In his book Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001, journalist Steve Coll sets out the US analysis of the situation in Kabul in 1988 as follows:
"Early in 1988 there were two big questions at the US embassy in Kabul: Were the Soviets really going to leave? And if they did, what would happen to the Afghan communist government they left behind, presided over by the former secret police chief Najibullah?
Circulating to policy makers in Washington and by diplomatic cable, the CIA's classified analysis in those weeks made two main points. Gates and the Soviet Division of the Directorate of Intelligence remained doubtful that Gorbachev would actually follow through with a troop withdrawal.
And if the Soviet Fortieth Army did leave Afghanistan, Najibullah's communist government would collapse very quickly. In multiple reports the CIA's analysts asserted confidently in January and February that the Afghan communists could not possibly hold on to power after the Soviets troops left. Najibullah's generals, seeking survival, would defect with their equipment to the mujahedin one after another."
Fast-forward over two decades and the dilemma facing Afghanistan appears to be remarkably similar: Are the US/NATO really going to leave Afghanistan? If they do, what would happen to the Karzai led Afghan government? How long will the government last? Will the Afghan National Army disintegrate? Will the ANA generals and government power brokers defect? And so on.
Our fears about Afghanistan haven't changed much either. The truth about the archaic pursuits of the Taliban movement is no secret. We don't even have to guess that the Taliban and those with their ideals do and will utterly disregard what local and international human rights campaigners have been able to achieve in the last decade while rising from the ashes of the 90s.
As such let's not flatter ourselves with a lot of political jargon; despite the many tall-tales and sensationalized interviews, the Taliban are yet to present an iota of evidence that their beliefs, attitudes and policies with respect to education, women, minorities and the civilized way of life in general has moved a year forward from where it actually stood in the years they were in power: 600 AD.
Yet, slogans of freedom and salvation for Afghanistan's oppressed seems to have fallen under the burden of misplaced strategies, political opportunism and budgetary pressures. Joe Biden's declaration that the Taliban "is not our enemy" is a far cry from Bush's "with us or with the terrorists". Increasingly, the scene is being set for international disengagement from Afghanistan. The pressures of doom and gloom in the global and budgetary pressures in the US economy, the approaching US presidential elections and Western public disillusionment with the war following Bin Laden's killing in Pakistan, all mean that the US withdrawal can not come early enough.
Shifting US Concerns
The US, with the help of mediators, has been talking to the Taliban for quite some time. Taliban representatives are in Qatar and have reportedly held talks with senior US diplomats led by Marc Grossman, making it the first formal contact between the US and the Taliban since 2001.
Additionally, the Afghanistan question is being directly affected by the shift in global economic and political balance, particularly the rise of China. The Chinese military is undergoing rapid modernization and expansion, raising concerns in the US, Japan, Australia and NATO that unless the Chinese challenge is met, the Asia-Pacific region will slide away from under Western primacy and key security installations, trading links and political arrangements could be threatened.
In November 2011, president Obama while on a visit to Australia announced that the US would be rotating some 2500 US Marines through a permanent US base in Darwin, Australia. Some of those Marines, it emerged, would be coming out of Afghanistan.
Considering these political and economic concerns, it would be unwise for NATO to continue to employ extensive resources, men and money in the quagmire that has come to be the Afghan war, when clearly they could be put to more productive use elsewhere. It appears that the US would prefer some sort of a deal that enables it to gradually and gracefully disengage itself from Afghanistan while ensuring, through regional and international guarantees, that Afghanistan would not become a safe haven for Islamist outfits targeting the US and US interests.
Pakistan - the elephant in the room
For years, NATO and Afghan officials have been claiming that the Pakistani military has been supervising the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan. Despite all evidence pointing to the contrary, Pakistan continues to deny having any role in providing Bin Laden a safe house next a military cantonment.
A Recent report published by the BBC claim that the Taliban in Afghanistan are being directly assisted by the Pakistan military with its intelligence service the ISI as the chief architect of the Afghan jihad 2.0: "ISI officers tout the need for continued jihad and expulsion of foreign invaders from Afghanistan," the report claims.
This follows the earlier release of a documentary titled 'Secret Pakistan' in which Taliban commanders, CIA officers and Afghan officials speak to vested Pakistani military interest and strategic role in guiding the Taliban insurgency, training its foot-soldiers and providing sanctuaries to its leadership. Additionally, US and Australian intelligence sources claim that up to 80 per cent of the ammonium nitrate used in IEDs in Afghanistan can be traced to Fertilizer factories in Pakistan's Punjab province. On all occasions, Pakistan has outright denied "any" Pakistan role in supporting and arming the Taliban.
And despite all that, US and NATO continue to play along with Pakistan, a nuclear power that is an ally but not a friend and the spoiler-in-chief in Afghanistan. Pakistan is being credited for convincing the Taliban to come to the negotiating table. Prime Minister Gilani is on a trip to Qatar to further Pakistan's position in the US-Taliban talks, perhaps earn a seat at the table. "The visit is pretty much about the negotiations.
Pakistan wants to make certain, we are not left out of the Afghan process which is due to take place in Qatar," an official of Pakistan's foreign ministry says. Ideally, Pakistan would want a lead role in the negotiations rather than just seat and if the Mullah Baradar experience is any clue, it will do all it can to remain a step ahead of all other parties. Pakistan is the elephant in the room and the roads to settlement in Afghanistan pass through Islamabad.
Questions at home
The Karzai led Afghan government and its High Peace Council have been effectively sidelined in the Qatar process. While the US has not felt the need to include Afghan delegates, the Taliban have outright refused to hold talks with the Afghan government, terming them as mere "puppets". Karzai's attempts at opening a Saudi channel for talks has failed as the Taliban have refused to take part.
The woes of the Afghan government don't end there. Power brokers from the former Northern Alliance are on a media and political campaign inside Afghanistan and internationally to assert themselves as "the real opposition to the Taliban". Their campaign is aided by local disillusionment with the central government, low approval ratings for the Karzai administration and increasing disgruntlement amongst the non-Pashtuns regarding government overtures to the Taliban.
Afghan and regional power brokers are increasingly coming to the realization that the NATO and US will withdraw, leaving behind a fragile state and a political system open for intervention. Therefore, both the Taliban and the former Mujahideen seek to place themselves strategically close to either becoming majority shareholder in the power structure the US leaves behind or to position themselves such that the US and NATO find them inevitable to state that holds the future of Afghanistan.
As for what an Afghanistan dominated by supposedly reformed Taliban or jihadis would look like, one has to go only so far as the words of the former head of Taliban's 'Vice & Virtue' squad, who enjoys the comfort of a government safe house in Kabul: "A beard is mandatory in Islam, all prophets including Christ had beards. Those who don't grow beards are sinners." Mullah Qalamuddin also considers a woman's home as her only rightful place, and asserts that his God rather than human beings defines human rights.
Negotiations are not new to Afghanistan and if undertaken, is by no means an end to Afghanistan's miseries. The gains made by ordinary Afghans in the last decade are fragile and of enormous value. They are as much at risk of being lost on a negotiating table, as on a battlefield. Regardless of how the talks proceed, it is vital for regional and global concerned individuals and organizations to keep a keen eye on the state of human rights in Afghanistan and to prevent it from becoming of even lesser importance amidst the political confusion and more talk about talks.
For the people of Afghanistan, like for human beings anywhere else in the world, upholding and protection of human rights, women's rights, minority rights and other signs of civilization will remain of crucial importance if Afghanistan is to ever become truly civilized as a society.