Broken deal?

A mere 24 hours after US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Taliban leader Abdul Ghani Baradar signed what was termed a peace deal by Washington, the agreement is in danger of falling apart. A day after those talks President Donald Trump had claimed of having an extremely positive talk with the Taliban leader. But there are signs that things may not be as good as is being claimed. On Wednesday, the US attacked a Taliban camp in the Helmand province, stating that this was in response to attacks by Taliban fighters on Afghan forces on at least 40 check posts in the same province. While the US says it is still committed to peace, things are not going to be easy. This had always been the fear of analysts who had warned about the risks of an agreement that excluded the Afghan government of President Ashraf Ghani who has finally been recognized as the winner of the Afghan general election held in September last year. The fact that Ghani’s victory is being challenged by his archrival Abdullah Abdullah simply adds to complications.

While Trump insists that the deal is final, and that the Taliban will hold to it, there are already signs that the reduction in violence which formed a part of the accord has ended. The attacks by the Taliban followed by those by US forces highlight this. Critically, President Ghani has indicated his government has no intention of releasing 5,000 Afghan prisoners, as promised to the Taliban by Washington. Ghani has said this is a matter that the Afghan government would be able to decide on only after it had spoken to the Taliban and begun a process of intra-Afghan dialogue which was to follow the US Taliban talks. However, since the Taliban do not recognize the Afghan government, everything seems, at best, a little complicated. There have been suggestions that Pakistan could play a role as a close ally of the Taliban but the mechanisms for this would need to be worked out. Pakistan had facilitated the talks process all along the way.

It is now beginning to appear that the prime objective of the deal by the US side was primarily to allow Trump to make an escape from Afghanistan. The war in that country is the longest the US has ever engaged in. For the last few years, it has been sending in soldiers to the country who were not even born in 2001, when the fighting began. Since the Taliban control more territory than the Ghani government, it is hardly surprising that they would be willing to accept the supremacy of the elected ruling setup. This is especially so as the veracity of the election is disputed. For Trump, the main purpose in the weeks ahead is to make the exit from Afghanistan that he has already promised the American people. The question now is how he can do so without leaving Afghanistan in complete chaos. Such chaos followed the previous US pullout and people across the region are well aware they do not wish to become pawns in yet another game orchestrated from far away.