Amongst
the diverse on-going negotiations on Afghanistan, the one led by the U.S.
Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation, Zalmay Khalilzad, has
been making the most noise. Reflecting both the urgency and the desperation
with which the United States, if not the entire coalition, wants its ‘boys
back home‘, the intensity and extensity of talks that are being conducted
are telling in their own ways.
Firstly, while geared towards (re)
establishing peace in Afghanistan, it is unlikely that these negotiations will
in turn provide any lasting solution. At best, they might deliver what could be
considered a conducive environment for further negotiations, which could
possibly and eventually lead to peace. Simply put, they are more about
negotiating a negotiation, than about negotiating peace. Nevertheless, their
catalysing potential, if any, should not be discounted.
A second aspect relates to the haste
with which these negotiations are being pushed forward, a factor that is not
expected to have an enabling impact on the peace process. Khalilzad may have
realised that his latest watch does not give him an advantage over time –
something that the Taliban has credibly demonstrated by waiting the Americans
out – but the rush to conclude a peace deal before the slated Presidential
elections of 2019 is ill conceived.
In fact, Afghan President Ashraf
Ghani criticised
this haste as reflecting a “false sense of urgency”, which will not result in
“enduring and inclusive peace.” This ‘six-month challenge’ has been described
as “too
short” a timeframe even by the Taliban.
Thirdly, in this rush to declare
Afghanistan’s conflicts solved/settled, the American eagerness betrays the one
actor whose role in this process is critical, the Government of Afghanistan.
For all intents and purposes, Kabul has been reduced to the status of a crowd
in a cricket stadium – not part of the game but occasionally cheering or
jeering.
On the other hand, the Taliban has
been enormously emboldened, even as it controls or contests more than 40 per
cent of Afghanistan’s territory. In the light of these developments, the
American efforts to talk to the Taliban, apparently at any cost, cannot, in the
long run, result in a peace deal that will be either sustainable or beneficial
for most of the stakeholders.
India’s presence in Afghanistan has
faced international and regional opposition from the beginning, and the current
circumstances do not alter the broad environment of New Delhi’s engagement with
Kabul.
India’s role in Afghanistan has long
been dismissed as secondary, and none other than U.S. President Donald Trump
has now ridiculed the country’s contributions. In a televised statement on
January 3, 2019, Trump mocked
India’s development assistance as “equivalent of what the U.S.
spends in five hours”. While both Indians and Afghans rebutted the American
jibe, it appears that India’s decision to stick to its consistent and sagacious
no-boots-on-the-ground policy has ruffled a lot of feathers in Washington.
Khalilzad’s touch-and-go trip to New
Delhi on January 9, 2019, amounts to little. Although what happened behind
closed doors has remained behind them, the official account of the American
representative’s maiden trip to India in his present capacity is of little
significance. There was little substance in his tweet,
apart from a reiteration of cliché of Indo-American “long-standing commitment
to… achieve enduring peace” in Afghanistan, and an expression of gratitude for
“the warm Indian hospitality”.
Significantly, a dismissal of
India’s role in the Afghan peace process came not only from Pakistan but also
from the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO). Alejandro Alvargonzález,
NATO’s Assistant Secretary General for Political Affairs and Security Policy,
stated that Pakistan’s role was of “utmost importance to the peace process”,
while India has a “prominent place in Afghanistan” but so do “hundreds of
others”.
The Assistant Secretary appeared to suggest
that India cannot be made a party to the talks just because
Pakistan is there. In effect, the most violent and disruptive players in Afghanistan
are, as in the past, being given centrality in the ‘peace process’, to the
progressive exclusion of those whose interests lie in an enduring peace –
principally Kabul, as well as India.
The Indian dilemma in Afghanistan
seems to have come full circle. New Delhi’s reiteration of support for an Afghan-led,
Afghan-owned and Afghan-controlled peace process, has been treated with an
indifference in the current rounds of negotiations, only rivalled by the
neglect that has been meted out to the Afghan Government.
The sting of imposed
inconsequentiality for the two actors appears to be an effort to push them on
to the US-led “bandwagon“.
But, this is a vehicle that doesn’t seem to be heading anywhere.
By Chayanika Saxena
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