US pullout spells uncertain future
Fears Afghanistan could fall back into civil war as Biden vows troops will be gone by September 11
The Biden Administration’s surprise announcement of an unconditional troop withdrawal from Afghanistan by September 11 appears to strip the Taliban and the Afghan Government of considerable leverage and could ramp up pressure on them for a peace deal.
The Taliban and Afghan Government can no longer hold the United States hostage — the Taliban with escalating violence and the Afghan President by dragging his feet on a power-sharing deal with the insurgents that doesn’t include him as President — because Washington made it clear that US troops are leaving, no matter what.
Still, there are growing fears that Afghanistan will collapse into worsening chaos, brutal civil war, or even a takeover by the Taliban once the Americans are gone — opening a new chapter in the constant war that has lasted for decades.
Already, violence and seemingly random attacks on civilians have surged since former US President Donald Trump’s Administration reached a deal with the Taliban in February 2020 that had committed Washington to withdraw by May 1 this year. More than 1700 civilians were killed or wounded in attacks in the first three months of 2021, up 23 per cent from the same period last year, according to the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan.
On Thursday, the Biden Administration set a new timetable.
It said it would begin pulling out its remaining 2500 troops on May 1 and complete the pullout at the latest by September 11 — the 20th anniversary of the al Qaeda terror attack on the US that had triggered the Americanled invasion of Afghanistan.
Nato announced it would follow the same timetable for withdrawing nearly 10,000 troops, 7000 of whom are non-US soldiers.
In leaving, Washington has calculated that it can manage its chief security interest — ensuring Afghanistan doesn’t become a base for terror attacks on the United
States — from a distance.
Still, it is hoping to leave a country with a chance at peace. The US is pressing the Taliban and the Afghan Government to reach a peace agreement during an April 24 to May 4 conference in Turkey.
At the moment, it’s not certain that the Taliban will attend.
In response to the new withdrawal timeline, the Taliban said they won’t attend any conference on Afghanistan’s future while foreign forces are still in the country. A spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, said that if the original May 1 deadline was not met, “problems will be compounded”. Still, he did not explicitly threaten a resumption of Taliban attacks on US troops.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken made an unannounced visit to Afghanistan yesterday to sell Afghan leaders and a wary Afghan public on the withdrawal plan.
A day earlier, he ramped up indirect pressure on the Taliban during a phone call with Pakistan’s powerful military chief.
With their leadership headquartered in Pakistan, the Taliban ignore Islamabad at their own peril. Until now, Pakistan has
been key to getting the insurgent militia to earlier rounds of talks and has expressed support for the Turkey conference.
The Taliban control about half of Afghanistan. But they also have much to lose if they walk away from the peace process, particularly a chance at international recognition. The group have been courting world powers since 2013 when they set up their political office in the Qatari capital Doha.
The US has warned that the Taliban won’t get that recognition if they are not part of a new Government. The Turkey conference, jointly convened by the
UN, lends international support to that warning.
The bet is that the Taliban won’t want to rule as a pariah, as they did from 1996 until their overthrow by the US-led coalition in 2001.
They had no money to feed their people, unemployment was rampant and drought and poverty devastated farmers.
“It’s important for the Taliban to recognise that it will never be legitimate and it will never be durable if it rejects the political process and tries to take the country by force,” Blinken said at a press conference in the Afghan capital of Kabul at the end of his one-day, surprise visit to the country.
Torek Farhadi, a former Afghan government adviser, said he did not expect the insurgents to attend in Turkey.
Instead, he said, they were likely to negotiate with local leaders around Afghanistan and wait for the Americans to leave, further weakening and isolating President Ashraf Ghani. The Taliban have refused to even sit across the table from him.
Responding to the US strategy shift, Ghani pledged to pursue peace, without elaborating.
He tweeted on Thursday that he had spoken with President Biden and “we will work with our US partners to ensure a smooth transition.”
Previously, Ghani had floated an alternative peace plan that calls for him to head an interim Government until fresh elections can be held. Rejected by the Taliban, it’s seen by his political opponents as an attempt to cling to power.
Ghani’s Government has been denounced for runaway corruption and divisive politics.
He has embraced warlords he once shunned, such as Uzbek powerhouse Rashid Dostum, accused of war crimes.
The many warlords who hold sway in Kabul have amassed considerable wealth in the past 20 years and boast loyal militias with well-equipped arsenals.
Most Afghans say the US and Nato troop presence has kept feuding warlords apart and fear that without it the country will collapse back into the infighting that raged from 1992 to 1996, giving rise to the Taliban.
The previous Trump deal with the Taliban had imposed conditions.
The big one was that the Taliban break with their longtime ally, al Qaeda, and stand against other militants before US troops would withdraw.
A senior Taliban official earlier said the group last month ordered the remnants of al Qaeda and other militants out of the country and told its own fighters not to associate with foreign fighters.
Asfandyar Mir, at the Centre for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University, said the order against foreign fighters was a good first step.
But he noted it only confirms the Taliban’s use of foreign fighters, which it long denied — even as publications affiliated to the Taliban and al Qaeda touted al Qaeda’s oath of loyalty to the Taliban leader, Hibatullah Akunzada.
Mir also pointed to the evidence of al Qaeda operations even in recent years in areas under Taliban control.
Controlling militant groups will be even harder if Afghanistan tumbles into chaos.
Michael Kugelman, deputy director of the Asia Programme at the US-based Wilson Centre, said it’s “hard to imagine any scenario under which peace would break out postSeptember 11 in Afghanistan”.
“The best hope is that the peace process won’t be dead.”