Turn the Corner in Afghanistan

By Harsh V Pant

25th September 2014 

Last week after months of tortuous negotiations, Afghan presidential candidates Abdullah Abdullah and Ashraf Ghani finalised and signed a power-sharing pact in a ceremony with president Hamid Karzai at the Presidential Palace in Kabul. The last disagreement was on how to announce the results of the June 14 run-off election vote audit. Abdullah, who was widely assumed to be trailing Ghani, had insisted that the official percentages either not be made public at all or be altered to give him more votes. The election authorities ultimately decided not to reveal the vote tallies, but declared Ghani the president-elect hours after the agreement was signed. Ghani will be sworn in on September 29 and Abdullah is expected to take on the newly created position of chief executive—similar in power to a prime minister—though he could nominate someone else in his stead.

The international community, not surprisingly, has welcomed the agreement. The Obama administration heaved a sigh of relief with this pact and hailed it as an “important opportunity” for unity and increased stability. Washington also congratulated Abdullah and Ghani for ending Afghanistan’s political crisis and confirmed that the US “stands ready to work with the new administration to ensure its success”. In the US, the signing of the pact has raised hopes that the Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA) would soon be finalised, which would determine the size and scope of any US troop presence that would remain in Afghanistan once the NATO combat mission ends in December. While Karzai refused to sign the BSA on one pretext or another, both Ghani and Abdullah had pledged to sign the pact during their campaigns.

The Taliban, unsurprisingly, have assailed the pact terming it a “sham” orchestrated by the US. In a statement its spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said: “Installing Ashraf Ghani and forming a bogus administration will never be acceptable to the Afghans,” adding: “We reject this American process and vow to continue our jihad until we free our nation from occupation and until we pave the way for a pure Islamic government.”

With this, Afghanistan has taken a major step towards its post-2014 political future. Much will now depend on how the political transition unfolds. India will now have to articulate its own policy response. So far, the Modi government has been reluctant to spell out the terms of its engagement with Kabul as the political realities in Afghanistan have been in flux. Though external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj had visited Afghanistan earlier this month, it was largely a symbolic exercise. Swaraj underscored India’s commitment to continue extending all possible help to Afghanistan to meet various challenges and conveyed it would remain engaged in the country’s reconstruction activities in a significant way. Describing India as Afghanistan’s first strategic partner, Swaraj suggested that New Delhi would always share the Afghan people’s vision of a “strong” and “prosperous” Afghanistan. And she thanked the people of Afghanistan for their constant appreciation of India’s partnership with the country. For this, she received fulsome praise from her political opponents. Shashi Tharoor lauded her for underlining “India’s priority by meeting up top leaders in Afghanistan” and showing that “India is not going to give up.”

Of all India’s South Asian neighbours, the Modi government’s outreach to Kabul has been the most lackadaisical. Perhaps the reason is obvious: the political uncertainty so far in Afghanistan would have made any outreach to Kabul devoid of any real meaning. But when asked whether the new Indian government would review its policy towards Afghanistan, Swaraj had suggested that there was no question of any change in it and asserted that India would continue to help the country in its reconstruction. As Afghanistan turns over a new leaf in its political destiny, the usual approach from New Delhi won’t do. The argument that India will merely focus on reconstruction and developmental issues without bothering about the security implications of the rapidly changing ground realities in Afghanistan is unlikely to get India any traction. India will have to think more creatively than it has done for the past decade.

As the Indian prime minister visits the US, Afghanistan should top the agenda. It is in Afghanistan where US-India divergences have been getting striking by the day. Forced by India, the US secretary of state, John Kerry, had underlined that “any political settlement must result in the Taliban breaking ties with al-Qaeda, renouncing violence, and accepting the Afghan constitution, including its protection for all Afghans, women and men”. The reality, however, is that the peace process is a sham and merely to get the Taliban on board, Washington agreed to let Mullah Omar come to the negotiating table without acceding to any of the “red lines”. There has been no acceptance of the Afghan constitution as was reflected in the title of the office that the Taliban opened in Doha—the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. The Taliban have refused to recognise the Afghan government and cut ties with al-Qaeda. There’s been no ceasefire on the ground or even an attempt to delink Afghanistan from global terrorism. Moreover, even the Haqqani Network has been given a seat at the table at the Pakistani Army’s behest.

The Taliban are well aware of how eager Washington and London are to end the war in Afghanistan at any cost and they are willing to play to their weakness. A myth is being sold in Washington and London as high strategy that the Taliban are interested in sharing power. There is no empirical or historical basis to support this claim. Yet it is being made repeatedly and is now almost conventional wisdom in Washington and London’s power circle. There is going to be no reconciliation out of this peace process, only a face saving interregnum for a smooth disengagement of the International Security Assistance Force from Afghanistan.

Modi should use his visit to the US to get an assurance from Washington that Indian interests will not be compromised when it comes to American demands that the Taliban break its ties to international terrorist networks and participate in a normal political process. More significantly, India should not rely primarily on America to pull its chestnuts out of the fire in Afghanistan. New Delhi has made itself marginal in Afghanistan and it has no one but itself to blame. It should be willing to fight its own battles. Time has come for the Modi government to assert as much to Washington and to its allies and adversaries in Kabul.

The author is a professor in international relations, department of defence studies, King’s College, London.