The U.S. Failure in Afghanistan Is Not Pakistan’s Fault

Anatol Lieven Thursday, Oct. 14, 2021

The anger directed by Americans at Pakistan in the wake of the disorderly end of the U.S. war in Afghanistan is understandable. After all, Pakistan really did give shelter to the Afghan Taliban, something that played a vital role in the Taliban’s eventual victory. However, the reaction in Washington is also a way of avoiding an honest analysis of the comprehensive failures of U.S. policy in Afghanistan. Moreover, it misses key aspects of what motivated Pakistan’s behavior, with very important implications for how the United States itself understands and acts in the world.

To begin with, Islamabad’s support for the Afghan Taliban was not just a product of the Pakistani military’s strategic approach to the conflict in Afghanistan. It also reflected the opinion of a large majority of people in northern Pakistan, and among the Pashtun minority in particular. This was combined with a hostility to the U.S. that was among the highest anywhere in the world. The sympathy Pakistanis felt for the Taliban had its roots in the same dynamics that motivated their support for the Afghan mujahedeen against the Soviet occupation in the 1980s. It can also be seen in the context of the historical memory of Afghan resistance to the British Empire in the 19th century. 

But the U.S. refused to learn from the experience of other countries or to draw any parallels between their past roles and that of the U.S. today. When I and other observers suggested to U.S. officials in the early years of the war that they might study the Soviet failure in Afghanistan, they rejected the idea dismissively. That stubborn refusal befuddled the entire U.S. effort in Afghanistan.

As for official Pakistani policy toward the Taliban, it was largely driven by fear of India’s role in Afghanistan, as has been widely noted. But it was also shaped by concerns that the U.S. and the West would leave Afghanistan without creating a successful Afghan state, and that Pakistan, as well as Afghanistan’s other neighbors, would be left to live with the resulting mess. This is what had happened in the 1990s, and Islamabad—rightly, it turned out—feared it would happen again. 

Both a practical and an ethical issue are involved here. In the end, because of its geographic location, the U.S. faces no real existential, territorial threats. All of its foreign military operations are therefore to a greater or lesser degree a matter of choice. The countries located in regions where the U.S. conducts military operations have no such choice. They cannot pack up and go home. 

Every U.S. intervention must therefore be shaped with the wishes of regional countries firmly in mind, while recognizing that, from a practical point of view, the hostility of regional powers to Washington’s objectives will almost certainly doom any counterinsurgency effort to defeat. By the end of the United States’ presence in Afghanistan, its wider policies had meant that this presence was opposed by all Afghanistan’s most important neighbors. Pakistan was infuriated by U.S. drone strikes and what it regarded as bullying, and it feared possible U.S. support for an increased Indian presence in Afghanistan. Iran feared that Washington would use Afghanistan to attack Iran, and Tehran supported the Taliban in order to give itself the ability to strike back in the event such an attack took place. Growing hostility between the U.S. on one hand and Russia and China on the other meant that these countries opposed the presence of U.S. bases in their vicinity.

No counterinsurgency can succeed where the entire region is hostile to it. This is particularly true when neighboring countries provide safe haven to the insurgents. In such cases, great powers fighting counterinsurgencies often consider invading the neighboring countries to eliminate these safe havens. But they almost always reject the option—rightly—on the grounds that far from winning the war, doing so would only vastly expand it. .

The same logic holds true with regard to the argument made repeatedly over the years by many U.S. commentators that Washington should have “done something” about Islamabad’s behavior. What exactly the U.S. should have done, however, is never explicitly described. Invading Pakistan would have only succeeded in colossally widening the scope of the war. 

As for U.S. economic pressure on Pakistan, it was also constrained by a dilemma or ambiguity at the core of U.S. strategy in the region. On one hand, the U.S. wished to defeat or at least contain the Afghan Taliban, though as time went on this was chiefly driven by the desire to maintain U.S. “credibility.” On the other hand, Washington was still concerned with the original purpose of the invasion of Afghanistan, namely to counter Islamist terrorism. 

Any economic pressure sufficient to change its behavior would also have risked the collapse of a state that possesses more than five times Afghanistan’s population, nuclear weapons, and an army of half a million soldiers. That in turn would have created a terrorist threat that would have dwarfed Afghanistan and Syria combined. As a result, U.S. economic pressure on Pakistan was limited to the withholding of U.S. aid, which China soon replaced on a much larger scale. 

Ultimately, the U.S. needed three things from Pakistan: a crackdown on the Afghan Taliban, land routes to supply U.S. forces in Afghanistan and cooperation against international terrorism. Washington never got the first, but it did get the second and most of the third. Pakistan failed to hunt down Osama bin Laden, but it did capture and hand over to the U.S. numerous other al-Qaida leaders and operatives, and cooperated quietly with the CIA and U.K. intelligence to identify plots by Pakistanis against the American and British homelands. 

That illustrates a fundamental lesson of international affairs that the U.S. establishment would do well to study. The U.S. can rarely get everything it wants. It will often have to make compromises and settle for an uncomfortable but tolerable outcome. Living with Saddam Hussein was uncomfortable for America. Invading Iraq to get rid of him led to disaster. Losing in Afghanistan has been acutely uncomfortable for America. Destroying Pakistan for the sake of an illusory Afghan victory would have led to catastrophe on an almost unimaginable scale.

Finally, what has happened in Afghanistan demonstrates the truth of the principle that, in practice, geopolitical and military power is local and relative, not universal and absolute. The outcome of any contest between two countries will depend on the power that one of them is willing and able to bring to bear in a particular place or on a particular issue, relative to the power that another is willing and able to employ to oppose it.

Those decisions, in turn, will be determined by the location of the countries concerned and whether the issue involved is a vital or only a secondary interest for them. By those standards, just as Russia is a great power in eastern Ukraine and the U.S. is not, so Pakistan is a great power in eastern Afghanistan—and the U.S. is not. The U.S. does not have the physical power to dominate everywhere. Equally important, most Americans do not feel that most issues around the world are of vital concern to the United States. This inevitably limits the commitments and sacrifices they are prepared to make in these cases, especially over the long term. 

The lessons from Afghanistan are a case study of these principles. Future U.S. strategy should be shaped with them firmly in mind.

Pakistan US Ties Reset (JR 193)

Pakistan US Ties Reset (JR 193)

Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan enjoyed a warm visit to Washington this week, with his hosts, from President Donald Trump to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Sen. Lindsey Graham, all affirming the importance in particular of cooperation between the U.S. and Pakistan in Afghanistan. For a Pakistani government that viewed Khan’s visit as an opportunity to reset a relationship that suffered immensely during the early months of the Trump administration, it was an encouraging sign. The bilateral relationship has indeed come a long way since 2017 and 2018, when Trump threatened a harder line on   tweeted angrily about Islamabad’s “lies and deceit,” and suspended American security assistance. The main reason for this about-face is rooted in Trump’s increasingly urgent desire to end the long war in Afghanistan—a war he often criticized before becoming president and has never seemed comfortable continuing, even when he announced a new South Asia strategy in August 2017 that entailed staying the course. ..

General Qamar Javed Bajwa, Pakistan's powerful military chief, accompanied the prime minister, along with intelligence chief Lieutenant-General Faiz Hameed. Khan and his delegation also held meetings with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, US congressional leaders, and the heads of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

For Trump, one of the most significant outcomes of the Washington visit by PM Khan and the military leadership will be Islamabad's renewed commitment to finding an inclusive and peaceful end to the long war in Afghanistan. For Pakistan, the visit has been a win on two fronts. First, Khan has been able to generate significant positive momentum through the visit while his government faces stiff opposition at home. This will help Khan in Pakistan.

Secondly, Pakistan's leadership has engaged directly with the Trump administration at the highest level, something seen as key in building a working relationship. It has also fought its case on counterterrorism efforts, action under the Financial Action Task Force, and Pakistan's regional priorities both at the White House and on Capitol Hill. Faced with a short timetable on reaching an agreement before the September [Afghan] presidential election, Washington sees an intra-Afghan dialogue and a ceasefire as essential towards finalising a withdrawal, which will be crucial in Trump's reelection bid next year.

Imran Khan has indicated that Pakistan will exert maximum pressure on the Taliban to agree to an intra-Afghan process. It's also significant that the PM mentioned that Pakistan would like the Taliban to be part of an inclusive presidential election. This indicates that the timeline of concrete action on Afghanistan will be swift in the coming months.

In recent months, the Trump White House has decided to aggressively pursue peace talks in Afghanistan and to enlist Islamabad as a key partner in helping launch and sustain negotiations with the Taliban. Pakistani government sought an audience with Trump and White House contacts of the Saudi connection arranged a meeting .The administration agreed and invited Khan to Washington in large part to recognize and reward Pakistan for its help with the Afghan reconciliation process over the past year, bringing U.S. government officials and Taliban representatives together for multiple bilateral talks in Qatar. However, despite this progress, it would be premature to conclude—as many in Islamabad would like to—that the relationship with Washington has been reset. A restoration of security assistance, a resumption of highlevel dialogue or other signs of repaired relations are not on the horizon anytime soon. In essence, from the Trump administration’s perspective, the U.S.-Pakistan relationship may have improved, but that doesn’t mean a much with Trump. Washington’s two core priorities with Pakistan are Islamabad’s assistance in Afghanistan and Pakistani counterterrorism efforts.

To be sure, the Trump administration is open to broader cooperation, particularly when it comes to trade and investment. During Khan’s visit, an official White House statement, and Trump himself, made reference to U.S.-Pakistan trade cooperation, while Khan met with both the secretaries of the treasury and commerce. However, for the Trump administration, there’s little real interest in truly broadening the scope of the relationship until it believes Pakistan is doing more on the Afghan reconciliation and counterterrorism fronts. The U.S.-Pakistan relationship may have improved, but that doesn’t mean a reset is in order—or that Trump even wants one. This leads to the second reason why a reset isn’t in the cards: Islamabad is unlikely to deliver in a way that satisfies Washington. The Trump administration wants Pakistan to convince the Taliban to agree to a cease-fire and to formal negotiations with the Afghan government. Yet Taliban insurgents have categorically rejected these demands and appear to be interested only in a deal with Washington that involves the withdrawal of U.S. troops. The Taliban, of course, enjoys ample leverage and comes into talks from a position of renewed strength. It is waging intense battlefield offensives, holds more territory than at any time since the U.S. invasion following 9/11, and most importantly has little urgency to conclude a deal. This means that any entity—even one like Pakistan that has close ties to the Taliban, and considerable leverage over it—will struggle to get the insurgents to agree to American demands. Similarly, Washington wants Islamabad to take irreversible steps against terrorist groups in Pakistan that target both Afghanistan and India. It has not been satisfied with Pakistan’s recent  moves which have involved the arrests of dozens of militants . Third, the U.S.-Pakistan relationship remains beset by tensions rooted in fundamental policy differences. Despite recent bumps in its ties with India, Washington remains committed to forging a deep, strategic partnership with New Delhi, Pakistan’s bitter enemy. Similarly, Islamabad is closely allied with China, Washington’s top strategic rival. In effect, Washington and Islamabad enjoy deep partnerships with  —a geopolitical reality that constrains closer U.S.-Pakistan cooperation. Indeed, hypothetical scenarios that could actually boost bilateral ties—such as Washington scaling down its ties with India and easing up on pressuring Islamabad to detain terrorists who target India, or Islamabad pivoting away from Beijing—are not in the offing. More broadly, each country pursues foreign policy objectives throughout Asia that go against the other’s interests: Pakistan seeks to limit the influence of India, while the U.S. is pursuing an Indo-Pacific strategy that is meant to push back against China. Finally, the Trump administration does not support the type of diplomacy that one would expect to see in a rebooted relationship. It prioritizes bursts of transactional diplomacy over sustained and formal dialogue. In effect, there’s no going back to the early years of the Obama administration, when the two sides launched an albeit short-lived strategic dialogue, focused on a variety of topics, not all of them security-related. The Trump administration simply isn’t interested in investing the resources in such broad and extended exchanges, which, if they were to take place, could go a long way toward generating more confidence and goodwill for a relationship that badly needs new infusions of both, even after Khan’s positive visit.

The "do more" rhetoric has gone away; it has just gone a bit softer. Whereas in the past this message would be delivered forcefully and threateningly, this time around it was likely conveyed gently, with Trump and other US officials inviting Islamabad to take its assistance in Afghanistan to another level. What's next with the Taliban talks depends on Islamabad's next move, and more importantly how the Taliban responds. Washington's asks of Islamabad have become more ambitious. It's one thing for Pakistan to simply bring the  Taliban  to the table. It is a very different thing for Pakistan to convince them  to agree to demands - a ceasefire and talks with Kabul - that it has consistently and categorically rejected to this point.

The bottom line is that while Khan’s trip to Washington may have been full of smiles and good vibes, and it may have even solidified U.S.-Pakistan cooperation in Afghanistan, it shouldn’t be mistaken for a reset in troubled ties. This newfound comity can’t mask the reality that U.S.-Pakistan relations are still in need of major repair . The demands from Washington have not changed. While it is significant that the US has publicly acknowledged Pakistan's efforts in pushing the reconciliation process and initial steps to curb militant groups, privately the US would have rehashed its menu of concerns and sought commitments on them.

Afghan Peace Process: July, 30, 2019: THE Afghan peace process has entered a crucial phase, making it even trickier for Pakistan. As many had anticipated, Afghanistan remained the main point of deliberations held between the Pakistani and US leaderships in Washington, D.C. last week. Prime Minister Imran Khan has pledged to pursue the Afghan Taliban leadership to initiate talks with the Afghan government.

During the prime minister’s visit, most US leaders and officials acknowledged and appreciated Pakistan’s role in bringing the Afghan Taliban to the table for talks. The US administration didn’t use the mantra of ‘do more’ this time, but politely requested Pakistan to continue playing a constructive role in the Afghan peace process. Pakistan’s leadership categorically agreed to take up the task. On the other hand, the Taliban have also indicated that they will accept the invitation of meeting the Pakistani prime minister. The meeting will indicate how much influence Pakistan still has over the Taliban.

So far, the Taliban’s position on the option of direct talks with the government of President Ashraf Ghani has remained stiff. However, they had indicated that if their negotiations with the US succeed, they would then initiate negotiations with other Afghan stakeholders including the Afghan government. Yet it remains to be seen whether or not they change their position on initiating a separate talks channel with Kabul. In the event they show reluctance and deny Pakistan’s request, will Pakistan adopt a coercive approach? If so, it will be interesting to see how it affects the Taliban’s relationship with Pakistan.

For Pakistan, restoring its relationship with the US is important not only for speeding up economic recovery but also for rebalancing its regional geostrategic position. The country had been suffering because of its dissimilar approaches towards the Afghan Taliban and other militant groups. In recent years, it has tried to diversify its strategic partnerships, ranging from Moscow to Beijing, and Istanbul to Riyadh, which also entailed some valuable defence partnerships. But it appears as though the policymakers did not see these partnerships as a counterbalance to growing US unfriendliness. The strengthening strategic partnership between India and the US also affected the Pakistani establishment’s policy choices, forcing it to review its approaches towards Afghanistan and the Taliban.  

Pakistan, however, has reviewed its approaches before taking more losses. The country is set to gain in the whole process as India has failed to develop its relevance in the Afghan peace process. On this ground alone, Pakistan’s establishment considers it a major achievement. Similarly, the US offer of mediation over the Kashmir issue has put pressure on Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. It has happened at a time when the Trump administration was not comfortable with India’s recent multibillion-dollar deals with Russia, and trade tensions between the two nations were rising.

Mr Khan’s visit to the US is bringing the country back onto the regular diplomacy tracks. To keep this momentum, the government has to deliver on Afghanistan. The probability of direct talks between the Taliban and Kabul would be one challenge, but influencing the former to commit to a lasting ceasefire could prove another daunting task.  .

For Pakistan, the Taliban will remain a challenge at both stages. The US and other major global actors, including China and Russia, are relying on Pakistan — and if the Taliban refuses to listen to Pakistan, it would be a disaster for the establishment. It is a known fact that many Taliban field commanders are not happy with Pakistan, and the Taliban leadership resists Pakistani pressure citing this as their argument. What can Pakistan do in such a worst-case scenario? Arrests of dissenting elements when they enter Pakistan would be an option, which has been used in the past. Many commanders apparently still have families inside Pakistan, and the government can use this factor as a tool.

Pakistan might also have other options to pressurise the Taliban leadership. The Haqqanis could be effective in the Taliban decision-making process, but they have a limit to their influence. Can Pakistan envision a complete disconnect with the Taliban? This is a tough question, but the Taliban too cannot afford to say goodbye to Pakistan. It will be a test case for the prime minister and military leadership to fulfill the international community’s expectations — ie to make a deal possible between the Taliban and other Afghan stakeholders.

US PAK relations: Aug., 22, 2019:

"Pakistan should aspire a working relationship with the US, which is cordial and dynamic, not curtailing our sovereignty and national interest," Ambassador Khokhar said at a guest lecture organized here by Islamabad Policy Research Institute (IPRI).

Ambassador Khokhar, who served as Pakistan's envoy to Dhaka, New Delhi, Washington and Beijing before becoming Foreign Secretary in 2002, emphasized on finding areas of convergence between Pakistan and the US including trade, energy, transport, and especially education to expand the scope of collaboration

Ambassador Khokhar said Pakistan's relationship with the US could not be analysed in isolation since the international order was in flux with China rising phenomenally, Russia re-asserting itself, and the middle East in extreme turmoil. He pointed out that India was also an important actor influencing Pak-US dynamics as the US expected India to be a partner in the containment of China. In this regard, Pakistan's overall endorsement of the Belt and Road Initiative might also be problematic for Washington, he added.

Ambassador Khokhar said Afghanistan remained a main issued of interest for the US since there was a realisation in Washington that there was no military solution to the issue. On rising tension in Indian Occupied Kashmir, the Ambassador remarked that war was neither an option for India nor for Pakistan due to their nuclear capabilities.

Vice Admiral Saddique said Pakistan's relationship with Washington was generally hyphenated with India and Afghanistan and emphasized that "working together would accrue mutual benefits, whereas, antagonism would serve neither party".

Evaluating the Trump Administration’s Pakistan Reset By Madiha Afzal on Oct 25, 2020 10:01 am Editor’s Note: Pakistan has bedeviled multiple U.S. administrations, proving itself a necessary but often hostile partner with regard to U.S. counterterrorism and U.S. policy in Afghanistan. Madiha Afzal, my Brookings colleague, examines the evolution of U.S. policy in Pakistan and how it changed during the Trump administration. She argues that the current transactional approach has brought benefits, but additional changes are necessary to make the relationship more fruitful and sustainable in the years to come. Daniel Byman *** Looking back over the past four years, the Trump administration’s Pakistan policy can be divided into two phases: bilateral relations that were decidedly strained for the first two years of the administration and, since 2019, a far more positive relationship marked by cooperation on the Afghan peace process and attempts, with limited success, to boost the relationship on other fronts. The reset that occurred in 2019 was due not to Trump’s impulsiveness, but to a transactional approach driven by Pakistan’s usefulness in the Afghan peace process. It is an approach that has had its advantages, but it has run into obvious limits as well. Seven Decades of U.S.-Pakistan Relations Pakistan and the United States established diplomatic ties on Aug. 15, 1947, the day after Pakistan gained independence. It was a close relationship for the new country’s first few decades, especially as U.S. relations with Pakistan’s archrival, India, were relatively cold. In many ways, 1979 marked a turning point for both countries, and Afghanistan became a defining feature in their relationship over the next four decades. After the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan that year, Pakistan became party to the Soviet-Afghan conflict and used U.S. and Saudi money to train and arm the mujahideen. In 1989, when the Soviets exited Afghanistan, the United States left the region, fueling a visceral sense of American abandonment in Pakistan and a sense that America could not be trusted. The U.S. relationship with India has been a second defining factor in the U.S.-Pakistan relationship. Pakistan has been sensitive about growing U.S.-India bilateral ties since the 1990s. In 1998, the Clinton administration imposed costly economic sanctions on Pakistan (to its considerable angst) for testing its nuclear weapons in response to India’s nuclear test. Concerns about U.S. preferences on the subcontinent persist. According to a 2015 Pew poll, 53 percent of Pakistani respondents said they believed U.S. policies toward India and Pakistan favored India; only 13 percent said they favored Pakistan. After the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Pakistan joined the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan. Pakistan allowed NATO access to supply routes through the country and received considerable military and security assistance in return. President George W. Bush named Pakistan a major non-NATO ally in 2004. Relations cooled during the Obama administration as concerns grew about Pakistan’s safe havens for the Taliban and the presence of al-Qaeda in the country. This history has, for many Pakistanis, fueled the belief that Republican presidents are better than Democratic presidents for the U.S.-Pakistan relationship. A Low Point and a Reset Enter the Trump administration and Trump’s focus on his campaign promise of getting U.S. troops out of Afghanistan. The relationship with Pakistan for the first two years of the administration was characterized by an almost-singular focus on U.S. concerns about Pakistani safe havens for the Haqqani Network. The administration said it would make economic ties contingent on Pakistan taking action against militant and terrorist groups. Things soured further in January 2018, when Trump accused Pakistan of “lies and deceit” in its relationship with America, tweeting that it took U.S. aid for nothing in return. The administration cut off $1.3 billion in U.S. security assistance following Trump’s tweet. By the fall of 2018, the Trump administration seemed to have calculated that an exit out of Afghanistan would not come via a military victory. Trump appointed Zalmay Khalilzad as his special envoy to Afghanistan, and Khalilzad began the painstakingly slow work of the Afghan peace process. Though Trump had engaged in a war of words on Twitter with Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan just a few weeks before, Trump wrote Khan a letter in the fall of 2018 asking for help with the Afghan peace process. Khan, who had long argued for political reconciliation in Afghanistan, was forthcoming. The seeds for a reset had been sown. Pakistan produced Mullah Baradar, the deputy leader of the Taliban who had been in Pakistani custody. His release helped jump-start the peace process, and Baradar became the Taliban’s chief negotiator. In many ways, Pakistan was uniquely positioned to help, enjoying leverage with the Taliban and a working relationship with the United States. Khalilzad has visited Pakistan at least 15 times in the past two years. Pakistan considers the U.S.-Taliban deal signed in February a product of its help, and Khalilzad has publicly acknowledged Pakistan’s help with the process numerous times. The hoped-for reset in the bilateral relationship was acknowledged formally during Imran Khan’s visit to Washington in July 2019, when he and Trump first met and hit it off. In a presidency where personalities have mattered a great deal, it was clear that these two celebrity-turned-populist politicians enjoyed meeting each other. They have since developed a personal connection, meeting again on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in the fall of 2019 and at the World Economic Forum in early 2020. During the first meeting with Khan at the White House, Trump offered to mediate between India and Pakistan on Kashmir, setting off alarm bells in New Delhi—India almost immediately responded that Kashmir is a bilateral issue between India and Pakistan. Trump also called for dramatically strengthening trade ties between Pakistan and the United States. America is Pakistan’s top export destination, but these trade gains have yet to be realized. Nevertheless, the bilateral reset has sustained. Pakistan is now helping with the intra-Afghan peace process as well, though it was not obvious that Pakistan would remain involved in this phase. Trump’s messaging on Pakistan has been scrupulously positive since the reset, something the country appreciates as it seeks to move past an image associated with terrorism. The United States has given Pakistan $8 million to help its fight against the coronavirus; Pakistan returned the favor with a goodwill gesture of personal protective equipment donations. China’s growing presence in the region, and the United States’s willingness to tolerate Beijing’s close economic and strategic ties to Pakistan, has also reassured Pakistan that major powers value its partnership. The Advantages and Limits of a New Approach Trump’s relatively hands-off approach to India and Pakistan has had benefits, but it has also run into limits. While Pakistan welcomed Trump’s July 2019 offer to mediate the Kashmir dispute, that pronouncement may have done more harm than good. Some Indian political analysts surmised that it might have accelerated India’s revocation of Kashmir’s autonomy, announced just a couple of weeks later, on Aug. 5. More broadly, Trump’s approach to the region has largely decoupled India and Pakistan, which has generated less concern from Pakistan about the U.S.-India relationship. India’s lack of a role in the Afghan peace process has also allayed Pakistan’s fears. Trump even mentioned his “very good relationship” with Pakistan on his visit to India—a comment that Pakistan appreciated (and that New Delhi did not like, but let go). The Trump administration has also taken a different tack in trying to influence Pakistan. Rather than using direct assistance as a tool to drive Pakistan’s actions—which would have a limited effect given Pakistan’s economic relationship with China—the Trump administration has relied on other tools to affect Pakistan’s behavior. Most notably, the administration moved to change Pakistan’s status with the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), an international watchdog that monitors terrorist financing, in February 2018. Pakistan was placed on the FATF increased monitoring “grey list” in June that year; the designation impedes economic investment into the country and causes it financial harm. (Pakistan had also been placed on the grey list in 2008, and from 2012 to 2015.) In its bid to avoid being blacklisted, Pakistan has since 2018 taken actions against militant groups—including placing economic sanctions on Lashkar-e-Taiba and sentencing the group’s leader, Hafiz Saeed, to 11 years in prison for terrorist financing. The Khan government has made it a key goal to come off the grey list, passing legislation to help its case. In its latest review this October, FATF announced that Pakistan has made “significant progress” and has largely addressed 21 out of 27 action items; it will remain on the grey list and has until February 2021 to address the remaining requirements. While the FATF listing is multilateral and therefore a less direct policy tool than U.S. assistance, many observers in Pakistan still perceive it as a U.S. instrument, and it is driving growing backlash in a public that perceives Pakistan’s greylisting as unfair. Although Trump has been criticized for playing fast and loose with America’s alliances and cavorting with its foes, his Pakistan policy reveals a practical side. This more transactional approach has yielded results for the United States on the Afghan peace process and has largely been received well by Pakistan since the reset. Yet the limits of Trump’s rhetoric and lack of homework before making pronouncements are also apparent. The trade gains Trump promised Pakistan have not materialized. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross visited Pakistan in February 2020, but the United States has had trouble investing in Pakistan due to “Pakistan’s significant business climate issues, including regulatory barriers, weak intellectual property protections, and discriminatory taxation,” according to the State Department. With the FATF, the Trump administration has chosen an economic tool more effective than aid to encourage Pakistan to crack down on terrorist groups. So far, this approach has worked. Pakistan is eager to shed its image associated with terrorism and increasingly recognizes that global stature is driven by economic ascendance rather than strategic importance. Yet with the United States making a deal with the Taliban and giving it legitimacy, many Pakistanis have wondered why Pakistan is still maligned for its relationship with the group. The Trump administration has not offered Pakistanis the clarity they need on that front. The Next Administration If Joe Biden is elected president this November, he will find a different U.S. relationship with Pakistan than the one he left behind with the Obama administration four years earlier, partly because Pakistan has changed but also because of changes in the region and the Trump administration’s unique approach to the country. The road to the U.S. reset with Pakistan in 2019 came through Afghanistan. Pakistan’s closeness with a rising China has offset some of Pakistan’s existential angst about its relationship with the United States. Trump has, against all odds, successfully balanced the U.S. relationship with Pakistan and India in a way that doesn’t worsen Pakistan’s paranoia, and the administration’s reliance on the FATF listing as a tool has also proved effective in goading Pakistan to take action against militant groups. Yet this approach is piecemeal and opportunistic. The next administration will need to round out America’s Pakistan policy, to make it comprehensive and take a longer term view. This is especially true as the United States seeks to withdraw troops completely from Afghanistan—for the first time in more than four decades, the two countries may be looking at a bilateral relationship not driven by Afghanistan. The U.S.-Pakistan relationship, long dominated by strategic concerns, can become a productive one for both countries, if redefined carefully and with an open mind.

History of Afghanistan War 1978 to Present (JR134)

History of Afghanistan War1978 to Present (JR134)

History

From 1933 to 1973 Afghanistan experienced a lengthy period of peace and relative stability It was ruled as a monarchy by King Zahir Shah, who belonged to the Afghan Musahiban Barakzai dynasty In the 1960s, Afghanistan as a constitutional monarchy held limited parliamentary elections. Zahir Shah, who would become the last King of Afghanistan, was overthrown by his cousin Mohammed Daoud Khan in July 1973, after discontent with the monarchy grew in the urban areas of Afghanistan The country had gone through several droughts, and charges of corruption and poor economic policies were leveled against the ruling dynasty. Khan transformed the monarchy into a republic, and he became the first President of Afghanistan. He was supported by a faction of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA), Afghanistan's communist party, which had been founded in 1965 and enjoyed strong relations with the Soviet Union. The establishment of the Republic of Afghanistan increased the Soviet investment in Afghanistan and the PDPA influence in the government's military and civil bodies  In 1976, alarmed by the growing power of the PDPA and the party's strong affiliation with the Soviet Union, Daoud Khan tried to scale back the PDPA's influence. He dismissed PDPA members from their government posts, appointed conservative elements instead and finally announced the dissolution of the PDPA, arresting senior party members

On April 27, 1978, the PDPA and military units loyal to the PDPA killed Daoud Khan, his immediate family and bodyguards in a violent coup, seizing control of the capital, Kabul. As the PDPA had chosen a weekend holiday to conduct the coup, when many government employees were having a day off, Daoud Khan was not able to fully activate the well-trained armed forces which remained loyal to him to counter the coup.

The new PDPA government, led by a revolutionary council, did not enjoy the support of the masses.  Therefore, it soon announced and implemented a hostile doctrine against any political dissent, whether inside or outside the party. The first communist leader in Afghanistan,Nur Muhammad Taraki, was assassinated by his fellow communist Hafizullah Amin. Amin was known for his independent and nationalist inclinations, and was also seen by many as a ruthless leader. He has been accused of killing tens of thousands of Afghan civilians at Pul-e-Charkhi and other national prisons: 27,000 politically motivated executions reportedly took place at Pul-e-Charkhi prison alone.^[

Introduction

This article covers the history of Afghanistan since the communist military coup on 27 April 1978, known as the Saur Revolution, when the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) took power. Since that day, an almost continuous series of armed conflicts has dominated and afflicted Afghanistan..After this Saur Revolution, most of Afghanistan experienced uprisings against the PDPA government. The Soviet–Afghan War began in December 1979 to replace the existing communist government. Afghanistan's resistance forces, known as the mujahideen, fought against the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan. Some factions received support from the United States, with the Pakistani ISI handling tne direct tactical operations.   The Soviet Union had to withdraw its troops in February 1989. The Soviet-backed Afghan communist government survived for three more years until the fall of Kabul in 1992.

Peshawar Accord

In 1992, the Afghan political parties agreed on the Peshawar Accords which established the Islamic State of Afghanistan and appointed an interim government. Militia leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar was opposed to the agreement and with Pakistani support started a bombardment campaign against Kabul. Additionally, three militias who had been able to occupy some suburbs of Kabul engaged in a violent war against each other. Regional powers such as Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, India and Uzbekistan seeking influence over the geo-strategically located Afghanistan each supported and in some cases controlled one of those militias. While Kabul and some other major cities witnessed most of the fighting during that period, most of the more rural parts of Afghanistan, which had seen especially massive bombardment by the Soviets and Communists, remained relatively calm. In late 1994/early 1995, as the Islamic State's minister of defense Ahmad Shah Massoud had been able to defeat most of the militias militarily in Kabul and had restored some calm to the capital, the Taliban emerged as a new faction threatening Kabul.

Taliban

The Taliban had initially emerged as a new force in the southern city of Kandahar conquering many southern and central provinces not under Islamic State control in the course of 1994. In early 1995, as they launched a major operation against the capital Kabul, they suffered a devastating defeat against the Islamic State forces of Massoud in what many analysts saw as the movement's end. By 1996, however, they had regrouped with massive military support by Pakistan and financial support by Saudi Arabia. In September 1996 they took power in Kabul and established the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. The United Islamic Front (Northern Alliance) was created under the leadership of Ahmad Shah Massoud as a military-political resistance force against the Taliban Emirate which was backed militarily by Pakistan's Army and enforced by several thousand al-Qaeda fighters from Arab countries and Central Asia.

Following the September 11 attacks in the United States in 2001, NATO invaded Afghanistan under Operation Enduring Freedom. The purpose of this was to defeat al-Qaeda, to remove the Taliban from power, and to create a viable democratic state to deny terrorists a place to recruit and operate. Although some of these objectives were achieved, a protracted and costly period of intervention followed and continues as of 2019.   

Soviet intervention and withdrawal

The Soviet Union intervened in Afghanistan on December 24, 1979. Amin was deposed from power almost immediately, as he and 200 of his guards were killed on December 27 by Soviet Army Spetsnaz, replaced by Babrak Karmal. After deployment into Afghanistan, Soviet forces along with government forces would begin to engage in a protracted counter-insurgency war with mujahideen fighters. Some of those Islamic fighters would later transform into the Taliban .The West helped the Taliban to fight the Soviet takeover of Afghanistan.  

The Soviet government realized that a military solution to the conflict would require far more troops. Because of this they discussed troop withdrawals and searched for a political and peaceful solution as early as 1980, but they never took any serious steps in that direction until 1988. Early Soviet military reports confirm the difficulties the Soviet army had while fighting on the mountainous terrain, for which the Soviet army had no training whatsoever. Parallels with the Vietnam War were frequently referred to by Soviet army officers Policy failures, and the stalemate that ensued after the Soviet intervention, led the Soviet leadership to become highly critical of Karmal's leadership. Under Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet Union was able to depose Karmal and replace him with Mohammad Najibullah. Karmal's leadership was seen as a failure by the Soviet Union because of the rise of violence and crime during his administration.

Throughout the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, troop convoys came under attack by Afghan rebel fighters. In all, 523 Soviet soldiers were killed during the withdrawal. The total withdrawal of all Soviet troops from Afghanistan was completed in February 1989. The last Soviet soldier to leave was Lieutenant General Boris Gromov, leader of the Soviet military operations in Afghanistan at the time of the Soviet invasion. In total 14,453 Soviet soldiers died during the Afghan war.

The Soviet war had a damaging impact on Afghanistan. Soviet forces and their proxies committed genocide against the Afghan people and killed up to 2 million Afghans. 5–10 million Afghans fled to Pakistan and Iran, which was 1/3 of the prewar population of the country, and another 2 million were displaced within the country. Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province functioned as an organizational and networking base for the anti-Soviet Afghan resistance, with the province's influential Deobandi ulama playing a major supporting role in promoting the 'jihad'

Fall of communism

After the Soviet withdrawal, the Republic of Afghanistan under Najibullah continued to face resistance from the various mujahideen forces. Najibullah received funding and arms from the Soviet Union until 1991 when the Soviet Union collapsed. The government was dealt a major blow when Abdul Rashid Dostum, a leading general, created an alliance with the Shura-e Nazar of Ahmad Shah Massoud. Large parts of the Afghan communist government capitulated to the forces of Massoud in early 1992. After the Soviet defeat, the Wall Street Journal named Massoud "the Afghan who won the Cold War".^[ He had defeated the Soviet forces nine times in his home region of the Panjshir Valley in northeastern Afghanistan.

Pakistan tried to install Gulbuddin Hekmatyar in power in Afghanistan against the opposition of all other mujahideen commanders and factions  As early as October 1990, the Inter-Services Intelligence had devised a plan for Hekmatyar to conduct a mass bombardment of the Afghan capital Kabul with possible Pakistani troop enforcements.^[This unilateral ISI-Hekmatyar plan came although the thirty most important mujahideen commanders had agreed on holding a conference inclusive of all Afghan groups to decide on a common future strategy the other mujahideen commanders was like a "firestorm". Ahmad Zia Massoud, the brother of Ahmad Shah Massoud, said that his faction strongly opposed the plan and like other factions would take measures if any "Pakistani troops reinforced Hekmatyar". Abdul Haq was reportedly so angry about the ISI plan that he was "red in the face".^[ And Nabi Mohammad, another commander, pointed out that "Kabul's 2 million could not escape Hekmatyar's rocket bombardment – there would be a massacre  Massoud's, Abdul Haq's and Amin Wardak's representatives said that "Hekmatyar's rocketing of Kabul would produce a civilian bloodbath. The United States finally put pressure on Pakistan to stop the 1990 plan, which was subsequently called off until 1992.  

After the fall of Najibullah's government in 1992, the Afghan political parties agreed on a power-sharing agreement, the Peshawar Accord. The Peshawar Accord created the Islamic State of Afghanistan and appointed an interim government for a transitional period to be followed by general democratic elections.The sovereignty of Afghanistan was vested formally in the Islamic State of Afghanistan, an entity created in April 1992, after the fall of the Soviet-backed Najibullah government. With the exception of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's Hezb-e Islami, all of the parties   were ostensibly unified under this government in April 1992.  Hekmatyar's Hezb-e Islami, for its part, refused to recognize the government for most of the period discussed in this report and launched attacks against government forces and Kabul generally.   Shells and rockets fell everywhere.  

 Saudi Arabia and Iran—as competitors for regional hegemony—supported Afghan militias hostile towards each other  , Iran was assisting the Shia Hazara Hezb-i Wahdat forces of Abdul Ali Mazari, as Iran was attempting to maximize Wahdat's military power and influence. Saudi Arabia supported the Wahhabite Abdul Rasul Sayyaf and his Ittihad-i Islami faction.Conflict between the two militias soon escalated into a full-scale war.  

Due to the sudden initiation of the war, working government departments, police units or a system of justice and accountability for the newly created Islamic State of Afghanistan did not have time to form. Atrocities were committed by individuals of the different armed factions while Kabul descended into lawlessness and chaos  Because of the chaos, some leaders increasingly had only nominal control over their (sub-)commanders. For civilians there was little security from murder, rape and extortion. An estimated 25,000 people died during the most intense period of bombardment by Hekmatyar's Hezb-i Islami and the Junbish-i Milli forces of Abdul Rashid Dostum, who had created an alliance with Hekmatyar in 1994.^[ Half a million people fled Afghanistan .Rare ceasefires, usually negotiated by representatives of Ahmad Shah Massoud, Sibghatullah Mojaddedi or Burhanuddin Rabbani [the interim government], or officials from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), commonly collapsed within days.

Taliban rise to power

Southern Afghanistan was under the control of neither foreign-backed militias nor the government in Kabul, but was ruled by local leaders such as Gul Agha Sherzai and their militias. In 1994, the Taliban (a movement originating from Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-run religious schools for Afghan refugees in Pakistan) also developed in Afghanistan as a politico-religious force, reportedly in opposition to the tyranny of the local governor.^[ Mullah Omar started his movement with fewer than 50 armed madrassah students in his hometown of Kandahar. When the Taliban took control of the city in 1994, they forced the surrender of dozens of local Pashtun leaders who had presided over a situation of complete lawlessness and atrocities..^[In 1994, the Taliban took power in several provinces in southern and central Afghanistan.

In late 1994, most of the militia factions (Hezb-i Islami, Junbish-i Milli and Hezb-i Wahdat) which had been fighting in the battle for control of Kabul were defeated militarily by forces of the Islamic State's Secretary of Defense Ahmad Shah Massoud. Bombardment of the capital came to a halt. Massoud tried to initiate a nationwide political process with the goal of national consolidation and democratic elections, also inviting the Taliban to join the process Massoud had united political and cultural personalities, governors, commanders, clergymen and representatives to reach a lasting agreement. Massoud, like most people in Afghanistan, saw this conference as a small hope for democracy and for free elections. His favourite for candidacy to the presidency was Dr.Mohammad Yusuf, the first democratic prime minister under Zahir Shah, the former king. In the first meeting representatives from 15 different Afghan provinces met, in the second meeting there were already 25 provinces participating. Massoud went unarmed to talk to several Taliban leaders in Maidan Shar, but the Taliban declined to join this political process.^[When Massoud returned safely, the Taliban leader who had received him as his guest paid with his life: he was killed by other senior Taliban for failing to execute Massoud while the possibility was there.

The Taliban started shelling Kabul in early 1995 but were defeated by forces of the Islamic State government under Ahmad Shah Massoud. .This is the first time in several months that Kabul civilians have become the targets of rocket attacks and shelling aimed at residential areas in the city. The Taliban's early victories in 1994 were followed by a series of defeats that resulted in heavy losses. Pakistan provided strong support to the Taliban On September 26, 1996, as the Taliban, with military support by Pakistan and financial support by Saudi Arabia, prepared for another major offensive, Massoud ordered a full retreat from Kabul. The Taliban seized Kabul on September 27, 1996, and established the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.

Taliban Emirate against United Front   

The Taliban began preparing offensives against the remaining areas controlled by Ahmad Shah Massoud and Abdul Rashid Dostum. Massoud and Dostum, former foes, responded by allying to form the United Front (Northern Alliance) against the Taliban.^[In addition to the dominantly Tajik forces of Massoud and the Uzbek forces of Dostum, the United Front included Hazara factions and Pashtun forces under the leadership of commanders such as Abdul Haq or Haji Abdul Qadir. Prominent politicians of the United Front were in example diplomat and Afghan prime minister Abdul Rahim Ghafoorzai or the UF's foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah. From the Taliban conquest in 1996 until November 2001 the United Front controlled roughly 30% of Afghanistan's population in provinces such as Badakhshan, Kapisa, Takhar and parts of Parwan, Kunar, Nuristan, Laghman, Samangan, Kunduz, Ghōr and Bamyan 

Anti-Taliban resistance  

Abdul Rashid Dostum and his forces were defeated by the Taliban in 1998. Dostum subsequently went into exile. The only leader to remain in Afghanistan, and who was able to defend vast parts of his area against the Taliban, was Ahmad Shah Massoud. In the areas under his control Ahmad Shah Massoud set up democratic institutions .The Taliban repeatedly offered Massoud a position of power to make him stop his resistance. Massoud declined..Massoud with his Proposals for Peace wanted to convince the Taliban to join a political process leading towards nationwide democratic elections in a foreseeable future.

In early 2001 Massoud employed a new strategy of local military pressure and global political appeals. ^]Resentment was increasingly gathering against Taliban rule from the bottom of Afghan society including the Pashtun areas.^[ Massoud publicized their cause of "popular consensus, general elections and democracy" worldwide. At the same time he was very wary not to revive the failed Kabul government of the early 1990s In 1999, he began training police forces specifically to keep order and protect the civilian population, in case the United Front was successful

In early 2001 Ahmad Shah Massoud addressed the European Parliament in Brussels asking the international community to provide humanitarian help to the people of Afghanistan. He stated that the Taliban and Al Qaeda had introduced "a very wrong perception of Islam and that without the support of Pakistan and Bin Laden the Taliban would not be able to sustain their military campaign for up to a year. On this visit to Europe he also warned that his intelligence had gathered information about a large-scale attack on U.S. soil being imminent.  

On September 9, 2001, Massoud, then aged 48, was the target of a suicide attack by two Arabs posing as journalists at Khwaja Bahauddin, in the Takhar Province of Afghanistan. Massoud died in a helicopter taking him to a hospital. The funeral, though in a rather rural area, was attended by hundreds of thousands of mourning people.   

Islamic Republic and NATO

The US-led war in Afghanistan began on October 7, 2001, as Operation Enduring Freedom. It was designed to capture or kill Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda militants, as well as replace the Taliban with a US-friendly government. The Bush Doctrine stated that, as policy, it would not distinguish between al-Qaeda and nations that harbor them. Several Afghan leaders were invited to Germany in December 2001 for the UN sponsored Bonn Agreement, which was to restore stability and governance in their country. In the first step, the Afghan Transitional Administration was formed and was installed on December 22, 2001. Chaired by Hamid Karzai, it numbered 30 leaders and included a Supreme Court, an Interim Administration, and a Special Independent Commission.

A loya jirga (grand assembly) was convened in June 2002 by former King Zahir Shah, who returned from exile after 29 years. Hamid Karzai was elected President for the two years in the jirga, in which the Afghan Interim Authority was also replaced with the Transitional Islamic State of Afghanistan (TISA). A constitutional loya jirga was held in December 2003, adopting the new 2004 constitution, with a presidential form of government and a bicameral legislature.Karzai was elected in the 2004 presidential election followed by winning a second term in the 2009 presidential election. Both the 2005 and the 2010 parliamentary elections were also successful.In the meantime, the reconstruction process of Afghanistan began in 2002. There are more than 14,000 reconstruction projects under way in Afghanistan, such as the Kajaki and the Salma Dam. Many of these projects are being supervised by the Provincial Reconstruction Teams. The World Bank contribution is the multilateral Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund (ARTF), which was set up in 2002. It is financed by 24 international donor countries and has spent more than $1.37 billion as of 2007. Approximately 30 billion dollars have been provided by the international community for the reconstruction of Afghanistan, most of it from the United States. In 2002, the world community allocated $4 billion at the Tokyo conference followed by another $4 billion in 2004. In February 2006, $10.5 billion were committed for Afghanistan at the London Conference and $11 billion from the United States in early 2007. Despite these vast investments by the international community, the reconstruction effort's results have been mixed. Implementation of development projects at the district and sub-district level has been frequently marred by lack of coordination, knowledge of local conditions, and sound planning on the side of international donors as well as by corruption and inefficiency on the side of Afghan government officials. On the provincial and national level, projects such as the National Solidarity Programme, inter-provincial road construction, and the US-led revamping of rural health services have met with more success. As NATO prepares to withdraw the majority of remaining ISAF troops by the end of 2014, whether the Afghan government will be able to sustain the developmental gains made over the past 12 years, and to what extent international civilian aid organizations will be able to continue operations or refocus their efforts based on lessons learned, remains to be seen.

The UN Security Council established the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in December 2001 to provide basic security for the people of Afghanistan and assist the Karzai administration. Since 2002, the total number of ISAF and U.S. forces have climbed from 15,000 to 150,000. The majority of them belong to various branches of the United States Armed Forces, who are not only fighting the Taliban insurgency but also training the Afghan Armed Forces and Afghan National Police. They are scheduled to withdraw slowly until the end of 2014 but Vice President Joe Biden has proposed to retain an unknown number of U.S. military personnel after the 2014 deadline if the security situation required and the Afghan government and people desired. Germany has announced that they will continue training Afghan police recruits after the 2014 withdrawal date for military troops.  

NATO and Afghan troops led many offensives against the Taliban in this period. By 2009, a Taliban-led shadow government began to form, complete with their own version of mediation court. In 2010,U.S. President Barack Obama deployed an additional 30,000 soldiers over a period of six months and proposed that he would begin troop withdrawals by 2012. At the 2010 International Conference on Afghanistan in London,Afghan President Hamid Karzai said he intended to reach out to the Taliban leadership (including Mullah Omar,Sirajuddin Haqqani and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar). Supported by senior U.S. officials Karzai called on the group's leadership to take part in a loya jirga meeting to initiate peace talks  

At the end of July 2010, the Netherlands became the first NATO ally to end its combat mission in Afghanistan after 4 years military deployment including the most intense period of hostilities. They withdrew 1,900 troops. The Atlantic Council described the decision as "politically significant because it comes at a time of rising casualties and growing doubts about the war. Canada withdrew troops in 2011, but about 900 were left to train Afghani soldiers.

In February 2012, a small number of American service members burned several copies of the Quran. Some Afghans responded with massive demonstrations and riots in Kabul and other areas. Assailants killed several American military personnel, including two officers in the Interior Ministry building following this event.

On March 11, 2012, an American soldier, Robert Bales, killed 16 civilians in the Kandahar massacre.

According to ISAF there were about 120,000 NATO-led troops in Afghanistan per December 2012, of which 66,000 were US troops and 9,000 British. The rest were from 48 different countries. A process of handing over power to local forces has started and according to plans a majority of international troops will leave in 2014.

On November 24, 2013, President Karzai made a Loya jirga and put a ban on NATO house raids. This ban was put in place, and NATO soldiers were instructed to obey and follow this ban. In December 2013, a house raid in Zabul Province was exceptionally carried out by two NATO soldiers. Karzai condemned this in a highly publicised speech. On January 3, 2014 a bomb was heard by NATO soldiers in a base in Kabul; there were no reported casualties or injuries. The day after, a bomb hit a US military base in Kabul and killed one US citizen. The bomb was planted by the Taliban and the American service member was the first combat casualty in Afghanistan in that year. The Taliban immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.

On May 1, 2015 the media reported about a scheduled meeting in Qatar between Taliban insurgents and peacemakers, including the Afghan President, about ending the war.  

Trump and Afghan War

President Trump put forward in 2017   a long-awaited strategy for resolving the nearly 16-year-old conflict in Afghanistan .In a nationally televised prime-time speech to troops at Fort Myer, Va., Mr. Trump said there would be no “blank check” for the American engagement in Afghanistan. But in announcing his plan, Mr. Trump deepened American involvement in a military mission that has bedeviled his predecessors and that he once called futile.“My original instinct was to pull out, and historically I like following my instincts,” Mr. Trump said. “But all my life, I’ve heard that decisions are much different when you sit behind the desk in the Oval Office.” Mr. Trump said that he had been convinced that “a hasty withdrawal would create a vacuum for terrorists, including ISIS and Al Qaeda.”  the end, we will win.” Part of the Trump’s plan was to deploy more American troops to Afghanistan to continue to train Afghan forces there, with the goal of convincing the Taliban — which has recently gained substantial ground in the war — that they could not win on the battlefield.

Donald Trump in end 2o18 announced that He is planning to withdraw more than 5,000 of the 14,000 US troops in Afghanistan there already were    signs that Trump’s patience with America’s longest war is wearing thin.The decision had been made and verbal orders had been given to start planning for the drawdown.  It is unclear how the US – with less than 9,000 troops in Afghanistan would be able to fulfil the full set of missions now underway, including training Afghan forces, advising them in the field, and conducting an air campaign against the Taliban and other militant groups. The US almost certainly would have to curtail its missions, something that could provide an opportunity for a resurgent Taliban to expand their offensives across Afghanistan. 

January 2019,  six-day talks between the U.S. and Taliban were the clearest sign yet that the U.S. is intent on withdrawing its forces from Afghanistan, and that the Taliban and its regional allies perceive that intent as an opportunity  The Doha talks also were the first time that the U.S. has publicly acceded to the Taliban’s insistence that bilateral negotiations on terms for a troop withdrawal precede any peace negotiations involving other Afghans. The Taliban have made no evident concessions, but hints are emerging of some consensus on key issues. Ultimately, the significance of the talks depends on what happens next: if the framework of a deal reportedly sketched out in Doha leads to substantive negotiations among a wider array of stakeholders on future political and security arrangements, then these talks will have produced an important breakthrough.

U.S. envoy Zalmay Khalilzad told The New York Times that the U.S. and Taliban have agreed in principle on a framework for a deal under which the Taliban would prevent Afghanistan from becoming a “platform for international terrorist groups or individuals” and that the U.S. would pull out troops. Khalilzad also said that, as the framework is further fleshed out, Taliban concessions will need to include a ceasefire and agreement to talk directly with the Afghan government. The Taliban appears now to be considering whether it is prepared to make such concessions.

An exchange of commitments between the Taliban and U.S. on counter-terrorism and troop withdrawal may be enough to end American military involvement in Afghanistan, but without a more complete peace deal it will not end what is now the deadliest conflict in the world. At the moment, the U.S. reportedly is taking the position that a troop withdrawal would only be part of a bigger package including settlement of political and security issues among Afghans. Whether the U.S. sticks with that position will be important to watch.

A major unanswered question is how to structure an intra-Afghan dialogue. How do you get all sides sitting around a table, after decades of war? Also unclear is what the Taliban is willing to accept on timing and sequencing of such dialogue – that is, do they see dialogue launching before a foreign troop withdrawal commences, or only later, after a troop withdrawal that diminishes Afghan government and U.S. leverage is underway? The Taliban have long been willing to negotiate openly with the U.S., as has now happened, and they have more vaguely indicated willingness to talk subsequently with other Afghans, but the specifics of an intra-Afghan negotiation format that can attract the support of all sides remains uncertain.

Details have not yet emerged regarding the counter-terrorism assurances the Taliban offered in Doha and how definitively acceptable they are to Washington. The U.S. may be looking for the Taliban to say something that goes beyond what they have declared in the past. Since at least 2010, the Taliban have promised that they will not let Afghanistan be used to threaten other countries, in a veiled reference to preventing transnational jihadist groups from sheltering in their territory. That kind of oblique language may or may not be sufficient in a peace agreement; its acceptability will depend in part on how anxious the U.S. is to exit Afghanistan. One question is whether the Taliban might be willing to go further now, committing for the first time to actively counter jihadist groups. From the Taliban perspective, they need to see a firm U.S. commitment on complete troop withdrawal with no ambiguity in the wording.

A comprehensive ceasefire is, unfortunately, more unlikely than not at this early stage of negotiations. The Taliban worry about losing their battlefield momentum if they agree to a ceasefire, and their battlefield momentum has won them considerable leverage. A first, brief ceasefire in June 2018 was unusually successful, revealing a groundswell of popular support for an end to the conflict. The scenes of Taliban fighters celebrating in the streets with their opponents caught the insurgent leadership by surprise. Taliban officials say the aim of the previous ceasefire was to show the world that if they want to stop fighting, they can. Until now, however, a long-term ceasefire has been conceivable to the Taliban only in the context of an imminent transition to a negotiated peace involving other Afghan parties. The Taliban are undoubtedly aware that a ceasefire would be a significant political win for the government in Kabul and morale booster for government forces, and thus undoubtedly are disinclined to enable those gains.

In the meantime, the Taliban seem poised to continue fighting. The group is configured to draw strength from its performance on the battlefield, not from politics. As a Taliban fighter told Crisis Group recently: “The reason everyone is talking about us is our military power and fighting ability; otherwise, nobody would have been talking about peace and reconciliation.” In some respects, the prospect of a peace agreement threatens the Taliban’s existence in its current form. They do not seem likely to give up the fight prematurely.

Previous rounds of U.S. talks with the Taliban raised the prospect of negotiating a troop withdrawal but did not address that issue head on. This time the Americans seem to have acceded to Taliban insistence on front-loading discussions on a U.S. troop withdrawal, before details are established on intra-Afghan political dialogue. This step reflects U.S. interest in winding down its military involvement in Afghanistan that has been building for years but has spiked sharply in the second year of the Trump administration.

The fact that the U.S. has openly been negotiating bilaterally on substantive issues with the Taliban is another change from past discussions. There have been intermittent U.S.-Taliban contacts since 2011, but never with as much publicity and as many expressions of urgency. How deeply the latest talks have delved into the core substantive issues will only be apparent once more details emerge.

U.S. envoy Khalilzad travelled to Kabul for a meeting with President Ashraf Ghani after the talks in Doha. Subsequently, on 28 January, Ghani made a formal address on state television about a future Afghanistan without international troops – something his administration has resisted envisioning for years. He mentioned recent air strikes that reportedly killed civilians and expressed his hopes that Afghan security forces would have a different role after a peace agreement. Still, the president was cautious in his comments on the talks. Ghani reminded his audience of the fate of his predecessor Mohammad Najibullah, who survived the withdrawal of Soviet forces only to be killed by the Taliban during the chaos that ensued.

Whereas Ghani may view a deal with the Taliban as a threat to his position, some of his political opponents among the Afghan elite seem more positive toward the developments in Doha, perhaps hoping for roles in an interim administration that might be installed as part of a peace agreement. Still, the entrenched view among anti-Taliban political factions is that major compromises with their opponents – such as an entirely new constitution – are unacceptable. They also are concerned that the U.S. risks making a “separate peace” and leaving them behind. The U.S. will likely need to use its considerable leverage with these Afghan political factions to bring them to the table and encourage a deal with the Taliban.

As talks progressed last week, the Taliban announced that their co-founder Abdul Ghani Baradar would assume the title of deputy leader and become responsible for the Taliban “political commission” based in Doha, making him their chief negotiator. This development suggests the Taliban are serious about negotiations and may reflect a constructive role by Pakistan – which had imprisoned Baradar in 2010, releasing him only last October as U.S. negotiating efforts began to gain traction. The appointment also cemented the role of Qatar as the main venue for negotiations, despite efforts by other regional countries to serve as facilitators. The Taliban had been waiting for the right moment to make this announcement, once they believed that peace efforts had moved to a sufficiently advanced stage. Baradar is a senior and widely respected member of the movement who is probably empowered to test whether the group can achieve its goals through politics rather than fighting.

Details do not appear to have been hammered out yet, and, until results are shown in writing, it is also possible that U.S. and Taliban negotiators have somewhat different understandings about what has been agreed to so far. As details emerge from the talks, Crisis Group will be watching for answers to these and other questions: to what degree are the elements of the framework understanding part of a package deal that includes a ceasefire and intra-Afghan dialogue? How will implementation of a troop withdrawal be tied to these issues? Would the understandings so far – especially on troop withdrawal – be implemented regardless of how much progress is achieved in the subsequent stages of the process? To the extent that the Taliban agree to negotiate with their Afghan opponents, would they talk to the government or only to some yet-to-be-formed broader collection of Afghan power holders? What will be the agenda of intra-Afghan talks, and, specifically, will the current constitutional system be the starting point for hashing out future political arrangements, or will everything be up for grabs?

The Taliban have since stated that they do not envisage governing Afghanistan by themselves. In a meeting arranged by Russia Taliban and Afghan politicians held talks. There is emerging the possibility of dialogue between various players within the country. Pakistan seems to have played a positive role and has helped bring the Taliban and US in direct talks.

Russian hosted talks: Feb., 7, 2019: Russia on Tuesday hosted talks between the Taliban and senior Afghan politicians aimed at speeding the exit   the United States. The talks, held in Moscow’s President Hotel, which is owned by the Kremlin, offered a clearer view of how the Taliban see an end to the 18-year war . While the Afghan politicians, part of a delegation led by former President Hamid Karzai, spoke of protecting the hard gains of the past two decades, the Taliban denounced a new Afghan Constitution that lays out a system of governance built at enormous cost. The Taliban representatives also offered a rare look at how they now see the role of women. While they barred women from public life during their time in power, they said they now believed in women’s rights, including to education and work — a claim met with skepticism by some women in Afghanistan. The Moscow gathering, which included a Taliban delegation led by their chief negotiator, Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanekzai, represented the most significant contact between senior Afghan politicians and the Taliban since the United States toppled the hard-line Islamist group from power at the end of 2001. The delegation headed by Mr. Karzai consisted entirely of former officials, representatives of political parties — many of them involved in the country’s bloody civil war — and current members of Parliament

Negotiations: Feb.,9,2019: Taliban was formed in the early 1990s by a faction of "mujahideen", Muslim Afghan fighters who had resisted the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan (1979-1989). Taking advantage of the power vacuum created by the withdrawal of Soviet troops, the group easily expanded its sphere of influence in the years following its formation and seized control of Afghanistan in 1996. It held control of most of the country until being overthrown after the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in December 2001 following the September 11 attacks.

After the toppling of the Taliban regime, the group's members were ready and willing to accept a peace deal that would allow them a modest but dignified existence in the country. Yet, politicians and decision-makers both inside and outside Afghanistan, intoxicated by their decisive victory, refused to entertain this option and swiftly kicked the Taliban off the negotiating table. At the Bonn Conference, which determined the country's destiny, they completely ignored the group's most basic demands and facilitated the formation of a strictly anti-Taliban government. This was the fundamental mistake that triggered the latest round of bloodshed in Afghanistan and brought us to where we are today.Today, we are dealing with a group whose members view themselves as holy warriors who managed to defeat an unjust foreign invasion.

In the past 17 years, countless Taliban leaders were killed, humiliated and forced into exile by US forces. The ones that were not so lucky ended up in cages at Guantanamo or Bagram, where they were subjected to unspeakable torture and degradation. All this caused members of the group to view their fight against US forces as inevitable, necessary and even sacred. 

Moreover, the governing powers forced members of the Taliban to live in conditions so grave - as fugitives always on the run - that entering the battleground became an easy, even natural, choice for them. Perhaps more significantly, over the years the Taliban continued to expand its zone of influence in Afghanistan and came to think of itself as the victor in the conflict. The group also managed to win the hearts and minds of a portion of the disenchanted rural population that views the central government as ineffective in providing them with basic services and is overwhelmingly drowned in endemic corruption.

Now, as an influential political and military entity recognised by all involved parties, the Taliban wants to achieve two long-term goals: The complete withdrawal of all foreign troops from Afghanistan and the establishment of an inclusive Islamic government.

Of course, the group, which believes it has the upper hand in negotiations, also has multiple short-term demands aimed at building confidence. The Taliban wants its leaders to be taken off international sanctions lists, its prisoners to be released and its political office in Doha to be recognized internationally. Unlike the period following its defeat in 2001, the Taliban now believes it has earned the right to remain a substantial political force in Afghanistan following a settlement. It has a clear political vision and wants to set some parameters for its future international relations. This is why it is also keen to sign bilateral non-aggression treaties with regional and international powers.

Pakistan’s Role: Feb., 9, 2019: Pakistan, long at odds with the United States over the war in Afghanistan, has begun to play a behind-the-scenes but central role in supporting US peace talks with the Afghan Taliban, including by facilitating travel to negotiations, US officials and Taliban sources tell Reuters.

The Pakistani assistance, which has not been reported in such detail before, also includes exerting pressure on Taliban leaders who fail to cooperate, including by detaining members of the militants’ families, the insurgents say. The Pakistani role in the peace negotiations is a delicate one, with Islamabad seeking to avoid demonstrating the kind of broad influence over the Taliban that Washington has long accused it of having. One senior US official, who declined to be identified, said of Pakistan’s role in the talks: “We know it just wouldn’t be possible without their support.”“They’ve facilitated some movement and travel to the discussions in Doha,” the official said.

Taliban sources said Pakistan’s role in bringing the Taliban to the negotiating table was instrumental. In one instance, Islamabad sent a message to the militants through religious leaders that they had to talk to the United States or risk a cut-off in ties.They detained Taliban members’ families as a way to pressure them, a Taliban leader told Reuters.

“I haven’t seen Pakistan so serious before,” the senior Taliban leader said. The Taliban leader, who declined to be named, said Pakistan had kept “unprecedented pressure” on the militants and their close relatives over the past few months.“They made it clear to us that we (Taliban) have to talk to the US and Afghan government,” the Taliban leader said.

Pakistani sources suggest that the driver behind their country’s support for the talks is not US aid but growing concerns over the regional economic shockwaves that could follow an abrupt US pullout from Afghanistan. Those concerns have been strengthened by Trump’s surprise decision in December to withdraw completely from Syria, despite objections from the Pentagon.

Islamabad says it cannot afford to see Afghanistan slide into chaos just as Pakistan is trying to attract foreign investors to shore up its own economy.“That is our main worry in all of this,” said a senior official who is closely involved in cross-border relations. “We have enough economic issues of our own to deal with already.”

An US assessment of Afghan Peace Process: Apr., 22, 2019: The U.S.-Taliban talks are aimed at resurrecting the path to peace and security for Afghanistan. As U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tweeted in late January, “The U.S. is serious about pursuing peace, preventing Afghanistan from continuing to be a space for international terrorism & bringing forces home.” However, as currently structured, the negotiations will create new challenges regardless of their stated success. Zalmay Khalilzad, President Trump’s special representative for Afghanistan reconciliation, may achieve some of the goals outlined by Pompeo, at least on paper, but direct talks with the Taliban are unlikely to bring about an enforceable deal that maintains the authority of the Afghan state and significantly reduces the threat of terrorism emanating from Afghanistan. What’s more, if Khalilzad does not achieve meaningful gains, the negotiations will leave the U.S. and Afghan governments worse off than before. Afghanistan will face not only continued violence but also less favorable conditions for negotiating and governing, which will hamper Kabul’s and Washington’s abilities to realize their key interests.

If the format of direct talks persists, the Taliban stand to gain the most, while the Afghan and U.S. governments are on track to make disproportionate concessions that will diminish their leverage. The exclusion of the democratically elected, internationally recognized Afghan government is particularly troubling and may unintentionally undermine the legitimacy of the very state that the United States and its partners have worked so hard to build up. Policymakers should be concerned that the current format of the talks paints the United States as a fatigued neocolonialist power; the Taliban as a unified, legitimate negotiating partner and quasi-government; and the Afghan government as irrelevant and dependent. Instead of elevating the Taliban and sidelining the Afghan government, the Trump administration should insist on Afghan government involvement in the peace process.

 After almost two decades of U.S. military involvement, including over 2,400 American military fatalities and $1.07 trillion spent by Washington directly and indirectly on the war in Afghanistan, the country stands in stalemate and the U.S. public is war weary.

The Afghan government largely controls the country’s urban areas, and the Taliban generally exert influence or control in rural areas, although district-level data show a more complex picture. According to the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction’s October 2018 report, 63.5 percent of the population resides in districts under Afghan government control or influence, a slight decrease from the previous quarter. Quality of life has improved for some Afghans since the 2001. Women in particular have experienced gradual gains, although the country still has one of the world’s worst track records on women’s rights. Nonetheless, in 2018, a record number of civilians—more than 3,800—died in the conflict, and experts have noted that the Taliban are stronger militarily now than at any point since 2001.

While the United States, NATO, and other countries continue to back Afghan government forces, foreign support for the Taliban is still fueling the group’s resilience. It has long been known that Islamabad provides support to the Afghan Taliban, including critical sanctuaries within Pakistan. More recently, the New York Times and others have reported that Iran has provided military support to the Taliban, and Russia has supplied arms.

Persisting with a military approach is unlikely to provide the “win” that Washington and Kabul are seeking. However, the diplomatic approach underway is also on track to deliver little and create unintended consequences for the Afghan people and government.

In September 2018, Pompeo appointed Ambassador Khalilzad as the special representative for Afghanistan reconciliation to pursue talks with the Taliban. Khalilzad has asserted that the main U.S. objective is realizing an intra-Afghan peace agreement that would ensure that terrorist organizations can never again use Afghan territory to prepare attacks against the United States or the international community. So far, the Afghan government has not been directly involved, but it continues to insist on a seat at the table.

After U.S.-Taliban talks in Qatar, Khalilzad announced at the end of January 2019 that he had agreed in principle to a framework for peace with the Taliban: The Taliban would guarantee that Afghan territory would not be used by terrorists, and the United States would withdraw its troops. However, this overarching proposal is subject to further negotiations, and Khalilzad has emphasized that “[n]othing is agreed until everything is agreed, and ‘everything’ must include an intra-Afghan dialogue and comprehensive ceasefire.”

In mid-March, after a new round of talks, the United States and the Taliban had not reached a breakthrough. U.S. officials insisted that they were close to a final agreement with the Taliban on barring terrorist attacks coming out of Afghanistan and that they had made progress on detailing a plan for withdrawing U.S. troops, but negotiators remain far from agreement on the second point. Both sides are expected to deliberate with their leadership before reconvening.

Many observers have cautioned that the U.S.-Taliban talks will not get much further. The Taliban are willing to negotiate about foreign troops departing, but they continue to reject a comprehensive ceasefire and direct talks with the Afghan government, which they see as an illegitimate regime imposed by foreign actors. This week, Taliban negotiators even objected to the number of Afghan government officials who were planning to serve in a personal capacity on an Afghan delegation that was expected to meet with Taliban representatives informally this weekend, forcing the indefinite postponement of the intra-Afghan talks. The Taliban has also continued to dismiss calls for a ceasefire and on April 12 launched its annual spring offensive, which they named “Victory.” These actions raise concerns about the Taliban’s commitment to reaching an agreement, especially one that includes the Afghan government. Serious doubts also remain about their willingness and ability to reduce terrorist activity, even if they commit to do so.

There is also reason to be concerned that the United States might prioritize military withdrawal before a comprehensive agreement is reached, even though Khalilzad has expressed commitment to a full deal. President Trump has telegraphed his deep frustration with America’s longest war and his intent to pull American troops out of Afghanistan, which would weaken the U.S. negotiating position. U.S. military plans in Afghanistan have been unclear in recent months, with conflicting signals from the administration, the military and the media. News outlets published contradictory reports about President Trump’s plans to withdraw 5,000 to 7,000 of the 14,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, causing anxiety in the Afghan government. Military leaders maintain that they have not received orders to begin a drawdown. Despite the confusion, one fact is clear: A full-scale withdrawal would likely lead to the Afghan government’s collapse.

While many applaud what looks like steps toward peace, direct talks warp the relative standing and legitimacy of the parties directly and indirectly involved, most notably by hurting the Afghan government and elevating the Taliban. U.S. negotiators are discussing the wrong transactions with the wrong people around the table. The Taliban are directly involved, while the Afghan government stands on the sidelines. The current approach also shrinks attention on hard-fought human rights gains and local peace building efforts.

The U.S.-Taliban talks have frustrated Afghan officials and pose a threat to the government’s legitimacy. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani has warned that a deal made without the Afghan government could bring about the kind of devastating civil strife that followed the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan. For a government that is already hard-pressed to demonstrate its relevance and capacity, exclusion from the talks has been seen as a step backward, reinforcing the idea that the Afghan government stands in the shadow of the United States. Undercutting the reputation and sovereignty of the Afghan government counteracts the immense resources that have been put toward rebuilding state institutions and participatory governance. Furthermore, the U.S.-Taliban talks have created additional complications for Kabul. The presidential elections have been postponed from April to July. Technical capacity has been the public justification for the delay, but others assert the timeline was pushed back due to worries that a change in leadership would hurt the U.S.-Taliban talks. Delaying the elections also leaves open the possibility of establishing an interim government to facilitate reconciliation, although this would pose an even greater threat to the legitimacy of government institutions.

The optics of the direct talks further weaken the government’s standing, which in turn will hurt U.S. interests in the region. Photos of U.S. officials meeting with Taliban leaders in Qatar, with the Afghan government conspicuously missing, send the message that the Afghan government is not central to the country’s future. Adding insult to injury, Khalilzad has praised the Taliban’s deputy leader as a patriot while U.S. officials refuse to attend meetings with the Afghan president’s national security adviser, Hamdullah Mohib.

The current format for negotiations is detrimental to the Afghan government’s legitimacy, reducing its ability to be an effective partner to the United States in countering terrorism and building stability in the region. It is not too late to change course. If the widespread domestic and international calls for Afghan government participation and an Afghan-led process are heeded, the government could again reassert its role as an irreplaceable and necessary voice in determining Afghanistan’s future. The Taliban may reject this path, but the United States should not be enabling the Taliban’s goal of sidelining the government.

Direct U.S.-Taliban talks have provided the Taliban with a state-like platform. Throughout the talks, the Taliban have gained influence over the country’s path forward, affecting both concrete issues (such as elections) as well as the broader discourse about the character and governance of the country. Analysts at RAND previously worried that the Afghan government would not accept the Taliban as a legitimate negotiating partner. Today, the Taliban do not accept the Afghan government as a legitimate counterpart, and the current format of the talks adds credibility to that perspective. While the Taliban decide for themselves who they send to represent their interests in the negotiations, Afghan government participation is dictated by others.

The negotiations also inaccurately convey that the Afghan Taliban are a unified group, and that all Taliban will follow through on the commitments made by their representatives. The death of Taliban founder Mullah Mohammed Omar fueled doubts about the group’s chain of command (he died in 2013, but the Taliban did not confirm this information until 2015). The Taliban’s new chief negotiator, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, was released from Pakistani detention at Khalilzad’s request. The New York Times reports that he has brought “clarity” to the talks, but his current authority in the organization is untested and it remains unclear if there is a structure that can enforce commitments made by Taliban delegates.

The concessions up for discussion also play to the Taliban’s favor. The Taliban are expected to promise to ensure that Afghanistan will not be used to plan terrorist attacks. Yet, it is not clear that the Taliban would actually try to rein in terrorist activity or have the capacity to do so. They have made, and failed to keep, similar pledges before. Following through on the commitment this time around would require the Taliban to police over a dozen organizations that have aims to strike at least five other countries. Especially relevant to U.S. security, the Taliban have not demonstrated an ability or willingness to curtail al-Qaeda’s activities. While the Taliban have contributed to the fight against Islamic State forces in Afghanistan (also known as Islamic State Khorasan or ISK), the Taliban do not hold sway over this group and are not expected to eradicate this resilient rival. Even if the Taliban intend to stifle terrorism, they are likely making a promise they cannot keep in return for one of their key objectives—the departure of foreign troops. The United States would lack the capacity to enforce an agreement once it draws down troops, further benefiting the Taliban and leaving Kabul unprepared to take on mounting challenges from ISK or others. Even in the most optimistic scenario, undercutting the government by discussing these concessions without it hurts the future prospect of security and rule of law, leaving an environment ripe for future threats.

From the U.S. perspective, U.S.-Taliban talks may provide the appearance of progress, but they are unlikely to significantly reduce the threat of terrorism. Instead, they are sure to elevate the Taliban and undercut Kabul while constraining the United States in its own counterterrorism efforts. The United States is on track to relinquish leverage and its commitment to the Afghan government in the hope of potential counterterrorism gains, despite significant doubts that the Taliban will follow through on their end of the bargain. Making commitments to the Taliban without the Afghan government in the room makes the United States look more like a puppeteering neocolonial power and less like a dependable ally. In fact, the United States could be bargaining away its commitments to the Afghan government as part of the legally binding U.S.-Afghanistan Strategic Partnership Agreement. Some commentators have argued that it is better for the United States to withdraw from Afghanistan with a deal than to leave without one. However, this stance is based on the assumption that the United States would still completely withdraw from Afghanistan without a deal, which is unlikely. As it stands now, the United States is betting on unlikely gains while giving up definite concessions.

The talks will also have enduring implications for human rights and the rule of law in Afghanistan. Following their current trajectory, the negotiations could result in the unintended consequences of reversing gains in women’s rights, demeaning local peace building efforts and reempowering predatory leadership structures (warlords). The negotiations’ exclusion of women and silence on human rights are particularly concerning if the hope is to ensure real and inclusive peace. Emphasizing high-level power brokering among armed groups while overlooking locally organized, trust-building reconciliation efforts (or at least indicating that they have little significance in the process of designing the future of Afghanistan) sends a dangerous message that will be hard to retract. Any negotiated deal with the Taliban may threaten progress in these areas, but the current approach is on track to be particularly damaging given that the Afghan government and other voices for these interests are missing from the table, while their detractors are disproportionately represented.

To better advance Afghan and American interests, the United States should reassert Kabul’s central role in the peace process and reaffirm its commitment to the Afghan government. Most critically, the United States must insist on direct Afghan government involvement in any peace process focused on the nation’s political and security future. Excluding the Afghan government undermines national and international efforts to build institutions, legitimacy and the conditions for lasting security. The Taliban may reject Afghan government participation, but unless U.S. negotiators are planning to sidestep the government throughout the process, the talks would eventually hit this roadblock anyway. If this disagreement is likely to derail the talks sooner or later, it would be better to broach it before further undermining the Afghan government’s authority. Some observers may say that the U.S. government has already gone too far down the path of direct talks to change course now, but Afghan government involvement aligns with an array of U.S. policy statements and the tone of Khalilzad’s April trip to Afghanistan. To bolster the Afghan government in the negotiations and assuage its concerns of abandonment, Washington should consistently reiterate its comprehensive commitment to Kabul, including diplomatic, governance and economic support, as well as security resources.

The manner in which the Afghan government participates in the talks also matters. One idea being discussed is that the Afghan negotiating team could include both government officials and other political leaders. However, this could inadvertently undermine elected government officials, elevate warlords and exacerbate fractures. As a sovereign state, the Afghan government should be the primary representative of the country and should have the final say on who is part of the Afghan negotiating team. Inclusivity matters, but it should not be used as justification for undermining the government.

Implementing these recommendations may lead to a longer U.S. presence in Afghanistan than administration officials would like to consider. It is important to acknowledge the human and financial costs of deploying U.S. forces and civilians abroad, as well as the political costs for policymakers. But officials must also recognize that pulling out without careful planning and communication with Afghan counterparts may end the war for U.S. forces but will not create peace. Departing after signing a deal that elevates insurgents and is nearly impossible to enforce would leave Afghanistan plagued by violence and the international community vulnerable to insecurity and terrorism emanating from the region.

It is encouraging to see the Trump administration prioritizing diplomatic strategies, but diplomacy can be a weapon of war, too. In this case, the Taliban’s amplified power and the Afghan government’s damaged standing are likely to outlast the U.S.-Taliban talks or any deal they could deliver. The United States should adjust its strategy to ensure that the reconciliation process strengthens the role of the Afghan government and the foundation for lasting peace, instead of weakening both.

Afghanistan Data

Total area: 250,000 sq mi (647,500 sq km)

Population (2014 est.): 31,822,848 (growth rate: 2.3%); birth rate: 38.8/1000; infant mortality rate: 117.23/1000; life expectancy: 50.49; density per sq mi: 123.7

Capital and largest city (2011 est.): Kabul, 3,097,300

Other large cities: Kandahar, 349,300; Mazar-i-Sharif, 246,900; Charikar, 202,600; Herat, 171,500

Monetary unit: Afghani

National name: Jomhuri-ye Eslami-ye Afghanestan

Current government officials

Languages: Dari Persian, Pashtu (both official), other Turkic and minor languages

Ethnicity/race: Pashtun 42%, Tajik 27%, Hazara 9%, Uzbek 9%, Aimak 4%, Turkmen 3%, Baloch 2%, other 4%

Religion: Sunni Muslim 80%, Shia Muslim 19%, other 1%

National Holiday: Independence Day, August 19

Literacy rate:28.1% (2000 est.)

Economic summary:

GDP/PPP (2013 est.): $45.3 billion; per capita $1,100.

 Real growth rate: 3.1% (2013 est.).

 Inflation: 6.8% (2013 est.).

Unemployment: 35% (2008 est.).

Arable land: 11.95%.

Agriculture: opium, wheat, fruits, nuts; wool, mutton, sheepskins, lambskins.

 Labor force: 15 million; agriculture 80%, industry 10%, services 10%.

 Natural resources: natural gas, petroleum, coal, copper, chromate, talc, barites, sulfur, lead, zinc, iron ore, salt, precious and semiprecious stones.

Industries: small-scale production of textiles, soap, furniture, shoes, fertilizer, cement; hand woven carpets; natural gas, coal, copper.

Exports: $376 million; note - not including illicit exports or reexports (2012): opium, fruits and nuts, hand woven carpets, wool, cotton, hides and pelts, precious and semiprecious gems.

Imports: $6.39 billion (2012): capital goods, food, textiles, petroleum products.

Major trading partners: Pakistan, India, U.S., Germany, Russia, China, Tajikistan.

Communications: Telephones: main lines in use: 13,500 (2012); mobile cellular: 18 million (2012).

Radio broadcast stations: AM 21, FM 5, shortwave 1 (broadcasts in Pashtu, Afghan Persian (Dari), Urdu, and English) (2007).

Television broadcast stations: at least 7 (1 government-run central television station in Kabul and regional stations in 6 of the 34 provinces) (2007).Internet users:1,000,000 (2012).

Transportation : Highways: total: 42,150 km; (2012).Waterways: 1,200 km; chiefly Amu Darya, which handles vessels up to about 500 DWT.Ports and harbors: Kheyrabad, Shir Khan. Airports: 52 (2012).

International disputes: World's largest producer of opium; poppy cultivation increased 57%, from 115,000 hectares in 2011 to 180,000 hectares in 2012. The Taliban and other antigovernment groups participate in and profit from the opiate trade, which is a key source of revenue for the Taliban inside Afghanistan; widespread corruption and instability impede counterdrug efforts; most of the heroin consumed in Europe and Eurasia is derived from Afghan opium; Afghanistan is also struggling to respond to a burgeoning domestic opiate addiction problem; vulnerable to drug money laundering through informal financial networks; regional source of hashish (2013).

Peace Process: May, 29, 2019: A group of Afghan politicians led by former President Hamid Karzai and members of the Taliban led by the deputy leader of the group Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar on Tuesday attended a ceremony in Moscow on 100 years of Afghanistan-Russia diplomatic relations Addressing the ceremony, Taliban deputy leader Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar said “the Islamic Emirate wants peace”, but “the hurdles on the way of peace should be removed”.“The key barrier to peace is the presence of foreign forces,” Baradar reiterated, referring to the Taliban’s longtime stance on the presence of US and NATO forces in Afghanistan who toppled the regime in the aftermath of 9/11  ,” Baradar added. “The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan wants friendly relations with all its neighbors and will not allow anyone to use Afghanistan’s soil against others,” said Latif Khan Mutaqi, a member of Taliban delegation

Today’s meeting in Moscow marks the first time that a senior leader from the insurgency holding talks face-to-face with the Afghan politicians. Karzai also called on the US and Russia to help Afghanistan to reach peace and stability.

Peace deal: Dec., 3, 2020: Afghan government and Taliban representatives said they have reached a preliminary deal to press on with peace talks, their first written agreement in 19 years of war. The agreement on Wednesday lays out the way forward for further discussion but is considered a breakthrough because it will allow negotiators to move on to more substantive issues, including talks on a ceasefire. “The procedure including its preamble of the negotiation has been finalised and from now on, the negotiation will begin on the agenda,” Nader Nadery, a member of the Afghan government’s negotiating team, told Reuters. The Taliban spokesman confirmed the same on Twitter. “A joint working committee was tasked to prepare the draft topics for the agenda (of peace talks),” a joint statement from both sides said. .” US Special Representative for Afghan Reconciliation Zalmay Khalilzad said that the two sides had agreed on a “three-page agreement codifing rules and procedures for their negotiations on a political road map and a comprehensive ”. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/12/2/afghan-govt-taliban-announce-breakthrough-deal-in-peace-talks

Fareed: 10 Years After bin Laden Raid, the Threat of Islamist Terrorism Has Faded

“This weekend marks the 10th anniversary of the operation, code-named Neptune Spear, that killed Osama bin Laden,” Fareed writes in his latest Washington Post column. “It’s an opportunity to reflect on the state of Islamist terrorism and radical Islam more generally. And the initial diagnosis is clear: The movement is in bad shape.”

 

The number of deaths caused by terrorism around the world has fallen sharply since 2014, and right-wing extremism poses a greater threat in the US, Fareed notes. As a political movement, Islamism is flailing, as Iraqis and Syrians fled ISIS’s caliphate “in droves,” and as Egyptians protested the Muslim Brotherhood government there. Today, the appeal of jihadist groups—whether in Afghanistan, Nigeria, or the Horn of Africa—largely centers on local grievances, not ideology, a “major reversal from the glory days of al-Qaeda” and its global aims.

 

“For America, there is one big lesson,” Fareed writes: “Stay calm. In the months after 9/11, we panicked, sacrificing liberties at home and waging war abroad, terrified that we were going to be defeated by this new enemy. This is part of a worrying American tradition of exaggerating the threats we face, from the Soviet Union to Saddam Hussein. As we scour the world for new foes, let’s learn to right-size our adversaries and find a way to run fast but not run scared.”