No Exit from Afghanistan
_____
20/08/2013 By Jaswant Singh
NEW DELHI-Despite frequent turmoil and repeated invasions, Afghanistan has
remained virtually unchanged for centuries. Nearly 120 years ago, Winston
Churchill described the futility of warfare in the region: "Financially it
is ruinous. Morally it is wicked. Militarily it is an open question, and
politically it is a blunder." Churchill's assessment undoubtedly rings true
for many United States and NATO officials today, as they attempt to
coordinate an exit from America's longest overseas combat commitment in
history.
While the war in Afghanistan may have resulted in fewer American deaths and
injuries than previous US wars, the human cost remains substantial -
especially after factoring in Afghan deaths and injuries. Moreover,
trillions of dollars have been wasted, with the few positive effects of the
US-led military intervention already beginning to fade, and its many adverse
consequences continuing to destabilize the region.
US President Barack Obama is now trying to negotiate a new "status of
forces" agreement with the Afghan government in order to establish how many
US troops will remain in Afghanistan and the terms of their deployment. But
the reality is that the US is scuttling from a conflict that it has lost,
just as it did in Vietnam almost 40 years ago, leaving the beleaguered
population to its own devices.
Rather than admit defeat, US officials are resorting to diversionary
rhetoric. For example, speaking recently in New Delhi, Secretary of State
John Kerry said that the key to stabilizing Afghanistan is to build a
<
http://www.state.gov/secretary/remarks/2013/06/211013.htm> "new silk road"
connecting it with central Asia - a cynical contrivance apparently aimed at
cloaking America's failure in illusions of future commerce. Kerry's
insistence that the US is not withdrawing, but "drawing down," is a
similarly transparent attempt at manipulation.
To be sure, America's presence in Afghanistan has spawned important regional
linkages; unfortunately, they are not the kind that support economic
renewal. The last decade of war and lawlessness has facilitated the
Taliban's proliferation across Pakistan and Afghanistan, leading the Taliban
to consider itself an indefatigable force - a belief that could lead its
leaders to undercut any progress toward stability.
In fact, the Taliban's confidence already drove them to disrupt plans for
peace talks with the Afghan government. After agreeing to establish an
office in Qatar exclusively to host the talks, in June the Taliban opened a
quasi-embassy of the "Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan." The Afghan government
responded by suspending talks with the Taliban, as well as the
status-of-forces negotiations with the US.
Pakistan recommends seeking an alternate venue for the negotiations with the
Taliban, rather than abandoning reconciliation efforts altogether. This
bodes well for the resumption of talks, given that Pakistan played a leading
role in facilitating the Taliban's emergence and is now home to the Afghan
Taliban's ruling council, including its leader, Mullah Omar, along with the
Pakistani Taliban.
India's former ambassador to Afghanistan, Vivek Katju, is confident that
Afghan President Hamid Karzai's anger at the Taliban's gambit in Qatar will
not delay negotiations for long. (Indeed, Karzai has reportedly already met
with Taliban representatives for secret talks aimed at restarting the
stalled peace initiative.)
Katju attributes the talks' inevitable resumption to America's "strategic
desperation," which is so acute that the US would be unlikely even to follow
through on Kerry's pledge to call off the talks if any link to Al Qaeda were
found. After all, the US has already accepted the Taliban's unrealistic
assurances that it will not use Afghanistan as a base from which to "foment
trouble" - that is, execute terrorist attacks - elsewhere.
Fortunately for the US, the Taliban is no longer a homogeneous group. A
decade of running and hiding from unrelenting surveillance and targeted
drone attacks has caused the movement to splinter. Yet, as the security
expert Sajjan M. Gohel
<
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201011/cmselect/cmfaff/514/514we
07.htm> has observed, "the displaced and disillusioned Taliban youth of
today" have "found solace and purpose in an extremely radical interpretation
of Islam." The Taliban may no longer be a unified force, but they clearly
remain a dangerous one.
All of these developments have put India in a difficult position. In
Afghanistan, America's military was so tactically dependent on Pakistan
that, on several occasions, the US encouraged India to curtail development
projects, such as rebuilding Afghanistan's infrastructure. Following
America's military withdrawal, Afghanistan will most likely revert to
pre-war conditions; Pakistan will revive state-sponsored terrorism against
India; and extremism will spill into the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir.
In order to make the best of a grim situation, India must be prepared to
protect its own interests at all costs. After all, as the US extricates
itself from its Afghan quagmire, its own national interests will continue to
trump all other considerations. But China, Pakistan, and Iran also have
their own important national-security interests in Afghanistan that each
will now do their utmost to guarantee. So, while US troops may be leaving
Afghanistan, an end to the violence spawned by America's war remains nothing
more than a distant dream - especially for Afghanistan's South Asian
neighbors.
Jaswant Singh, a former Indian finance minister, foreign minister, and
defense minister, is the author of Jinnah: India - Partition - Independence.
------------[ Sent via the dehai-wn mailing list by dehai.org]--------------
Received on Tue Aug 20 2013 - 15:52:25 EDT