More
signs of openings in the Afghan
war By Brian M Downing
This week brought news that the United
States was releasing a number of Taliban figures
of mid-to-high standing in the insurgent group's
political and military apparatus.
This is
a good sign of efforts to bring about meaningful
peace talks, which were thought to have been on
hold following the recent Koran burnings and
atrocity incidents. The US has made a quid and is
awaiting a quo from the Taliban, if it has not
already been arranged. This is how negotiations
begin and wars end.
The prisoner release
comes on the heels of reports of war weariness in
the Taliban and the signing of the Strategic
Partnership Agreement (SPA) by the US and
Afghanistan that allows a US presence in the
country for another 12 years.
The SPA
dispels the notion that the US is worn down and would
leave Afghanistan. On
the contrary, US forces will remain for many years
after the "withdrawal" of 2014, though in
significantly reduced numbers. They will provide
reaction forces and air power for Afghan National
Army forces charged with the limited task of
continuing the stalemated war in the south and
east.
After 10 years of war since the
Taliban were ousted from Kabul, the US faces no
significant domestic opposition to the Afghan
conflict. Polls show large numbers of opponents
but this has not translated into meaningful debate
in congress or among the US public. Casualties are
light by historical measures and are suffered by a
narrow strata in American society where military
service and attendant losses are more acceptable
than in the mainstream.
Insurgents,
however, are enduring much higher casualties from
costly ground attacks on fortified positions,
unseen drones and snipers, and nightly raids by
special forces teams. The rough terrain and
inhospitable elements also take a toll. Further,
men serving in insurgent bands are away from their
homes and unable to contribute to household and
village economies.
The SPA and prisoner
release will not be welcomed by the Pakistani
military. It has sought a settlement on terms
shaped if not dictated by its interests: the US
and India out; Pakistani client groups in. But by
dealing with the US, the Taliban may be distancing
itself from its longtime supporters in the
Pakistani army. The interests of the two entities
do not always coincide.
The Taliban may
judge northern Afghans and their Indian
benefactors as objectionable on religious and
political grounds, but as too solidly established
to ever defeat, regardless of the urgings of the
Pakistani military. The Taliban know they were
never able to vanquish the northerners; they held
out with the support of India, Iran, Russia and
several Central Asian republics - support that
today is even firmer and now bolstered by the US
as the SPA indicates. Pakistan must accept this;
the Taliban may already have.
Pakistan
will be of only limited usefulness in a postwar
environment. The Taliban know that their years in
power brought little development and that this
failure led to insurgencies against them and the
dearth of domestic support once the Northern
Alliance swept south with US help in 2001.
Pakistan cannot develop even its own
economy and faces a demographic bulge even more
ominous than the ones in Egypt and Libya. The
Pakistani generals see postwar Afghanistan as a
colony of sorts from which resources are extracted
with little regard for locals.
Pakistan is
poor, unstable, and increasingly distrusted in the
region and around the world. It can be of only
limited help in postwar development of the
mineralogical wealth that old Soviet and recent US
geological surveys have found. The Taliban will
have to look elsewhere for aid and the most likely
suppliers of help are already at work in northern
Afghanistan. That region is Pakistan's enemy but
the Taliban may be seeing northerners as old
rivals with whom they should reconcile. Otherwise,
they will have to fight them - ruthlessly,
unflaggingly, but perhaps unsuccessfully.
The Pakistani military's options are
limited. It can arrest settlement-minded Taliban
leaders ensconced in Pakistan, as it did two years
ago with Mullah Baradar, who are thought to be
pursuing talks. The Pakistani military may also
use loyal client groups such as the Haqqani
network and the more fiery Taliban commanders to
wreak havoc in Afghanistan with a wave of bombings
and assassinations in order to derail any talks.
But it was such bombings and
assassinations over the past two years that caused
Karzai to turn against Pakistan and sign the SPA
with the US. Another wave could increase the
distance between the Pakistani army and the
Taliban, perhaps bringing the latter closer to the
Pakistani Taliban. Further, it could underscore
the growing international recognition of
Pakistan's ties to militant groups such as the
Haqqanis, Jaish-e-Mohammed, and Lashkar-e-Toiba,
which carried out the Mumbai attack of 2008.
The Pakistani military may opt, if only
reluctantly and after delay, to side with the
peacemaking process in order get its optimal deal:
limiting Indian influence in the north, but not
ending it; sharing in Central Asian commerce, but
not dominating it.
Insurgent groups,
including the Taliban, are expected to begin a new
spring offensive. Indeed, an increase in
improvised explosive devices and skirmishes
indicates it began a month ago. The Taliban may
opt to see their offensive through before
embarking on serious negotiations, but there may
be signals over the next few weeks of openness to
talks.
Further declarations against
international jihadi groups such as
Lashkar-e-Toiba and al-Qaeda would be welcome. The
release of US soldier Bowe Bergdahl, a Taliban
prisoner for almost three years now, would be a
promising and appropriate response to the release
of Taliban commanders.
Judging Taliban
actions is difficult. Though there is a high
council atop a command structure, local commanders
are given leeway and some are hot-blooded and less
amenable to negotiations than others. These are
the younger ones who have been promoted, perhaps
reluctantly and too swiftly, after their
predecessors were removed by drones and night
raids. And actions by the Haqqanis in eastern
cities might not be sanctioned by the Taliban
council; they might signal the wrath of the
Pakistani army, the Haqqanis' venerable
benefactor.
The US, too, can send signals
- or rather send more signals than the
unmistakable one of releasing Taliban commanders.
It can reduce the number of night raids, which are
presently averaging about 40 a night, [1] lower
the number of drones and sniper teams covering the
Afghan countryside, and seek out local truces,
which have long been little known parts of the war
but which now may be building blocks in a
negotiated settlement.
Note 1 Ahmed Rashid suggests reducing night raids
in his Pakistan on the Brink: The Future of
America, Pakistan, and Afghanistan (New York:
Viking, 2012), pp. 208-9.
Brian M
Downing is a political/military analyst and
author of The Military Revolution and
Political Change and The Paths of Glory: War and
Social Change in America from the Great War to
Vietnam. He can be reached at
brianmdowning@gmail.com.
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