With snow starting to melt in the mountains of the Hindu Hush, Afghans are preparing for another season of fighting in the 34-year-long war that has ravaged their country. And, like every year this time, there is much talk about “peace talks” between the government of President Hamid Karzai and the Taliban.
This year’s talk about talks is hotter than previous seasons, for two reasons.
First, the Obama administration, preparing to withdraw from Afghanistan next year, has asked Qatar (now Washington’s closest Arab ally in the Middle East) to open a dialogue with the Taliban. The oil-rich state has obliged by contacting Taliban figures and promising to let the group open an “information office” in Doha. Last week, Qatar also hosted Karzai to discuss possible “peace talks” with Sheik Hamad, the emir.
Second, Afghanistan is to hold presidential elections next April, and Karzai now has nothing to run on. With a “peace in our time” paper in his hand, he might be able to win (or get away with stealing) another term.
Thus, the latest maneuvers may be less about finding a real peace, and more about providing Obama with a fig leaf to cover his premature retreat and giving Karzai a boost.
It’s not by talking to Taliban figures that the terrorist war would come to an end. From its inception in the 1990s, the Taliban has been a Pakistani creation; it remains under Islamabad’s control today.
This is not unique in the history of insurgencies. To survive, let alone achieve victory, every insurgency needs three things.
First, it needs a domestic base. For that, the Taliban used both ruthless repression and bribery in the 1990s when it imposed its rule over almost all of Afghanistan. Using the same mixture today, it has a base among several Pushtun tribes in the badlands bordering Pakistan.
With a cocktail of xenophobic, specifically anti-West, ideology and pan-Pushtun chauvinism, it also appeals to self-style nationalists. And it enjoys some support among jihadists dreaming of world conquest for Islam.
Second, an insurgency needs lots of money. The Taliban have never been short of cash because it controls much of Afghanistan’s heroin trade, and also receives money from well-wishers among rich Arabs and Pakistanis. The group has also found a new source of income in controlling smuggling routes from Pakistan while organizing raids on “humanitarian aid” stores, selling the booty on the black market under its control.
Third, and possibly most important, an insurgency needs a safe haven in a neighboring country in which to train, rest, organize operations and, when needed, hide. Pakistan has always satisfied that crucial need of the Taliban.
Today, most of the telephones used by Taliban operatives and “spokesmen” have Pakistani numbers. Taliban offices operate in the Pakistani cities of Peshawar and Quetta behind thin covers. A whole neighborhood in southwest Quetta is dotted with safe houses used by Taliban leaders, including their Emir al-Momeneen (Commander of the Faithful), Mullah Muhammad Omar.
To bring peace to Afghanistan, one doesn’t need to talk to real or imagined Taliban leaders. Even the small slice of the Taliban that is close to the United Arab Emirates has ties to Islamabad. The only meaningful peace talks would be with Pakistan.
Yet Pakistan has so far opposed all such initiatives. Indeed, there are credible reports that a few Taliban figures who wanted to talk with Karzai have been murdered by elements close to Pakistan.
For Pakistan, Afghanistan is a strategic hinterland in the never-ending struggle with India. A hostile Afghanistan would leave Pakistan, a fragile state at the best of times, caught in a pincer controlled by mortal foes.
India has never forgotten or forgiven Pakistan’s secession in 1947. For its part, Afghanistan maintains a claim on Pakistan’s Northwest Frontier Province, where ethnic Pushtuns form a majority. If absorbed into a greater Afghanistan, the Pakistani Pushtuns would help create a new nation of some 50 million, in which they would be a majority.
To bring Pakistan on board, its legitimate security concerns with regard to Afghanistan must be addressed. The late Richard Holbrooke, appointed by Obama as point man on Afghanistan, realized this toward the end of his life. Needless to say, Obama didn’t listen to him then, and would have listened even less today.
Karzai has frightened Pakistan by forging alliances with India, Russia and Iran to fill the gap after the US and allies have left.
Pakistan will have a new government after the May 11 general election. That could provide an opportunity to persuade it to review its support for the Taliban.
But, with US influence on the wane, only three countries could still weigh on Pakistan to give peace in Afghanistan a chance — China, Saudi Arabia and the United Kingdom. Yet none has the power or the interest to promote meaningful peace talks between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Again, the American absence is sorely felt.