Pakistan’s Afghan bet

The US and Afghan Taliban are all set to sign the peace accord on February 29. While the imminent deal has raised hopes for seeing an end to the two-decade long war, there is skepticism if the Taliban would honour the commitment and other groups would agree to any power-sharing formula. On top of it, there are serious questions whether the Taliban would review their hardline approach that earned them the bad name when they were in power before the 9/11 attacks.

Sirajuddin Haqqani, the Taliban deputy chief, in an article published by The New York Times tried to allay those fears. Haqqani not just spoke about the women rights but also said the insurgent group was ready to establish ties with the US as well as other countries. What was astonishing was the decision of NYT to publish an article by a person long viewed as terrorist and carrying $10 million headmoney.

This made some people believe that the Trump administration might have played a role in getting Haqqani to the opinion pages of one of America’s main publications. And this may be true as the US, just ahead of the signing of the peace deal, is keen to portray Afghan Taliban and more importantly the Haqqani network – which was accused of carrying out some of the deadliest attacks against the American and Afghan forces – as peacemakers. The message the US tried to convey through Haqqani’s article is that the Afghan Taliban and their affiliates are willing to mend their ways and would be acceptable not just to the ordinary Afghans but also to the outside world.

The US move to embrace the Haqqanis appears to be an endorsement of the Afghan strategy of Pakistan which has played the main role in brokering the deal. The Haqqani network had long been the thorn in the Pakistan-US relationship. The US repeatedly pushed Pakistan to go after the group. Despite the US pressure, Pakistan was clear it would never fight the Afghan war on its soil, as officials privately explained that taking a direct action against the Haqqani network or the Afghan Taliban would open a new front for the country already preoccupied with local militant outfits.

The other reason that compelled Pakistan not to go after the Haqqanis was that it knew the US would eventually negotiate with the groups that it waged a war against. And that assessment proved right when in late 2018, the US finally realised that the war in Afghanistan was unwinnable and hence it needed to find a way out through talks with the Taliban and other insurgent groups.

In December 2018, President Trump, in a letter, formally requested Prime Minister Imran Khan for Pakistan’s help in initiating peace talks with the Taliban. The process began within weeks when Pakistan brokered direct talks between the Taliban and the US.

“Had Pakistan heeded to the US calls for directly confronting the Taliban and the Haqqani network on its soil, it would not have been able to play the kind of role it played for bringing all the groups to the negotiating table,” observed senior journalist and expert on Afghan affairs Rahimullah Yousafzai.

Pakistan had been telling the US over the years in private discussions that Afghan Taliban should not just be taken as an insurgent group but a political entity. That reality dawned on the Trump administration after American’s military strategy spanning years had failed to yield the desired results. That is why the US now sees the Taliban and the Haqqanis as political players having role in the future political dispensation in Afghanistan. The only question remains if other groups in Afghanistan as well as other countries, which are upset with the imminent peace deal, will accept them as legitimate political entities. The journey to peace has only just begun.

 

Published in The Express Tribune, February 24^th, 2020.

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