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BY ANY standards, June 18th was a momentous day in the troubled history of Afghanistan. At a ceremony at a military college near Kabul the country’s president, Hamid Karzai, and the secretary-general of NATO, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, declared that the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) were now leading the fight against the Taliban in every part of the country. Soon after, news broke that America was about to start formal peace talks with the insurgency’s leadership following its opening of a political office in Doha, the capital of Qatar. Then, within hours, came two reminders of just how difficult the search for a settlement is likely to be.
Four American soldiers were killed by a Taliban rocket attack on the giant Bagram air base in the east of the country; and Mr Karzai suddenly broke off negotiations with America on a vital status-of-forces agreement (SOFA). This is needed to provide a legal basis, including immunity from local prosecution, for the foreign troops remaining after 2014, by which time the majority will have left. The agreement is crucial to the country’s future security, so the gesture—a protest against the way America is handling the talks with the Taliban—was essentially self-defeating.
Mr Karzai had initially expressed his support for the talks, with the proviso that they are quickly moved from Doha to Kabul and that the government-appointed Afghan High Peace Council should be the main interlocutor with the Taliban. Yet he is deeply suspicious of America’s intentions. Its diplomats talk constantly about how any peace process must be “Afghan-owned and Afghan-led”. But he fears America might cut its own deal with the Taliban, which has always refused to negotiate with a government it regards as illegitimate. Mr Karzai, infuriated by a Taliban press conference that evening, was bombarded the next day by phone calls from senior American officials, including John Kerry, the secretary of state. Mr Karzai was mollified enough for his spokesman to say he wanted “to get wheels moving again”.
The only prior condition for opening negotiations with the Taliban appeared to have been a statement from it that it condemned the use of Afghan soil for plotting international terrorism and that it supported an Afghan peace process. It has an immediate aim: to secure the release of a number of its leaders held in Guantánamo Bay in exchange for an American soldier held by the Taliban, Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl. But it is still a very long way from recognising either the Afghan government or the post-2001 constitution. America insists the Taliban must do so before it can be brought into a wider political process.
Much will depend on a number of “known unknowns”. One is what role Pakistan intends to play. It claims to have helped bring the Taliban to the table in Doha, but senior Afghan government officials are not yet convinced that Pakistan has become a partner for peace. Another is how strong the Taliban believes its own bargaining position to be. That in turn raises questions about which bit of the Taliban is being referred to and what kind of military force they believe they will be up against after 2014.
The Quetta shura—the Taliban’s political leadership in Pakistan—includes former ministers and is headed by Mullah Mohammed Omar. It may well be war-weary and realistic enough to know that it cannot command sufficient military power to do more than control some parts of the rural south and east of the country.
However, two other groups may take a different view. Although not numerous, the global jihadists who have joined the Taliban cause will not lightly abandon the goal of a new caliphate. Harder to judge are the local resistance fighters who joined up when Northern Alliance forces, egged on by the CIA, attacked and toppled the Taliban regime in 2001. Ever since, they have been battling the foreign troops who came later. The backbone of the insurgency, they may well believe Taliban propaganda that they are on the verge of a second great jihadist victory against a superpower. Only proof of the combat capability of the ANSF after 2014 is likely to persuade them that time is not after all on their side.
That is why this week’s handing over to the ANSF of primary responsibility for security across the country matters. The 352,000-strong ANSF, and the Afghan National Army (ANA) in particular, have made great progress, becoming a cohesive force in the past two years. Although it still suffers serious attrition (mainly absences without leave), the ANSF has established control over the big cities, where most of the fast-urbanising population lives, and the main lines of communication. Its special forces (numbering about 10,000) are credited by senior NATO officials with a high level of competence and an ability to conduct complex operations.
Yet it also matters a lot what kind of “enduring force” America and its allies leave behind after 2014. The ANA will still need help with military advice, intelligence collection, logistics (a weak point), air support, counter-IED (improvised explosive devices) capabilities and medical evacuation. In the short term, nothing would enhance America’s negotiating position with the Taliban more than a clear commitment from Barack Obama to provide an enduring force able to perform these tasks. The Afghans must also do their part. That means no more shilly-shallying over the status-of-forces agreement and a relatively clean presidential election next year. Without those two things, doubts will linger over the continued Western military and economic support that should persuade the Taliban that although they are not beaten, neither can they win.
economist.com