Ghani govt prepares for meeting with Taliban while US hunts for a deal on a ‘face-saving’ withdrawal
MK BHADRAKUMAR
Meanwhile, the Pentagon also gave notice on Friday of a proposed $670-million follow-on support program for the 11 C-17 Globemaster III airlift aircraft sold by the US to India in recent years. By holding out that carrot to India, Washington hopes to create a hype that it is also favoring Delhi.
The intention here is to finesse New Delhi’s criticism over the revival of US military aid to Pakistan. Of course, it would be a delusion to think that the US is balancing India and Pakistan. In reality, the Pentagon’s India proposal is a purely commercial transaction – “after-sales service,” which will generate good business for the US vendors – while the military aid to Pakistan providing technical and logistics support for its F-16 fighter jets is on concessional terms and signifies a major political decision.
Delhi will take note that the proposed US military aid may significantly enhance Pakistan’s offensive capability insofar as some of the F-16 jets are capable of delivering nuclear weapons.
Withdrawal looms
Indeed, the “big picture” emerging out of all this is that the US and Pakistan are marching ahead in tandem to implement the decisions taken by Trump and Imran Khan to end the Afghan war swiftly.
No sooner than Khan had left Washington on July 23, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Joe Dunford, traveled to Kabul for consultations with American, NATO and Afghan officials.
Dunford insisted that the negotiations have not changed the military mission in the country. “Day-to-day, the mission hasn’t changed for General Miller and the team, and they are still taking the fight to the Taliban and supporting the Afghan military,” he said.
Saving face
But that’s putting on a brave face. Evidently, the US is pushing for a “face-saving way out of Afghanistan,” as former Central Intelligence Agency deputy director Michael Morell told Axios.
The message has gone down the line in the State Department and the Pentagon that Trump wants to move quickly toward a deal to end the war in Afghanistan. Morell is deeply skeptical about whether a deal with the Taliban will secure peace.
He said: “I would bet that the US intelligence community and policymakers have a pretty good understanding of what the Taliban’s intentions are. So we’re making a deal that we know isn’t going to be kept just to save face, just to maintain honor.”
However, an apocalyptic scenario cannot deter Washington anymore. On a parallel mission, the US special representative on Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, also took off on July 23 from Washington to Kabul, where he is now speaking with members of the Afghan government, as he works to encourage inter-Afghan conversations between the Taliban and the government.
In immediate terms, Khalilzad expects Pakistan to deliver on the promise that Imran Khan made to Trump – that he plans to meet with the Taliban to persuade them to hold negotiations with the government in Afghanistan. The Taliban has welcomed such a meeting.
Khan said: “Now, when I go back after meeting President Trump … I will meet the Taliban and I will try my best to get them to talk to the Afghan government so that the elections in Afghanistan must be inclusive, where the Taliban also participate in it.”
It may seem a tough call, but the news from Kabul on Saturday suggests that Pakistan may have made some headway already.
Oslo has been mentioned as the venue for the crucial meeting. The Taliban have not yet budged from their longstanding demand that a deal must be forged with the US first. Possibly, a deal will be announced after the ninth round of US-Taliban talks in Doha in the coming week.
Indeed, we are witnessing an utterly fascinating spectacle of diplomatic pirouette being played out between and among five main protagonists – Trump, who is demanding an expeditious US withdrawal from Afghanistan, assuming Imran Khan will deliver on his promises; Khan, in turn, going through the motions of persuading the Taliban to be reasonable while expecting generous US reciprocal moves to accommodate Pakistani interests; Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, seeing the writing on the wall that US withdrawal is unstoppable, while still hoping to secure a second term in office; Khalilzad pushing the reluctant Afghan government to fall in line with a Taliban deal, while also negotiating with the Taliban for an orderly US withdrawal, albeit with a weak hand; and the Taliban on a roll, sensing victory.
There are caveats galore. But the compass has been set.
