Dramatic news is filtering in from Qatar where the United
States Special Representative for Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad and his
delegation were huddled together with the representatives of the Taliban for
four consecutive days since Monday. The duration of the talks unmistakably
signifies that complex negotiations have taken place. Things are moving almost
entirely in the direction I had indicated in my earlier blog US officials converge on Pakistan seeking peace.
What comes to mind
for a longtime observer and interlocutor in Afghan affairs will be the lines
from T.S. Eliot’s poem Four Quartets, “Footfalls echo in the memory, down the
passage we did not take, towards the door we never opened, into the rose
garden.” The ‘foot falls in the memory’ go as far back as the forenoon of April
15, 1992 when the then Representative of Secretary-General on Settlement of
Situation Relating to Afghanistan, Benon Sevan appeared in the compound of the
Indian High Commission in Islamabad straight from a meeting of top Pakistani
officials under way chaired by then Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to transmit a
tantalizing idea to New Delhi as to whether Dr. Najibullah who was stepping
down from the office of president of Afghanistan within a day could live in
exile in India. (The positive reply from PM Narasimha Rao came on phone within
two hours.)
Or, at the very least,
the footfalls in memory would go back to a chance meeting circa end-2013 or
early 1994 with late Professor Ahmad Hasan Dani, the great Pakistani
archaeologist, historian and Sanskrit scholar (above all a humanist and a very
dear friend (originally from India and a product of Banares Hindu University.)
It was from Dani that I heard for the first time about the strange happenings
going on in the Pakistani madrassahs, on the raising of an army of Talibs to be
assigned in a near future to Afghanistan. Dani spoke with a profound sense of
foreboding that momentous events were about to unfold in Afghanistan.
As it turned out,
both in 1992 and in 1996, an orderly transition in Kabul enjoying international
legitimacy was not possible to be attained. However, in this third attempt
going on in Doha, prospects look distinctly good. The tidings from Doha suggest that two
crucial areas of consensus have emerged between the US and the Taliban – a road
map for the withdrawal of foreign troops in Afghanistan and a guarantee by the
Taliban that Afghan soil will not be used to threaten international security.
The two templates
are of course inter-linked. It is unclear whether there will be a total US
withdrawal from Afghanistan and a shutting down of the American bases or
whether the Taliban is agreeable to a reduced US presence in a near term.
Considering the robust opposition of Russia and Iran to any US military
presence in their border regions, it seems improbable that Pentagon can keep
its bases and the CIA its listening posts in Afghanistan.
However, Taliban’s security assurance is important in as
much as it also guarantees, from the Taliban perspective, continued involvement
by the international community to assist in Afghanistan’s reconstruction. Put
differently, Taliban is ensuring that the international community (read Americans)
will no longer ostracize it as a ruling elite. In retrospect, it was the dogged
refusal of the US to recognize the Taliban regime in the late 1990s or provide
it with any form of international assistance that finally prompted the latter
for want of an alternative to accept the offer of financial help from Osama bin
Laden.
According to the
reports from Doha, a ceasefire is under discussion as well, followed by
inter-Afghan talks. If so, the constitution of an interim government also
becomes a real possibility. The crucial difference between 1992 and 1996 and
now lies in the shift in the Pakistani position. The happenings of the past few
days or weeks suggest three things:
One, Pakistan is not
seeking a Taliban takeover by force in Afghanistan (even assuming that it has
the capability to do so.) Two, Pakistan seems open to a broad-based
government in Afghanistan (which includes Taliban or is led by Taliban.) And,
three, Pakistan wants the US to remain engaged and committed to post-war
Afghanistan.
However, the bottom line is that Pakistan realises that
the US is making unprecedented concessions and
an optimal point is at hand to close the deal. The US special representative on
Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad too cannot be unaware that President Trump would
relish making a big announcement on Afghanistan as a crowning foreign policy
success in his annual State of the Union address before the Congress in
Washington.
Significantly, at
the operational level, there are growing signs that Pakistan is marginalizing
or eliminating the hardline elements within the Taliban. Iran’s official news
agency IRNA reported last week somewhat
cryptically that Mullah Yaghoub, son of Taliban’s founder late Mullah Omar and
a member of the so-called Quetta Shura, has been killed in Peshawar following
differences. Yaghoub is known to be a hardliner who even aspired to inherit his
father’s mantle. The IRNA further reported, “Earlier, Afghan media reported
that a number of Taliban leaders in Pakistan have been arrested after their
meeting with Pakistan army commanders.”
The impression
becomes unavoidable from various reports that some sort of “spring cleaning” is
under way within the Taliban and, importantly, Pakistan is leveraging its
influence to consolidate a Taliban leadership of “moderates”. All in all,
Pakistan is helping the Taliban to prepare for “homecoming.” To be sure,
Pakistan is acutely conscious that many spy agencies have established direct
dealings with the Taliban and apprehends (and rightly so) that some of those
countries may act as “spoilers” due to geopolitical considerations.
Without doubt,
the elevation
of Mullah Baradar in the leadership hierarchy can be seen in
this light. It is useful to recall the speculation eight years ago that one of
the things that apparently irked Islamabad and prompted it to crack down on
Baradar in 2010 (while in Karachi) might have been his direct dealings with
then Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
With his appointment
as the head of the Qatar office of the Taliban and his new titular position as
deputy to the Taliban head Mullah Akhundzada, Baradar has become the de facto
point person for Khalilzad to engage with from the Taliban side. Conceivably,
Baradar is the man to watch. He is poised to be a future political figure in
the Kabul power structure. His credentials are impeccable having been a
co-founder of the Taliban movement along with Mullah Omar who is not only
trusted by Pakistan but also is a “moderate” who is acceptable to the Americans
and is savvy enough to navigate the politics of intra-Afghan consensus.
Baradar was recently
released after nearly 8 years of detention by the Pakistani security agencies
at the behest of Khalilzad. By the way, it was not as if Pakistan had scores to
settle with Baradar. Through his detention, Pakistan probably ensured greater
control over any nascent peace process. Besides, it was important for Pakistan
that he remained physically safe and “groomed” to take up a future leadership
role when the time became ripe. In the Pakistani (and US) judgment, the time
has come to end Baradar’s protective custody and to launch this experienced politician
as the charioteer of the tumultuous journey ahead.
