After 20 years of war and endless conflict, the US will finally move out of Afghanistan; millions have been displaced and thousands killed all this while. This withdrawal was on cards as Donald Trump, and afterwards Biden, kept pledging that the US forces will be brought back and the war in Afghanistan will come to an end. When Joe Biden was elected as the president of the US, he admitted that he wants to end the wars in Afghanistan and the Middle East; more troops will be brought back home but will continue to fight ISIS and Al Qaeda.
The critical moment about the Afghan peace talks took place last year. In March 2020 the US and Taliban signed an agreement to ensure that the peace process and the intra -Afghan talks proceed. The main aim at the peace talks was the withdrawal of NATO along with US troops from Afghan soil. The US will get 8600 troops out of Afghanistan in 135 days and within 14 months i.e. by May 1, 2021, all the troops are pulled out. During the peace talks, the Taliban committed not to threaten the security of the US and its allies. Meanwhile, all the sanctions that have been put in place by the US and UN on Taliban leaders will be removed. Along with it the 500 prisoners of war that US forces captured will be released and in return, the Taliban will have to release nearly 1000 Afghan Army soldiers.
When the talks were held in February 2020 the May 1 deadline was thought to be an adequate time for the US to process the withdrawal of its troops and thereby buy the President more time to achieve favorable conditions to exit Afghanistan. It would have been a great deal as a new plan could be established to reduce violence and accelerate negotiations on a political settlement. As it turned out the May deadline was pushed further and it seemed that the total pullout will not be completed before November. The new peace plan that the Biden government introduced will be a tough one to swallow for both the Afghan government as well as Taliban, as the US is taking more time than earlier thought and the Biden administration will take all measures to ensure lasting peace.
The new plan proposed an eventual ceasefire, interim power-sharing, free and fair elections, and a new constitution which will include special provisions for women’s rights since the conditions for women have been getting miserable for the last 40 years ever since the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. Now the Taliban has rejected and refused to endorse any such plans that have been proposed. The same goes with the president of Afghanistan Ashraf Ghani; he has also rejected the new plan. The new plan will be avoided and a counter proposal made that calls for new elections within six months. The withdrawal as early as it was thought to be in March of last year it could have resulted in a victory for the Taliban as they would have consolidated their power and may even have ended up in power-sharing. It was also an opportunity for neighboring nations to strengthen their interest in Afghanistan as it would create a huge vacuum for power. The delay in withdrawal has changed the narrative a bit as it has put US troops in more attacks by different armed militias as well as from the Taliban. This will make both the parties, the Afghan government and the Taliban more distrustful of the US and could also affect the domestic policies back in the US.
The remaining troops numbering 2500 from Afghanistan will have to leave by September 1, 2021 and it would mean Joe Biden would miss his original deadline of May 1 that Trump had agreed with the Taliban. The Democratic Party has been somewhat in a conundrum about the exit from Afghanistan as some of its leaders still want some troops to be stationed there. After many rounds of talks, it was decided that there should be no further delay in the exit of US troops be it even in the case of any more Human rights violation or anything else. The US under the Biden administration will look forward to having a condition-based approach and consider all things before making an important decision. The Biden administration also suggested that the US military will no longer be in any peace deal and that military solution is not an option in Afghanistan.
On 24th April 2021, Turkey hosted a peace talk conference but the Taliban refused to participate in the talk until the NATO troops didn’t withdraw from the country. As far as the US is concerned it was unclear how Biden’s move would impact a palled 10-day summit starting April 24th Istanbul. Since the may 1st deadline has already passed and the US has categorically blamed the Taliban for failing to line up commitments to reduce violence, and how the Taliban has a link with Al Qaeda. The links of the Taliban with Al Qaeda in 2001 was one of the reasons that led to US military intervention in Afghanistan, but with changing scenario the US government doesn’t consider Al Qaeda to pose a major threat to the US now.
The war in Afghanistan was never meant to last as long as it went and Barack Obama in one of his speeches addressed this issue and said that this war has well beyond lasted more than what it was initially planned. Joe Biden becomes the 4th US president under whose command the US army is still in Afghanistan. Although successive US presidents have sought to extricate themselves from Afghanistan those hopes were confounded by the Afghan security forces, corruption, human right violation, women’s rights abuse, and the resilient nature of the Taliban. The decision highlights the trade-off that the Biden administration is willing to make and the US foreign policy shift from the counterinsurgency campaign that dominated the post 9/11 scene. The current priority of the US is more towards the east through a strong military campaign.
As the delay in the withdrawal of US troops continues the Taliban have escalated their campaign of attacks since reaching the deal with the Trump administration for power-sharing in Kabul. The Biden administration will take all necessary precautions and consider regional security, unlike Trump who wanted the US to cut all stuff and run from Afghanistan as soon as possible. The US has signed a peace deal with the same Taliban that it removed from power when it invaded Afghanistan. The war has not come cheap for the US as it spent over a trillion US$ and lost 2218 US troops.
The US and NATO in Afghanistan ended much before Trump took office and since 2015 the Afghan forces have been at the forefront of all counter-insurgency operations. Trump was too eager to get out of Afghanistan and hand over the country to the militias whom some of them have backing from across the border in Pakistan and this also gives Pakistan heavy leverage as it can come on top in Afghanistan.
Biden has chosen the Trump nominee Zalmay Khalilzad as the US special representative for Afghan reconciliation. Khalilzad has forged close ties with the Taliban but struggled to sustain good relations with the Afghan government. The Biden administration recently leaked a draft that peace proposal seeks to replace Afghan President Ashraf Ghani with a new transitional government where Taliban hold all of the position. In a letter to Ghani, the US secretary of State Antony Binken pressed him to develop the new roadmap and a new constitution. Afghan vice president Amrullah Saleh said Afghans will never accept the bossy imposition of peace by a foreign nation. The tough thing for the Afghan government will be to maintain peace and security once all NATO and US troops leave, and how effective it would be in managing affairs with the Taliban. The Taliban will have to change their interest from fighting against foreign troops to be a part of a more mainstream democratic process.