Debate Rages over U.S. Withdrawal from Afghanistan
An influential Pakistani journalist appealed this week for Washington to stick to its 2014 timetable for withdrawing its combat forces, instead of accelerating its pullout, as a growing number of voices here are urging.
'The U.S. cannot leave Afghanistan and leave a civil war behind,' said Ahmed Rashid, who has written two bestselling books on the Taliban and whose expertise on Afghanistan and Pakistan is widely recognised among South Asia specialists both within and outside the administration.
'You cannot leave this country by leaving the present status quo. You have to improve the status quo, and that… means ending the war. Now, you're the only people who can do it,' he told his audience at the Brookings Institution in Washington.
Rashid spoke the day after U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton strongly rebuked the Taliban for suspending peace talks with Washington that have been taking place in Qatar.
The administration of President Barack Obama hopes that negotiations may put critical elements of the insurgency into the government of President Hamid Karzai, permitting the United States and NATO to withdraw their forces in good order.
The breakdown in talks — apparently due to a disagreement over conditions for transferring key Taliban leaders from the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay to Qatar - followed several major setbacks in U.S.- Afghan relations, most recently the massacre of 17 Afghan villagers in Kandahar by a U.S. soldier.
The massacre, as well as the fallout over the recent Quran burning incident, has accelerated calls in the Afghan government for an immediate U.S. withdrawal, raising new questions about how long U.S. forces can remain in the country.
The Taliban's unclear motives
Washington currently has almost 90,000 troops deployed to Afghanistan, but that number is scheduled to be reduced to 68,000 by September. The Obama administration has not yet decided at what pace the remaining troops will be withdrawn before all combat forces leave the country in 2014.
While public opinion here, particularly among Obama's fellow Democrats, appears increasingly in favour of accelerating the drawdown after September, the top U.S. military commander there, General John Allen, suggested to Congress this week that he opposed such an option and wanted to keep as many forces in Afghanistan as he could, at least through 2013.
Rashid, who is currently promoting his latest book, 'Pakistan on the Brink', argued that engaging the Taliban would help secure an orderly withdrawal for U.S. forces, though he conceded that the group's ultimate aims remain unclear.
Whether the Taliban's declared openness to negotiations represented a genuine change of heart and willingness to accept major compromises or was instead a tactical manoeuvre to hasten the withdrawal of foreign troops from the country has become a hotly debated question here.
'I do believe the Taliban has changed,' Rashid said. He cited their recent efforts to distance themselves from Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda, and the fact that they are no longer burning down schools or targeting girls who attend school, as evidence of a shift that was not merely tactical.
The Taliban are not likely to seek control of the entire country, Rashid argued, for two reasons: Such an outcome risks international isolation and the Taliban also lack the resources or personnel to govern effectively.
'What do they want as power-sharing, what do they mean by power-sharing? We don't know that,' he said.
The Brookings Institution's Steven Cohen, an expert on the Pakistan military, challenged Rashid's optimism about negotiations with the Taliban, arguing that their radical ideology has not changed and that the group will continue their efforts to destabilise the Afghan government.
Bruce Riedel, a Brookings fellow and former top South Asia analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) objected. The Taliban 'is not a negotiating machine, but I do think they are changing,' he said, adding that they appeared more open to negotiations with the United States than in the past.
Pakistan's role
The key to pushing the Taliban toward a negotiated settlement and eventual inclusion in the Afghan government, Riedel argued, is to address the main source of its external support, Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence agency (ISI).
'If it wasn't for the ISI, the Taliban wouldn't be so strong,' said Riedel.
The Taliban, according to Rashid, are 'really fed up with Pakistan.' The Taliban's growing suspicions about Islamabad's own aims in Afghanistan have made it more difficult for Pakistan to deal with the group, he said.
Washington, meanwhile, is circumventing the ISI in its negotiations with Taliban leaders, according to Rashid. He urged the United States and Pakistan to work more closely together to bring the Taliban first to the table and eventually to a negotiated settlement.
In fact, engaging the Taliban with this end in mind has become the only interest that the United States and Pakistan currently have in common, Rashid said.
The two countries are at odds regarding a range of other key issues, including intelligence sharing, border patrolling, and the U.S. use of drones to strike suspected Al Qaeda and Taliban leaders.
© Inter Press Service (2012) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service