After a first attempt of negotiations between the United States and the Taliban failed in 2012 – the U.S. did not fulfill an agreed upon prisoner release – a new attempt was started yesterday and immediately ran into difficulties.
The U.S. military handed over "full responsibility" to the Afghan security forces in Kabul on the same day as the Taliban announced the opening of an office in Doha, Qatar:
The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan simultaneously follows military and political actions and aims which are limited to Afghanistan. The Islamic Emirate never wants to pose harms to other countries from its soil, nor will it allow anyone to cause a threat to the security of countries from the soil of Afghanistan.
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Of course the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan considers it its religious and national duty to gain independence from the occupation and for that purpose has utilised every legitimate way and will utilise it in future too.
The statement from the Qatari officials is a quite telling:
The red carpet was out for HE the Assistant Foreign Minister for Foreign Affairs Ali bin Fahad al-Hajri, who was the chief guest at the opening of the Political Office of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan’ in West Bay yesterday.
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On the efforts of Qatar to bring the US and Afghan Taliban to the negotiation table, he said: “In recent months, the State of Qatar has exerted strenuous efforts to reach convergence of views between the US government and the representatives of Taliban Afghanistan. …"
While the Taliban were allowed to raise their white flag (video) over Doha there is was no mentioning of talks with the Afghan government. Indeed that government was not informed at all:
While the hall was packed with media from all over the world, apart from the senior Qatari official, no diplomat from any other country, including Afghanistan, was invited to the event.
A senior official at the Afghan embassy told Gulf Times that they had not been extended any invitation to attend the milestone event and in fact were taken by surprise when it was announced through Al Jazeera a day before that the Taliban office would be opened on Tuesday.
Also yesterday an assassination attempt by the Taliban on one of the members of the Afghan governments peace council failed. Three guards were killed and 17 civilians were wounded. Still the Afghan president Karzai announced that he would send members of his Peace Council to Doha. But he also demanded an immediate move of the talks to Afghanistan:
"We hope that our brothers the Taliban also understand that the process will move to our country soon," Karzai said of the fundamentalist Islamic group that ruled the country with an iron fist from 1996 to 2001.
But such a move somehow seems not to fit the U.S. or the Taliban's plan. In consequence Karzai today stopped talks with the U.S. about a future status of force agreement (SOFA) needed to keep U.S. troops in the country:
"In a special meeting chaired by President Hamid Karzai, the president has decided to suspend talks about a security pact with the U.S. because of their inconsistent statements and actions in regard to the peace process," spokesman Aimal Faizi told Reuters.
What exactly changed Karzai's mind over night is yet unknown. The Taliban mortar attack that also yesterday killed four U.S. soldiers at their airbase Bagram is unlikely to be a cause. Nor are the constant attacks (video) against U.S. convoys and patrols the reason.
It may have been the highly symbolic official raising of the Taliban flag in Doha that Karzai could not condone.
I agree with Pat Lang that there will never be a SOFA for U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Karzai will find ways to stretch the negotiations out and avoid a decision. That is why such proposals as the Washington Post editors issue will not be taken seriously:
if there is to be a genuine political settlement in Afghanistan, the United States must drive home a different message: that it will do what is necessary to prevent a Taliban military victory for the indefinite future. If the insurgents believe they can wait out — or negotiate out — the United States, they will never engage seriously with the Karzai government.
The U.S. troops will leave Afghanistan and a short while later Congress will follow popular demand and cut off the money to the Afghan government. Then Afghanistan will have to find a new internal balance.The incapable Afghan security forces will fall apart and revert into ethnic-tribal militia.
The warlords are already positioning themselves. General Dostum, one of the slaughterers throughout Afghanistan's wars, had his bodyguards attack the governor of the northern Jowzjan Province because the governor did not agree with Dostum's plans to recreate the Northern Alliance militia and to restart the civil war.
In the end more than a decade of "western" war on Afghanistan will have resulted in nothing but death and despair and again a very uncertain future for that country. Unfortunately no one in power is likely to learn the lesson and avoid to start such other such futile wars.
