Speculation Over Biden’s Pullout Decision
The Trump administration signed the peace deal with Taliban in February 2020 in Doha. The accord drew up plans for withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan in exchange for security guarantees from the insurgent group. The Taliban committed to prevent other groups, including al Qaeda, from using Afghan soil to recruit, train or fund raise toward activities that threaten the US or its allies. As part of the deal, the US committed to withdraw its 12,000 troops within 14 months. There are currently only 2,500 American troops left in the country.
US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said, on 29 January, the Biden administration supports the previous Trump administration’s decision of setting up negotiations between the stakeholders in Afghanistan. The Biden administration was having a hard look at the extent to which the Taliban are complying with the conditions of the peace agreement and supports the negotiations between the stakeholders to find a durable political settlement to the long-standing conflict in Afghanistan.
Although the Taliban stopped attacks on international forces as part of the historic deal, it continued to fight the Afghan government. As a condition of starting talks with the Afghan government, the Taliban demanded that thousands of their members be released in a prisoner swap.
Direct talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban began in Doha in September 2020, but a breakthrough was yet to be reached. Levels of violence in Afghanistan remain high with journalists, activists, politicians and women judges among those killed in targeted assassinations.
Review of US-Taliban Deal
The review of the US-Taliban deal was expected to assess if the Taliban were able to keep their end of the bargain.
The four-page pact was signed between Zalmay Khalilzad, US Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation, and Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, political head of the Taliban on February 29, 2020.
The agreement said “[a] permanent and comprehensive ceasefire will be an item on the agenda of the intra-Afghan dialogue and negotiations. The participants of intra-Afghan negotiations will discuss the date and modalities of a permanent and comprehensive ceasefire, including joint implementation mechanisms, which will be announced along with the completion and agreement over the future political roadmap of Afghanistan”.
Separately, a three-page joint declaration between the Afghan government (Islamic Republic of Afghanistan) and the US was issued in Kabul at the time.
Some of the important elements of the deal include the withdrawal of US troops along with bringing down NATO or coalition troop numbers within 14 months from when the deal was signed. The main counter-terrorism commitment by the Taliban is that “Taliban will not allow any of its members, other individuals or groups, including al-Qaeda, to use the soil of Afghanistan to threaten the security of the United States and its allies”.
Other elements include removal of sanctions on Taliban leaders, releasing prisoners held by both sides and ceasefire.
The joint declaration was a symbolic commitment to the Afghanistan government that the US is not abandoning it. The Taliban were able to negotiate some of the elements they wanted such as troops withdrawal, removal of sanctions and release of prisoners. This has also strengthened Pakistan, the Taliban’s benefactor, and the Pakistan Army and the ISI’s influence appears to be on the rise.
However, the Afghan government was completely sidelined during the talks between the US and the Taliban. Therefore, the future for the people of Afghanistan is uncertain and will depend on how the Taliban honours its commitments. What the Taliban want out of a political settlement is unclear. In the past, they have denounced democracy as a western imposition on their vision of Afghanistan. They have dropped several hints of a return to the Taliban-run Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan of 1996-2001. But they have signaled they may accept some of the democratic gains Afghanistan has made in the last two decades.
Much will depend on whether the US and the Taliban are able to keep their ends of the bargain, and every step forward will be negotiated, and how the Afghan government and the political spectrum are involved.
Taliban’s Warning to the US Government
The Afghan Government holds the Taliban responsible for the growing violence and the killing of individuals. They want to break the Afghan people’s political will and demand impossible concessions. An analysis of the purpose of the terror strikes will also support this conclusion. These are clearly aimed at achieving three objectives:
• To terrorise people into not resisting their violent take-over bid
• To delegitimise the Afghan State by projecting it as one incapable of protecting the people
• To warn the incoming Biden Administration not to change the terms of the February 29 treaty.
A climate of fear and a feeling of siege pervades in Kabul as well as the countryside. People are afraid to come out of their homes. Many are beginning to believe that a take-over by the Taliban is inevitable.
Terror strikes and the targeted killings by motorbike-borne terrorists or through the attachment of magnetic bombs to vehicles, have led to growing popular discontent with the Afghan Government for failing to protect its citizens.
The terms of the February 29 treaty bind the US to reduce its forces in Afghanistan to 8,600 within the first 135 days of the agreement coming into force. A complete withdrawal of the US forces will be effected within 14 months. It also called for an exchange of 5,000 Taliban fighters held by the Afghan Government with 1,000 Afghan security force prisoners with the Taliban by March 10, 2020. Also, the US would not only lift the sanctions it had imposed on the Taliban but work with the United Nations to lift those that the latter had imposed on it.
Would the Biden Administration stand by and watch if the Taliban sought to storm into power by terrorising into inaction all those who are opposed to it.
The consequences of not doing anything or enough to stop the Taliban from coming to power would be disastrous for the US. It turned its attention away from Afghanistan after the withdrawal of the Russian troops in February 1989. It did nothing even when the Taliban, formed in 1994 by Pakistan’s ISI, turned Afghanistan into a medieval hell and put all women virtually under house arrest, besides enabling Osama bin-Laden and the al-Qaida to function freely. The result was 9/11. It may be a different kind of attack this time.
Comments
The second-most important problem – the first being the COVID-19 pandemic – that President Joe Biden has faced is the situation in Afghanistan. The danger of the Taliban taking over the country has never been more real than now since their ouster from power in 2001.
Under Joe Biden there has been no dramatic departure from Donald Trump’s policies when it comes to unwinding America’s war machine abroad. While Trump was less hawkish than others in his party he did nothing to alter a surveillance state apparatus and the military-industrial complex that has survived four different presidents.
Since 2001, more than 7,75,000 American troops have been deployed to Afghanistan, many repeatedly. Of those, 2,300 died there and 20,589 were wounded in action, according to Defense Department figures. More than 1,00,000 civilians have died from the conflict. Military officials acknowledged that their combat strategies were fatally flawed and that Washington wasted extravagant sums of money trying to forcefully transform Afghanistan – into what, it was never clear.
Biden is a steward of the status quo. He will not dramatically reduce the American troop presence worldwide, slash Pentagon spending, or seek the mass closure of military bases. In the last half-century, there have arguably been only two years – 1977 and 1979 – when the United States was not invading or fighting in some foreign country.
There are as many as 750 military bases abroad, ensuring American troops will perpetually patrol countries like Iraq, Syria, Pakistan, Somalia, Niger, and many others. These bases only invite further war, stoking local resentment and incentivising the military to respond. New conflicts lead to new bases in a very expensive and hellish cycle.
