San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
IT’S TIME FOR POLITICS, DIPLOMACY
President Joe Biden is right to pull out U.S. troops from Afghanistan. There is no best time or right time to bring an end to the 20-year U.S. involvement in that country. In 2009, I gave a lecture at UC Riverside. I told the audience that I could not see the light at the end of the tunnel in Afghanistan unless the U.S. government committed to spend another 50 years in that country. I did not see the Afghan government willing to change its corrupt ways in governing the country. This country reminded me of Yemen, where I served as director of the Peace Corps. Yemen and Afghanistan share one common feature: The provinces and tribal authorities are not under their central governments. These continue to be a mishmash of individual tribal communities.
President Biden’s decision to completely pull out the troops after 20 years is the right policy. As for the chaotic images of Afghans fleeing toward Kabul International Airport, this was inevitable regardless of the calendar of the policy. Sadly, it is a reality and a fact of life of the consequences of war. As it was in Vietnam.
To be on the constructive side of where we go from here, or what the Biden administration should do in the near future and long term, these are my recommendations/suggestions:
We must accept the realpolitik that the Taliban’s current leaders are who we must deal with.
Our immediate and long-term policy should be to strengthen, educate and guide the Taliban leadership to evolve into a respectable member of the world community. There is no other player in the field. The remnants of the previous Afghan government are too weak to depend on to conduct our foreign policy in Afghanistan.
To this end, we must double our diplomatic efforts to keep, maintain, preserve and expand our presence in the ongoing Doha negotiations.
The Doha negotiations are our best avenue to engage, communicate our views and influence the Taliban leadership. We do not have in the immediate term any other established forum to communicate quietly but forcefully our demands to the Taliban.
However, to become successful in this endeavor, President Biden must immediately replace our current envoy at the Doha negotiations and his hired advisers. This ambassador has been for too long at the helm of our negotiations with the Taliban, and he has not delivered in this regard. He lacked vision and he failed us and failed the civilian Afghans, especially the Afghan women, by not securing their rights to freedoms under the United Nations charter of human rights.
Instead, President Biden should appoint someone from the White House Security Council to send a message to the Taliban this individual has the ears of the president and can speak authoritatively in Biden’s name.
At the Doha negotiations, President Biden should make clear to Taliban leaders that the U.S. will view it negatively if they were to invite the notorious terrorist organizations of the Islamic State, al-qaeda, alshabab, al-nusra Front, and other regional and international terrorists.
Likewise, President Biden should ask the assistance of the Taliban leadership, not only to protect and facilitate the movements of the U.S. citizens and other members of our coalition who worked in Afghanistan to arrive safely to the Kabul airport, but also to facilitate and protect all the Afghan refugees vetted by the U.S. government to access the airport.
By giving such tasks to be performed by the current Taliban leadership, the U.S. builds the self-confidence of the leaders and renders them as partners in our activities.
President Biden should maintain a healthy and aggressive consultation with our coalition partners who served in Afghanistan.
One item the president should bring up at some point is the need for a viable governing body under the Taliban. An international conference of donors could help Afghanistan financially and institutionally to become such a government.
President Biden should also consider engaging all the bordering nations to Afghanistan — Iran, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and China — in a dialogue concerning Afghanistan and how to best develop friendly ties and seek developmental/ reconstruction business projects along borders.
While working for the U.S. Agency for International Development as chief of efforts to promote cultivation of agricultural products other than illicit opium in Farah Province, I met many Taliban farmers. They expressed their good feelings toward America in contrast to their negative feelings toward Soviet occupation.
I am of the belief that the 20 years the U.S. and its coalition partners spent in Afghanistan with blood and money is not totally lost. We have planted the seeds. It is now up to us to bring to its full bloom what we sacrificed in that part of the world.
There can be no military solution in Afghanistan. Only politics and diplomacy can prevail. Where are our diplomats?
Ghougassian served in Qatar, Iraq and Afghanistan in various capacities including U.S. ambassador in Qatar and as a U.S. Agency for International Development official promoting Afghan farmers’ cultivation of crops other than opium. He has lived in San Diego County since 1966. He currently lives in Escondido.