Afghanistan peace hurdles
by
Javed Hafiz |
The final phase of war and peace in Afghanistan has begun. Last month saw two international conferences on Afghanistan, one in Istanbul and the other in London. The London conference, co-chaired by UK, Afghanistan and the UN endorsed peace talks between Kabul government and the Taliban. Simultaneously, additional 30,000 US troops have started arriving in Afghanistan and the process will be completed by this summer. President Karzai has visited Saudi Arabia with a request to mediate between Kabul and the Taliban. General Ashfaq Kayani, the Pakistan army chief explained Pakistani point of view on Afghanistan at Nato headquarters in Brussels some two weeks ago. These international moots recognised Pakistan’s pivotal in the coming crucial phase.
So carrot and stick will go hand in hand in Afghanistan in coming months. An amount of $140 million has been set aside for those Taliban elements who may be prepared to renounce militancy and reintegrate into the Afghan society and government. On the other hand, President Obama has proposed enhanced military assistance of $1.2 billion for Pakistan. Successful military operations in Swat and Fata have helped in restricting Taliban incursions into Afghanistan. General Kayani said in Brussels that Pakistani loss of 2,273 officers and soldiers in the war was far greater than all international military casualties put together.
While Pakistan can play a key role for peace in Afghanistan, it would appear that some elements in the Kabul government have certain reservations about it. Pakistan has also offered to train 1,40,000 Afghan army troops. No reply has yet been received from Kabul. In terms of logistics, geographical proximity, language and understanding of Afghan psyche, Pakistan is ideally suited for the training role. General Kayani said that training would be completed in four years. If Afghan troops are trained else where, both expenditure and time period will be more. Parts of Pakistani terrain are very similar to that of Afghanistan which means that military training in Pakistan will be far more beneficial for the Afghan forces. Kabul’s reservations on this count could hurt capacity building of its own forces.
President Karzai was a weak president but that weakness looks more pronounced after the controversial elections last August. Parliamentary elections were recently postponed till September this year, citing financial problems. However, the fact of matter is that with Taliban in ascendance in many parts of the country, the Kabul government in not in a position to hold free and fair elections. Can a weak President lead the normalization effort with some credibility? It looks like an uphill task even though Karzai is a notch better than other available leaders and he may have the crucial Pakistani support.
Karzai favours talks with all shades of Taliban while the United States wants to talk to the ‘good Taliban’ who may be fighting out of coercion or merely for pecuniary considerations. United States thinks that such elements in Taliban could be weaned away by offers of jobs or money. Mullah Omer, who is in a better military position now, says he will talk peace only after the foreign troops have left the country.
The presumption that all moderate or good Taliban can be bought away may be too simplistic. It is true that Afghan society is very poor now and also ranks quite high on the corruption scale. Taliban are a pragmatic lot. Some of them may even get the US money, lie low for a while and then rejoin the Taliban cadres. In case this money is distributed through the Afghan officials, bulk of it may land in their pockets with precious little trickling down to the Taliban.
It is impossible to train Afghan National army (ANA) in a short time. Same is true of Afghan police. Both forces are afflicted by low morale, wide illiteracy, low motivation and indiscipline. Bulk of the ‘officers’ corps in both the forces is from the Tajiks and Uzbeks which takes away the national character from these forces. Induction of Pashtun officers in proportion to their population is the only credible remedy. Will the officers from other ethnic backgrounds let the Pashtun officers call the shots in future? This will have to happen but will take a long time. It will have to wait for an overall inter-Afghan reconciliation.
This war, the longest US military engagement abroad so far, is costing American taxpayer one billion dollars a month and is becoming increasingly unpopular at home. The international community may be prepared to finance training of Afghan forces right now but will it also finance it’s maintenance over a long haul?
The US and allied forces want to retreat from Afghanistan as early as possible. But any hasty and disorderly exit will nullify all the efforts, civil and military, invested in Afghanistan so far. Their primary objective of decapacitating Al Qaeda remains a pipe dream.
(Javed Hafiz is Pakistan’s former ambassador to the Sultanate)
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