THIS week, to coincide with the Eid al-Adha, the Muslim feast celebrating the end of the hajj, Afghanistan’s president, Ashraf Ghani, announced a ceasefire in the government’s long, grim conflict with the insurgents of the Taliban. The Taliban appear to be open to a brief truce and talk of releasing prisoners, even if their sequestered leader, Haibatullah Akhunzada, has yet to give the nod. A fleeting ceasefire in June marking the end of Ramadan led to extraordinary scenes as the country erupted in joy. Taliban fighters with Kalashnikovs over their shoulder crossed frontlines to fraternise with government soldiers, eat ice cream and even take selfies with women.
The steep drop in violence over those days allowed an all-too-brief sense of normality in a war-ravaged country of 35m. The truce proved, as the International Crisis Group (ICG), a think-tank, puts it, that the domestic constituency for peace runs deep. This year is the bloodiest, in terms of civilian casualties, since 2001, when an American invasion in search of Osama bin Laden toppled the Taliban, who were harbouring him. Civilian deaths rose sharply after a once-huge NATO presence was pared to the bone between 2013 and 2015. Social gains, such as higher school attendance, are in jeopardy.
Right after the last truce the Taliban resumed hostilities across the southern half of Afghanistan. Typically, the guerrillas use night-vision goggles, sniper rifles and motorcycles to attack outposts of the Afghan army or, more often, the less well-equipped police. The fighters will hold the ground for a few hours and then vanish. Earlier this month the Taliban put on one of their most brazen displays by attacking and briefly holding Ghazni, a city of 250,000 a mere 90 miles (150km) from Kabul, on the strategic road that links the capital with the south. The Taliban have long controlled the countryside in Ghazni province, and even openly collected taxes in parts of the city. On August 10th fighters shot their way to the city centre. By the time the government had regained a semblance of control, backed by American air power, up to 250 civilians were dead.
The attacks are designed to prove that the American “puppet government” under Mr Ghani has only a tenuous hold over the country. Certainly, the president does not believe he can defeat the Taliban in battle, or even by winning hearts and minds. The problem is not the much reduced level of Western military-led assistance. On the contrary, the hundreds of billions of dollars America and its allies poured into the country in the name of stability and development engendered a much resented kleptocratic state. As Theo Farrell of Wollongong University in Australia puts it in “Unwinnable”, his book on Britain’s war in Afghanistan: money flows upwards; every government position is bought; even promotions in the army and police depend upon patronage and purchase. So much Western money ended up (via unscrupulous local barons to whom logistics and other contracts were granted) helping the insurgents that a common myth in Helmand province in the south, where the British force was concentrated, was that Britain was working with the Taliban.
These days, so low are government morale and discipline that regional commanders and other officials switch off their mobile phones at night so as not to receive calls to provide reinforcements. No wonder Mr Ghani has pushed for peace since he came to power in 2014 at the head of a “national unity” government offering unconditional talks with insurgent leaders.
By and large, the Taliban have rebuffed him—Americans are the real foe, they insist. But morale is not much better with them either. The Taliban may control much of the countryside, but they fail to hold provincial centres for long. For many fighters the war has gone on far too long, with too much slaughter and destruction. It was another matter when they fought a foreign enemy. Now the sense of a holy cause is lost, and loyalty to their unpopular and ineffective emir is frayed. To many, a ceasefire appeals.
If peace depended only on the will of government and insurgents, it might not be that hard to achieve. Yet for a century and a half Afghanistan’s destiny has been determined by outside powers in a long Great Game. In June a student-dominated “peace caravan” that had journeyed on foot from Helmand to the capital camped out in front of foreign embassies. In particular, protesters blamed Pakistan, Russia and Iran for deepening Afghanistan’s bloodshed. The criticism is fair. In a bid for “strategic depth” in its perpetual struggle against India, Pakistan’s generals have long maintained influence in Afghanistan by offering sanctuary to the Taliban. Iran and Russia have increased their support of the Taliban not only as a means to counter a common enemy, Islamic State, which is seeking a foothold in Afghanistan. Both countries also have thorny relations with America and wish to discomfit it.
Indeed, thanks to geopolitical tensions—between America and China, America and Russia and Iran, and India and Pakistan—a regional consensus over Afghanistan seems to some to be more elusive than ever. Russia, for one, appears to be trying to undermine tentative American contacts with the Taliban in Qatar, by holding rival peace talks of its own.
Game weary
And yet, as Barnett Rubin of New York University argues, all the region’s powers would benefit enormously from peace in Afghanistan. China needs stability there if its huge investments in its Belt and Road Initiative are to fulfill their potential. For India, Afghanistan is the route to Eurasia. For Iran, too, Afghanistan is an essential link to China and India. And Afghanistan has become a source of instability in Pakistan as much as the other way around.
All this argues for co-operation. And there is another reason. America’s commitment to Afghanistan is hostage to its erratic president. And however bad things currently are, they would be worse if Donald Trump suddenly abandoned the place.
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