US-Taliban Deal and the Future of Afghanistan

After more than eighteen years of war in Afghanistan, the United States and the Taliban reached an agreement in what were both sides’ most intensive efforts yet to end the Washington’s longest war. The agreement, which was signed in Doha, Qatar, in the presence of representatives from Pakistan, Qatar, Turkey, India, Indonesia, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, will pave the way for the US to gradually withdraw its troops. The two sides have long wrangled over the US demand for a ceasefire before the signing of the agreement, which has four points: a timeline of 14 months for the withdrawal of all US and NATO troops from Afghanistan; a Taliban guarantee that Afghan soil will not be used as a launchpad that would threaten the security of the US; the launch of intra-Afghan negotiations by March 10; and a permanent and comprehensive ceasefire.

After nearly two decades, 2,400 soldiers killed, another 20,000 wounded, and as much as $2 trillion spent, the United States signed a deal with the Taliban on Saturday, February 29, in Doha, the capital of Qatar. US envoy for peace in Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad and Taliban leader Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar signed the agreement from their respective sides to end America’s longest war and pave the way for Afghan factions to bring nearly 19 years of costly fighting in their country to an end. Central to the deal is a significant drawdown of US troops and guarantees from the Taliban that the country will not become a safe haven for terrorists.

Basics of the Deal

US-Taliban peace deal, entitled “Agreement for Bringing Peace to Afghanistan between the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan which is not recognized by the United States as a state and is known as the Taliban and the United States of America,” opens the way for direct negotiations between the insurgents and other Afghans, including the country’s government, on a political future after Washington ends its military presence. The negotiations could also result in a ceasefire.

Here are the main points in the agreement, and a look at how events could unfold.

A gradual US troop withdrawal will begin. The United States has agreed to withdraw American troops from Afghanistan in exchange for assurances by the Taliban that it will deny sanctuary to terrorist groups like Al-Qaeda. Right now, the United States has about 13,000 troops in the country, down from about 100,000 at the peak of the war nearly a decade ago. They are supported by several thousand others from NATO allies. The two sides have agreed to a gradual, conditions-based withdrawal over 14 months. In the first phase, about 5,000 troops are to leave within 135 days. During the gradual withdrawal, the Taliban and the Afghan government would have to work out a more concrete power-sharing settlement.

That timeframe would give the government the cover of American military protection while negotiating. Taliban have pledged to break with Al-Qaeda. The United States invaded Afghanistan because the Taliban government had given safe haven to Al-Qaeda, which allegedly conducted Sep 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the mainland. Over the years, even as Al-Qaeda has been decimated by years of US military operations, the Taliban refused to publicly disavow the group, which still pledges allegiance to the Taliban’s supreme leader. As part of the deal, the Taliban commited to breaking with Al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups and keeping them from using Afghan territory to stage attacks against the United States and its allies. The United States and the Taliban are to establish a joint monitoring body in Qatar, where their negotiations have been held, to assess progress on the commitments. Other issues include the release of prisoners and the lifting of international sanctions and travel bans on Taliban leaders. US officials say all those steps will be implemented gradually, and only if the Taliban meet their commitments. Complicated talks between Afghans come next. The agreement between the United States and the Taliban unlocks a difficult but crucial next step: negotiations between the Taliban and other Afghans, including the government, over future power-sharing. Those talks were to start within 10 days or so. But the Taliban, who led most of Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001 before they were toppled by the US military invasion, refuse to recognize Afghanistan’s democratic government. The goal of their insurgency has been returning to power and establishing rule that is based on their view of Islam. Other major issues, including women’s rights and civil liberties, are also at stake. Many Afghan women have expressed concern that they have been sidelined from the process, and they fear that protections created for them over the past 18 years could be bargained away to the ultraconservative Taliban movement. Divisions inside Afghanistan will complicate the negotiations. The democratic side has been bitterly divided by a disputed election, with the main challenger declaring he would form his own government after President Ashraf Ghani won a second term in office. Deal tied to reducing bloodshed immediately. For much of the negotiating process, the American side demanded a ceasefire that could pause the bloodshed, in which dozens are killed daily, and create space for talks over the future of the country. With violence as their main leverage, the Taliban refused that demand in the early stages of the talks, saying they were willing to discuss it only in negotiations with other Afghans once the United States promised to withdraw its troops. Eventually, the two sides found a compromise: a significant “reduction in violence” that would not be called a ceasefire. The signing of the deal was conditioned on a seven-day test of that violence reduction, which officials said largely worked. Attacks across Afghanistan, which normally would number as many as 50 to 80 on any given day, dropped to below a dozen. The reduction in violence is expected to continue into the next phase of the process, until the two Afghan sides agree to a more comprehensive ceasefire.

Challenges ahead

Although the deal is being welcomed all around the world, experts stress that it is only the first step to achieving lasting peace. The bigger challenge, they say, will be negotiating an agreement between the Islamist fundamentalist group and the Afghan government on Afghanistan’s future.

The diplomatic effort to get the United States and the Taliban to agree to a deal took years. It is not unreasonable to assume talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban could be a similarly lengthy effort. The Afghan government needs to assemble a negotiating team. But that could be an even more complicated task at the moment, as the country is in the midst of a deepening political crisis.

Disputed election results were announced in mid-February, and both President Ashraf Ghani and his main rival Abdullah Abdullah have declared victory. Ghani’s rival has begun forcibly replacing governors in the north of the country and is threatening to set up a parallel government. All of this has left Kabul deeply divided and has the potential to undermine Ghani’s mandate to form an inclusive team to negotiate with the Taliban.

Intra-Afghan Dialogue and the Concerns of Afghan Citizens

The next step toward any pathway for peace remains productive intra-Afghan dialogue to end the civil war that was concurrent with the US intervention. This could be the most complex stage as all parties must come to acceptable terms in regard to the renouncement of violence in favour of an enduring ceasefire, even though a democratically-focused Afghan government in Kabul is anathema to the Islamic Emirate ideal proposed by the Taliban. Within the country, individual political agendas and power networks encroach on any efforts to construct a unified state and as a result, induce ethno-nationalism between ethnic groups. Significant political will is required to overcome these obstacles.

As it currently stands, this layer of hypothetical peacemaking is already under pressure as the Ghani government shot down the timeline for a prisoner swap inherent in the US-Taliban deal. Detainees are a domestic matter thus the Afghan government has the right to reject such a proposal. A prisoner swap was meant to act as a confidence-building exercise and it is already apparent that confidence is lacking due to strict timelines.

Circumstances are different now than they were following the toppling of the Islamic Emirate in 2001, so one must remain hopeful for identifiable progress. Firstly, although fragile, the security situation in Afghanistan has improved, as the Afghan National Army has slowly emerged as a cohesive force across the country. The Afghan police force has been highly militarized due to the environment in which it matured, and while that is beneficial for national security issues, it leaves domestic problems, such as crime management, something that is left to be desired. However, this nexus provides Afghan authorities with the means to demonstrate that they will defend the country and, hopefully, not succumb to a hypothetical Taliban-led upheaval of the established— though problematic and young—political framework. Though Afghan forces take the lead in their operations, analysts often contend that a total foreign troop withdrawal is ill-advised as Afghan forces still require additional training and resources to ensure the basics of national security. Afghan citizens fear the repercussions as well.

Many Afghans raise women’s rights and the rights of children as key concerns in any forthcoming dialogue with the Taliban. Since the NATO invasion in 2001, many benighted features of a Taliban regime, such as women banned from studying or working in public places, have become a thing of the past in urban areas. Afghan women and girls not only study at the highest levels now, but engage in the workforce as well. Such cases are not at optimal levels and women still face gender bias, but the lives they have experienced, they say, must not be sacrificed for the sake of making a deal with the Taliban. To state it simply, in the words of a young Afghan woman: “We as women need to tell the Taliban that this Afghanistan is not the Afghanistan of 17 years ago. This is a new Afghanistan.” And yes, the country has changed significantly. It has media resources that connect it to the world and thus its younger generations are exposed to new ideas.

Prospects for peace are reliant on the creation of a non-violent space on Afghan territory so that the provinces and federal government can resolve entrenched generational problems linked to socio-economic issues. Therefore, compliance by the Taliban to lay down their arms and respect ceasefire agreements are an important factor in this regard. The majority of Afghans live in poverty without access to gainful employment opportunities. And further, potential opportunities available to Afghan citizens must take resources, social context, and economics into consideration. Afghan people must be consulted about finding the best ways for them to create beneficial scenarios in their lives so that those most vulnerable to joining insurgent organizations turn away from even the darkest financial activities.

In the context of intra-Afghan dialogue, the Taliban are faced with the difficult task of redefining their image to the Afghan people. Generations of Afghans—especially those who lived through the Taliban’s rise to power and the violence of the two past decades—are understandably sceptical of their motives. If they hope to be considered a legitimate political party, they must stick to their promise to become engaged in the prosperous future of Afghanistan, rather than continue their past actions. Further, not only the Taliban’s image must be rehabilitated, but additionally, the lives of fighters that will—hopefully and eventually—lay down their arms in favour of peace and national success.

Conclusion

One of the main lessons that should be learned from the Afghan imbroglio is the failure of nation-building projects by foreign forces. While the US invaded Afghanistan in the aftermath of 9/11 as the Taliban were allegedly hosting Al-Qaeda at the time, this mission quickly turned into a more complicated ‘civilising’ project, as the Americans sought to remake the country in their own image, without realising the tribal and ethnic complexities of Afghanistan. Similar tales of disaster have emerged in Iraq, Libya and Syria, where the US and other Western forces have toyed with regime change, with horrific results. Secondly, the government in Kabul must accept the Taliban as a political reality, even though both sides despise each other at the moment.

The fact is that unless Afghans trust each other and work together, no foreign-backed peace initiative will succeed, as the Mujahideen infighting after the Soviet withdrawal showed. And the Taliban must also pledge to respect the political process and work within democratic norms if they wish to see peace prevail in their homeland.