US-Taliban peace deal was the onlydevelopment that could compete with the Corona outbreak in attracting theattention of the global community. The deal was signed on the 29th of Februaryin Doha after months of negotiations initiated by the Trump administration toend the nearly two-decade-long war in Afghanistan. The primary substance of thedeal, which is officially titled as “Agreement for Bringing Peace toAfghanistan between the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan which is not recognizedby the United States as a state and is known as the Taliban and the UnitedStates of America” are the two reciprocal commitments between the United Statesand Taliban. US committed to withdraw coalition troops within 14 months inreturn for the Taliban’s promise to start intra-Afghan talks and deny space forforeign terrorist groups in Afghanistan. The signing ceremony was attended byrepresentatives from at least 50 countries including India and Pakistan.
Unlike the virus outbreak, the deal hasfound endorsers and welcomers, mostly in the form of beneficiaries, who laudedit as a defining step towards the stability in the region. Pakistan being oneof the principle facilitators of the peace process celebrated the deal as ahistoric opportunity to bring about the political settlement in neighboringAfghanistan. Pakistan foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said afterattending the ceremony that the US-Taliban deal carried “immenseimportance in symbolism and substance” for Afghanistan. Apart from takingthe credit of brokerage, Pakistan has many other reasons to endorse the deal.Having an unstable neighborhood has taught Pakistan a bitter lesson in the formof violence spillover, costing it tens of thousands in human lives and billionsof dollars in infrastructure and finances. Moreover, Pakistan has been facingsevere economic sluggishness primarily as a consequence of the continuedincidence of armed violence. A stable Afghanistan is in the best interest ofPakistan and an imperative to achieving peace and security at home. That is notall. The deal has legitimized the Pakistan friendly Taliban as a party tonegotiations in the eyes of the international community at the cost of theAfghan government in Kabul, which has largely remained hostile towardsIslamabad. Undermining the Ghani administration, which has so far chosen topartner with its arch-rival India, could prove a geo-strategic reward forPakistan. Most of the major players in the region including Russia, Iran, andChina have joined the chorus of showering praises on the agreement.
However, the deal has offered yet anothercompetition to the virus in the race of whipping up fears among thestakeholders, albeit the former lagging behind in this respect with hugeproportions. Fearing its long term consequences, the US-Taliban agreement hasbeen an alarm bell for many stakeholders; their main concern being the returnof Taliban rule. The deal is looked at with skepticism by Afghans opposed tothe Taliban. The planned withdrawal is seen a reminiscent of US abandonment ofAfghanistan in the aftermath of the Soviet-Afghan War, which paved the way forthe rise of the Taliban during the 1990s. Women and minority rights groups havecriticized the deal for neglecting their concerns. The text of the agreementdoes not have any explicit mention of guarantees for safeguarding the interestof Afghan women and minorities living in Afghanistan.
The vehement in the critique is thesecurity community, among them former and serving US government officials, whohave decried the deal as surrender to a terrorist group. Some have evendisputed the nomenclature ‘agreement’ and labeled it as managed defeat and aface-saving arrangement on the part of Trump administration. John Bolton,Trump’s former national security advisor called the agreement as “anunacceptable risk to America’s civilian population.” He further said in atweet that this deal legitimizes the Taliban and sends the wrong signal to ISISand al Qaeda terrorists and to America’s enemies generally. He was joined by manyother officials in the barrage of criticism targeting the deal. Some criticsview it in the win-lose binary, declaring the Taliban as the winner and US alooser, which I would like to disagree with. Such evaluation neglects theelements of compromise on the part of the Taliban, particularly on the issue offoreign fighters detailed in part two of agreement. Taliban has in principleagreed to break the partnership with Al-Qaida and other foreign militant groupsand deny them a space for operating in Afghan territory. An agreement of thissort was impossible under the previous leadership of Mullah Omer and if signedin 2001, might have averted the war altogether. We have not anyways forgottenthe response; US got from Omer upon the demand of surrendering Al-Qaeda elementsbefore the start of US-led invasion.
Despite having representation in thesigning ceremony, Indian officials seem to be very reserved in their reactionsto the deal. The agreement has put Indian security establishment on tenterhookswith multiple concerns thrown up by the development. The single biggestapprehension is again the return of Taliban rule, which in its previous tenurehosted and supported many anti-India insurgent groups, fighting in the restiveregion of Jammu and Kashmir. Moreover, India has at stake, a friendlygovernment that New Delhi has been propping up since the overthrow of theTaliban and around $3 billion in investments. A return to the helms ofAfghanistan by still seen Pakistan friendly group would be a bitter pill forIndia to swallow, putting it at disadvantage in the strategic equation withIslamabad.
These conjectures, fanciful orapprehensive, reached by various stakeholders however, seems premature to mefor a variety of reasons. We have many unanswered questions pertaining to thevery heart of peace deal almost at every level of analysis. The resultinginformation deficit about the various constituents of agreement, both tangibleand intangible impedes the scope of reaching credible conclusions of what apeace deal of this sort will have in the store for anyone. The most importantthing that we don’t know is the present state of affairs existing within theTaliban after nearly two decades of fighting. What is their vision ofAfghanistan’s future in terms of domestic and international affairs? We do notknow where the Taliban stands in its doctrine of rule. Are they looking forwardto re-impose the pre-2001 style rule or has their idea of governance evolvedinto something new; for example a power-sharing arrangement or governmentthrough elections? Secondly, there are questions raised on the feasibility ofpeace deal when it comes to implementation and commitments. The deal has beenagreed on vague terms lacking a well-defined mechanism to achieve the objectiveof bringing peace to Afghanistan. Furthermore, we have witnessed the violationof the terms on both sides before the ink could dry on the agreement paper.President Ghani refused to release 5000 prisoners as agreed in the deal,provoking attacks from Taliban and US swinging back into action with airsupport to government forces. There exists a lot of mistrust between thewarring parties, which one could easily make out from the statements of theparties to the agreement. The US threat of reversing the withdrawal of forcesin the case of non-fulfillment of commitments by the Taliban is one of thereflections of mistrust. Moreover, US intelligence officials came up with thereports within a few days of signing the deal, claiming that the Taliban has nointention of abiding by the agreement. Taliban is also suspicious and worriedabout possible U-turn by President Trump, which he is known for. The suspicionwas expressed to NBC News by one of the Taliban representatives, saying”President Trump is straightforward but then unpredictable and you canexpect anything from him”. They fear that Trump could renege on thewithdrawal plan after the US presidential election happening in November thisyear. In the wake of such challenges posed to thesuccessful implementation of the US-Taliban peace deal and insufficient detailsavailable, I am of the opinion that it is too early either to be apprehensiveor cheerful about its outcome.
Zahid Salam is Research Scholar at theSchool of International Studies, Jawarharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.