US troop withdrawal

After US pullout it's an open question whether Taliban will redouble efforts to dislodge Karzai regime or not.

The announcement by US President Barack Obama that he plans to withdraw 34,000 US troops from Afghanistan — roughly half of the US forces in that country—– in early 2014, does not come as a surprise. The remaining troops are scheduled to be withdrawn by the end of 2014. This highly anticipated announcement is part of the planned US drawdown and has been on the cards for some time now. Thus far, both Afghan President Hamid Karzai and the Taliban have welcomed the announcement, although the latter have used the occasion to once again call for the withdrawal of all foreign troops from war-torn Afghanistan.



Officially, this will mark the end of what has been the US’s longest war, but it will by no means signal an immediate end to the Afghan conflict itself, nor will it mean the end of the US presence in Afghanistan. An unspecified number of US troops, with some estimates ranging to 12,000, will remain in Afghanistan indefinitely. These troops, although classified as being in a ‘support’ role, will retain a combat capability and will be backed by drones and aircraft, as well as Special Forces. However, the day-to-day job of securing and holding ground in the face of the Taliban will now be the primary responsibility of the Afghan National Army which, while having swelled in size, still has to truly prove its mettle on the battlefield.

It is an open question as to whether the Taliban, emboldened by the withdrawal, will redouble their efforts to dislodge the Karzai regime or whether they will now be more inclined to negotiate with Kabul, while claiming a propaganda victory by ‘forcing’ the US to pull out. Thankfully, it does seem that the prospect of a Taliban-controlled Afghanistan is no longer palatable to Pakistan’s strategic planners who have, with the recent release of Taliban prisoners, seemingly thrown their weight behind a negotiated settlement. The Taliban, too, are wary of Pakistan, which they perceive as having betrayed them post-9/11.

Pakistan has huge stakes in peace in Afghanistan. The fallout from 9/11 and the Afghan war deeply destabilised this country, and if Afghanistan descends into chaos following the US withdrawal, the effects for Pakistan will be disastrous.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 16^th, 2013.