• Home
• /
• Opinion

America still in the dark after waging longest war

Hold on a moment with the euphoria about the US and Taleban talking, please. Hopefully the 'landmark' talks in the UAE will lead to the realisation, ultimately, that the war should end before Afghanistan's presidential election (April 20 next year) after all, and everybody will just shake hands and make Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and US President Trump look good. And good, really, that Pakistan finally managed to please everybody and engineered these negotiations. Even Zalmay Khalilzad, US special representative, managed a half-line of appreciation, which says a lot.
But we've come this far before, haven't we? Back in 2016 we even hosted talks in Pakistan. But then somebody, probably Afghan, leaked the news that Taleban leader Mullah Omar had been dead a good two years, so there was only so much weight in statements issued on his behalf. Not much later the Americans droned Omar's successor Mullah Mansour as he crossed over from Iran to Pakistan, allegedly with a valid Pakistani passport. And that was pretty much it for the 'peace process' at that time and everybody went back to business as usual - Taleban steadily taking up more land and the Afghans and Americans continuously blaming Pakistan for it.
However, now that everybody is so upbeat about talking once again, it's instructive to revisit the early days of this long war. Imran Khan, to his credit, was the only voice anywhere that advocated separating Al Qaeda (responsible for 9/11) and the Taleban government (Al Qaeda's hosts). But they just called him 'Taleban Khan' at home and he was still too insignificant to matter elsewhere. When Gen Musharraf, then Pakistani president, also advocated talking to the Taleban in order to isolate Al Qaeda, President Bush simply replied, "We do not talk to terrorists."
And if you trusted the conservative US media at the time, you could have been easily forgiven for believing that the war would be behind us in a matter of days. Indeed, the world's number one talk show host for a long time, Fox's former star earner Bill O'Reilly - now fired and his reputation buried in the #metoo graveyard - often interviewed high level State Department officials who claimed that Afghanistan could be "fixed in a day."
Fast forward 17 years and Taleban hold approximately 20pc of the country, and seriously threaten running over almost two-thirds of it. Doesn't say much about the longest war effort in US history, does it? Hence, clearly, the desire of late to talk it out with the Taleban. But, sadly, this is not one of those instances where 'better late than never' really works. A lot has changed. Al Qaeda is gone from the country. Daesh has taken its place in some districts, but it's faced serious opposition from the Taleban. And for the common man, too, there is an element of justice in the Taleban routing the Americans as well as the Kabul government.
"For far too long they (Americans) have broken down our doors, invaded our homes in the middle of the night, pulled our women by the hair and humiliated our men," a tribal elder recently told an international media outlet. "We will side with whoever breaks their teeth." Remember that whenever you hear about the Taliban rejecting anything till 'the occupiers leave', and ruling out any negotiations whatsoever with the official Afghan government. It resonates well with the people. "American stooges," the old man went on, adding that "you won't find one of them alive, or here, once the Americans leave."
But - and Zalmay has yet to address this conundrum - how will any negotiations take place if the Taleban won't talk to the government? And discussions with the Americans are good only so long as they free all prisoners and leave their country. And how about the latest demand in UAE, that the Americans install an interim government with a Taleban appointed leader? Pours cold water over the whole 'peace-by-election-time' plan.
You can bet Ghani wouldn't have been thrilled in Kabul, especially since his delegation was given the mother of all cold shoulders in Abu Dhabi. "No chance," said the Taleban to an offer of phased talks from the government.
It's pretty clear that the Taleban went back feeling stronger from this meeting. They are the ones with the initiative on the ground, inflicting heavy losses on the government even as it bends over backwards to get the insurgents to agree to a six-month cease fire.
Plus they have the support of the people unlike a decade and a half ago.
In truth, the Afghans know that they have won. It's only a matter of time before the Americans, like the Russians and British before them, beat an embarrassing retreat from Afghanistan. Perhaps the Americans should turn their energies to determining just what they achieved from these years of needless fighting? What, exactly, did the millions of Afghans killed, kidnapped, dislocated and humiliated do for Uncle Sam?
- The writer is a senior journalist based in Lahore