and
increased their suffering, while siding with feudals and other well-off
reactionaries. This increased the hatred of many of the masses during years of
their rule all over the country including the Pashtun areas.
The Taliban's Pashtun
base is both a strength and a problem for them. Their oppression of people of
other religions, even other branches of Islam, and also the country's smaller,
non-Pashtun nationalities that overall make the majority of the population,
means that altogether about 60 percent of the population of Afghanistan have
not been very susceptible to their influence, and countrywide support has
always been out of the question. The fact that the Pashtun masses have felt
driven to the Taliban by the atrocities of other warlords, commanders and the
imperialist occupiers, especially against Pashtun people, does not mean deep support.
According to some polls and estimates, at least one third of the people in the
Pashtun areas such as Southern and Eastern Afghanistan do not support the
Taliban at all.
The Taliban suffer from
another disadvantage that works against their popularity: most people in
Afghanistan know about their dependence on Pakistan which uses them as a tool
for its own regional interests and its rivalry with India. Pakistan, despite
its disobedience on the Afghanistan issue and its not-very-hidden support for
Taliban, at the end of the day it is a strong ally of the U.S. in the region.
These factors have
brought the Taliban obstacles that their reactionary nature doesn’t allow them
to eliminate. They might be investing in the discontent of the masses but their
strategy and tactics are far from relying on the masses. They might fight the
occupiers but they are far from being an independent force, and may finally
allow the foreign forces in, if not through the front gate then through the
back door. Further, time is not necessarily on their side – they cannot
continue the war forever. It is perhaps because they are aware of the
consequences of this situation that they agreed to negotiate with the occupiers
over the last two years, a change in their initial position of refusing any
talks until the occupiers leave the country. So far, including at the Qatar
talks, they have refused to talk to the Afghan government directly, but recent
statements signal that they may change this position.
Pakistan is another
player in the Afghanistan war that is not happy with developments since theoccupation
began in 2001 and is strongly against Karzai and any non-Pashtun based regime
that would be inclined toward India and Iran. Despite pressure from the U.S.,
they have refused to reduce their support for the Taliban. The Afghan
government believes the only reason the Taliban can continue to fight is Pakistan.
During a visit to
Afghanistan, Sartaj Aziz, senior national security adviser to Pakistan's prime
minister, admitted that, because of previous relations, Pakistan's security
agency (ISI) "has some contacts with the Taliban but doesn't control
them." (BBC 21 July.) In referring to the Qatar talks, he added that
Pakistan helped arrange the meeting with the Taliban when asked to do so.
Ahmed Rashid, a
Pakistani journalist who has authored several books on the Taliban and regional
politics, recently wrote an article about the talks, which was published by the
BBC. He believes that Pakistan is genuinely helping and supporting the talks. "Having
long been accused of meddling in Afghan affairs for its own ends, Islamabad is
desperately keen to make sure that the talks do not collapse, because
successful talks could not only lead to an end to the destabilising war in
Afghanistan, but to a reduction of Pakistani Taliban militancy. The ISI did
play a positive role in initially getting the Taliban to return to Doha after a
break of 16 months and it is doing so again." (www.ahmedrashid.com )
But there might be more
than that, as Western governments are increasing their pressure on Pakistan and
warning of the possible cost to that country if it does not cooperate. This
pressure might also be accompanied by promises for a Taliban role in a future
Afghan government and an increasing role for Pakistan in Afghanistan and the
region as a whole.
In fact, that was one of
Karzai's main fears leading to his protest against the Doha talks. He had suspicions, or perhaps even
indisputable evidence, that the main points to be negotiated had already been
agreed upon between the U.S. and Pakistan and probably the Taliban, in the
absence of Afghan government representatives. That is why Karzai called it a
conspiracy to divide the country.
Possible negotiation
points
In fact, it now seems
impossible that the Taliban will agree to negotiate for anything less than
their inclusion in the ruling power system. The question for the U.S. and other
major players is how. They are reviewing three main alternatives at the moment.
(1) To incorporate the Taliban into the existing power structure and give them
some ministerial position or "elect" them to some governmental
positions. (2) To rewrite the constitution to include the Taliban’s views on
Sharia (religious) law. This could be a problem, since the Islamists advocate Sharia
as the exclusive legal system and have opposed any other constitution. (3) To
hand some provinces, mainly the Pashtun provinces, to the Taliban and let them
control and make the law in those regions. There has been much talk about the
latter option, and it seems it is the favoured solution among imperialist and
Pakistani circles.
The idea was raised by
Conservative British parliament member Tobias Ellwood in 2012. Known as "Plan C", it
would divide Afghanistan into eight zones and hand a few over to Taliban control.
While explicitly rejected at the time, in some aspects it still represents the
imperialists' view for power-sharing in Afghanistan. An Afghan government
official also claimed that Pakistan's adviser to the prime minister Sartaj Aziz
raised a similar plan with the Afghan ambassador to Pakistan.
In the end, all the
forces involved are entering into negotiations for their own interests.
Karzai’s protest is that he should not be left out and no decision should be
made behind his back, but he is not opposed to negotiations in principle, or
even necessarily to some of these possible points of agreement.
The Taliban might
retreat from their position on not talking to the Afghan government. The tone
of Taliban leader Mullah Omar's message on the occasion of the Islamic holiday
Eid al-Fitr was more conciliatory than previous statements. In his message he
said that the Taliban is not seeking to monopolise power and will allow others
to "serve their country". He also signalled that he will not allow the
country to be used to attack other countries, a possible reference to breaking
with or restricting Al-Qaeda. It also seems that he is retreating in terms of
Taliban opposition to NGO activities, women's education to some extent, and so
on. He noted a change in military activities and asked his followers to be
cautious about civilian lives.
In sum, there are
pressures on the various forces involved to come to some kind of agreement – of
course at the expense of the people's interests. They can easily agree on
trampling on the people's interests and rights. After all the rhetoric about
democracy and women's rights that the Western occupiers used as an excuse to
invade, these issues have disappeared from their discourse and from that of
Karzai, who has repeatedly (and truthfully) called the Taliban his “brothers”.
There is no doubt that whatever the agreement, the people and especially women
will suffer as usual, and maybe even worse than now.
It may be that this
negotiation process will continue. It also may happen that the differences and
the clash of interests among the reactionary forces involved will prevent a
settlement. In either case, this situation will go against the people's
interest and is not likely to bring the kind of regional stability the
imperialists seek either. Once again, despite all their crimes, the
imperialists may not achieve their goals.
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