As Afghan leader Dr Abdullah Abdullah headed home after a five-day visit to New Delhi against the backdrop of US President Donald Trump’s rash announcement of a stepped-up withdrawal of troops from that nation as early as Christmas, India must factor in the instability that will follow this drastic decision and the implications of Pakistan’s proxy, the Taliban, stepping in to fill that power vacuum.
The deliberate stalling of intra-Afghan talks in Doha by the newly empowered Taliban has already seen US Special Envoy Zalmay Khalilzad, who dropped a 19-year ban on talking to the group, heading to Pakistan capital Islamabad for some urgent damage control. With reports now emerging of a secret meeting in Islamabad between Taliban leader Mullah Ghani Barader and Khalilzad, and the latter reportedly also reaching out to Pakistan’s army chief Gen Qamar Bajwa—whom he has publicly described as “helpful”—it is an indicator that the US envoy knows that he’s running out of time ... and bargaining chips.
He’s not only acquiesced to the release of some 5,000 Taliban prisoners and a whittled-down US presence that could remove the last robust security cover for Afghan forces, he’s now offering Pakistan a ‘separate’ deal with Afghanistan, the resurrection of the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) energy pipeline in return for a commitment in public by Pakistan—and Afghanistan—to stop “their territory being used against the other by extremist groups”.
Will that see Islamabad, so adept at playing both sides, call off the Taliban wolf at the door? As a telling tweet by a former director of Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security, Rahmatullah Nabil, played out over “the intra-Afghan dialogue being just a show”, the sidelining of Afghan President Ashraf Ghani underscores the changing power equations in Kabul where the India-friendly Ghani administration is losing traction. As the much-touted intra-Afghan talks between the Islamic Republic and the Islamic Emirate, aka the Taliban, run aground and the initial euphoria over talks that began on September 12 dissipates, the Taliban leadership is pushing for legitimacy by getting the February agreement with the US imposed as the framework for talks and the ‘Hanafi Figh’ school of Islamic thought—that affects women and minorities—as binding.
On an equally precarious track is Ghani’s arch-rival and head of the High Council for National Reconciliation, Dr Abdullah Abdullah. Tasked to head peace negotiations, he arrived in Delhi after a path-breaking visit to Pakistan after a gap of 12 years. The Tajik leader, who has few reservations over Pakistan’s role in destabilising his country, walked a fine line as he sought the help of Gen Bajwa as well as Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan to reduce Taliban-sponsored violence, subtly red-flagging Islamabad’s continued backing of the Quetta Shura and the Haqqani Network, which has relocated and reinvented itself in the new geography of the Gulf.
In meetings with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, however, Abdullah is putting together a counter-manoeuvre. He must preempt Islamabad’s bid to take control of a post-Ghani interim government that Khalilzad would like to see in place, possibly six weeks from now. The Taliban want an interim government to take the form of a 12-member ‘Guardian Council’, like the nominated body of officials and clerics that wields considerable influence in Iran.
Abdullah’s ask is for India to back Kabul’s recommendations over that of the Talibs, which is seeking to pack the council with hardline clerics, albeit re-packaged and presented to the world as younger and more forward-looking than their ultra-conservative fathers. Abdullah’s nudge to New Delhi is to get back in the game and act as a buffer against Pakistan’s designs. He will seek similar support from Tehran, Moscow and Uzbekistan.
The rapid US drawdown has already left Afghan security forces with little protection in the face of the upsurge in violence from various terror groups; not just from the Taliban, but from Islamic State-Khorasan, Daesh, al Qaeda fighters, etc. The Taliban, who control close to 70% of the country and ring-fence Kabul, have no intention of backing off. Khalilzad’s recent reassurances that peace is at hand,“not in years but in months”, run contrary to the US military’s warnings that violence gives the Taliban the tools and the leverage to ensure its commanders take control from the ground up in village after village.
Similarly, Nabil’s fresh tweet that ‘the Quetta shura doesn’t have control of the Taliban, it’s Pakistan that does’, points to the fact that Afghanistan could be looking at a return to 1989, when the Soviet Union’s equally hasty withdrawal saw a power vacuum and led to a protracted 10-year-long civil war. As Pakistan deftly played host to the Taliban-Khalilzad talks and tried to put the onus of violence in Afghanistan on India with its tired old trope that New Delhi was pushing in Tehreek-i-Taliban and Jamaat ul Ahrar militants into Pakistan, Nabil’s fresh warnings that “a proxy peace will lead to a proxy war” was shared by Pakistani politician from Waziristan, Mohsin Dawar, of the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement, who warned that the ‘secret deal’ between the US and Pakistan army is aimed at breaking the Pashtun connect across the contested Durand Line and bringing the largely Pashtun Taliban in through the back door.
India, distrustful of the Taliban’s promise not to attack Indian interests in Afghanistan and stoke militancy in Kashmir, has long held that Pakistan gains little from a peaceful settlement in Afghanistan. Keeping the pot boiling ensures that Kabul cannot push for a greater Pashtunistan while its proxy, the Taliban, calls the shots. This is the deeply flawed Afghan endgame that cannot be Khalilzad’s legacy. The hopes of a new generation of Afghans rest with the US peace envoy, whatever the results of the US elections come November.
Neena Gopal
South Asia analyst and author
(neenagopal@gmail.com)