Letter: Afghanistan peace is at a halt

The efforts for peace in Afghanistan were made visible in February by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton when she said: “We are launching a diplomatic surge to move this conflict towards a political outcome.” Afghanistan President Karzai was more specific when, in June, he disclosed that “peace talks are going on with the Taliban.  The foreign military, and especially the United States itself, is going ahead with these negotiations. The talks are going well.”

Then came the tantrums as US Defense Secretary Robert Gates admitted that there had been an outreach on the part of a number of countries, including the US, but “these contacts are very preliminary at this point.”  His own assessment was that the talks were unlikely to make much headway until the coming winter because “the Taliban have to feel themselves under military pressure, and begin to believe that they can’t win…” This presages an intensification of the conflict in the coming months.    Other countries may have four seasons, but Afghanistan has only two - one in which there is fighting and the other in which the bitter cold of winter imposes an armistice.

The silver lining is that credible reports have emerged indicating that till now several rounds of talks have been held between the Taliban and US officials and these could tone down the level of fighting.  

The recent assertion of US Vice President Joe Biden that Taliban were not an enemy of the US and reports of the release of Taliban prisoners from Guantanamo Bay with the likelihood of opening up of a Taliban office in Qatar are all more-than-visible efforts to appease the Taliban.

But the Afghanistan problem is far more complex than is imagined.  The restoration of durable peace and stability is easier said than done because the country, which was established as the Kingdom of Afghanistan in 1747 by Ahmed Shah Abdali, has been incessantly ravaged by ethnic violence caused by the Pukhtun subjugation of the Tajiks, Uzbeks, Turkmens and the Hazaras.  The most comprehensive accounts of this are to be found in the writings of Soviet historians.  These show that the process of Pukhtun domination, which involved conquest followed by persecution and ethnic cleansing, reached its peak under Amir Abdul Rahman, who is often described as the Bismarck of Afghanistan.

The enormity of the ethnic problem cannot be overstated.  Even if al-Qaeda and its affiliates are routed, sustainable peace and stability in the country are unlikely to emerge unless the composition of the future dispensation reflects the ethnic mosaic which defines Afghan society.  This can only be achieved through an intra -Afghan dialogue without outside interference.  Pakistan, as Afghanistan’s immediate and most important neighbor, can facilitate this.  Any other policy will be self defeating.

Despite the grim reality of Pakistan’s increasing mistrust and dislike for US in popular Pakistani perception, this outright mode of denial by the US and NATO is likely to exacerbate the existing stand off and may bring down prospects of achieving stability and peace in Afghanistan to a grinding halt.

Farhan Qutab
Islamabad