Preconditions and Prospects of Peace in Afghanistan

Ishtiaq Ahmad*

The stalemate in the Afghan war and the scheduled withdrawal of NATO troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2014 necessitate political resolution of the Afghan conflict through reintegration and reconciliation of the forces of insurgency. It is a tall order. For while the US-led coalition’s motivations for peace may be quite obvious, they are relatively unclear in the case of Taliban-led insurgents. The security transition currently under way in Afghanistan, indeed, offers credible opportunities for a viable peace settlement in the war-torn country, but some crucial questions remain unanswered. For instance, what are the possible incentives and disincentives that may persuade or compel the Taliban towards political compromise before the end of 2014, especially after combat responsibility shifts to the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) in 2013? What are the pre-requisites of a peace-making process that should last well beyond 2014? And how far can the recent international summitry process guarantee a long-term international commitment in Afghanistan—the absence of which after the end of anti-Soviet jihad in the 1980s had created the context for a violent Afghan conflict, along with equally, or even more, violent consequences for the region and the world? An attempt is made in the following pages to answer these questions without, of course, overlooking the peculiar intricacies of the Afghan conflict.
The scope of this article is confined mostly to the challenge of peace making in Afghanistan, especially its preconditions and prospects, while some crucial issues of Afghan peace building are narrated briefly in the end. The discussion begins by mentioning the key motivations behind NATO’s military exit from Afghanistan and recent moves by the Afghan Government and the Obama Administration to reconcile Taliban, as well as Taliban’s response to these moves. Subsequent discussion narrates the preconditions and prospects of peace in Afghanistan, including the need for reassessing previous thinking on the Afghan conflict and recognising current signs of hope for its resolution. The article charts out a workable course for politically resolving the Afghan conflict, while incorporating concerns and interests of regional actors, and concludes by emphasising the value of long-term international engagement to stabilise Afghanistan.

Security Transition

After well over a decade, the war in Afghanistan has been in a stalemate for the past few years. Its most important outcome is the decimation of al-Qaeda and its core leadership, including Osama bin Laden. Within the Afghan theatre, the surge of US and NATO troops since 2009 has produced only tactical successes, and gains made under the Counter-Insurgency (COIN) strategy of ‘defeat, hold, build and transfer’ also have precarious foundations. Controversial night raids by US Special Forces in the past and other incidents of targeted killing of Afghan civilians more recently have fuelled Afghan hostility towards foreign forces. Taliban-led insurgents have responded to the US-led coalition’s shift in military strategy not to fight in the countryside by appropriately changing their war tactics—with greater resort to roadside bombings, targeted killings, intimidation and infiltration of security forces. The infiltration of Taliban loyalists in ANSF and consequent increase in the killing of foreign troops by Afghan soldiers is the newest element in Taliban insurgency. That the war in Afghanistan is not winnable through military means alone is, therefore, an important factor behind NATO’s plan to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan before 2015, which was unveiled first at its Lisbon summit in November 2009. War weariness, unaffordable human and financial cost of the war and growing anti-war public opinion in the US and other troop contributing nations are underlying factors in this regard.
The NATO summit at Chicago in May 2012 gave the final shape to NATO’s exit strategy by announcing an “irreversible” three-stage security transition plan. Under the plan, ANSF were to assume full responsibility for combat operations in mid-2013, NATO would withdraw all of its combat troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2014, and the Afghan government would receive around $4.1 billion in security assistance from the US and its NATO allies, in addition to non-combat military support for a decade beyond 2014. As of summer 2013, the Obama Administration had not disclosed the finally tally of US military advisors and trainers to be stationed in Afghanistan after 2014. However, earlier accounts suggested that, besides 2,000 NATO military advisers and trainers, around 15-000 to 20,000 US combat ‘enablers’ and an expanded force of US drones, could be stationed in Afghanistan after 2014 under the US-Afghan Strategic Partnership Agreement (SPA). The agreement, which was signed days before the Chicago summit, describes Afghanistan as a ‘major non-NATO ally’ of the US. An international donors’ conference held in Tokyo in July 2012 announced to provide Afghanistan with $16 billion development assistance through 2015.
NATO’s exit strategy meets three preliminary preconditions of an Afghan endgame premised on relative stability. First, it entails a commitment the Afghans have long sought from the international community that it will not abandon them as before, following the Soviet exit from Afghanistan over two decades ago. The pledges made in Chicago and Tokyo guarantee such commitment. At some stage, foreign troops had to militarily disengage from the war and hand over security responsibility to their Afghan counterparts. The exit strategy meets this precondition as well. Finally, resolution of Afghan conflict through political means requires that international combat troops should quit military operations and leave Afghanistan. The US-led coalition is now committed to the withdrawal option, which means that Taliban-led insurgents will find it increasingly difficult to use the presence of foreign troops on Afghan soil as a pretext to fight and oppose dialogue.
However, Afghanistan’s security transition under the NATO exit plan will remain uncertain as long as there is no corresponding political strategy to seek an internationally sponsored, regionally facilitated and Afghan led resolution of the conflict in Afghanistan. It is doubtful whether the quantitatively strong but qualitatively poor Afghan army and police of over 352,000 personnel will be able to muster the required military resolve to fight Taliban-led insurgents in their strongholds of southern and eastern Afghanistan after assuming full responsibility of security operation in mid-2013—what to speak of the period beyond 2014. ANSF’s current ethnically disproportionate composition, reflective of Pashtun marginalization especially in Afghan National Army’s officer ranks, could lead to widespread desertions. After the withdrawal deadline of 2014, the presence of US and NATO forces in a non-combat role and US drone capability, besides ANSF and forces loyal to warlords cultivated by the US over the years, could be a significant hedge against the resurgence of the intra-Afghan warfare, with regional states supporting their respective factions in a proxy war. Still in the absence of a viable conflict resolution process in the run up to NATO’s exit in 2014, it is difficult to foresee how far the outside world will remain committed to the security and development of Afghanistan for a decade beyond this deadline.

Reconciliation Process

Such uncertainties about the future of Afghan peace on the eve of NATO withdrawal have led to recent efforts by the Obama Administration and the Afghan Government to seek Pakistan’s help in reconciling the Taliban. While these efforts do not seem to constitute a viable conflict resolution process in Afghanistan, they do form the basis of a preliminary negotiating framework for the purpose. The United States has “set up working groups with Pakistan to identify which Taliban leaders would be open to reconciliation and to ensure those holed up on Pakistani territory would be able to travel to the site of talks.” Afghanistan and Pakistan have also revived a Joint Peace Commission which was established in January 2011 for the purpose of reconciling Taliban but subsequently became dormant due to the assassination of Burhanuddin Rabbani in September 2011. In November 2012, Salahuddin Rabbani, the son of late Afghan president and head of Afghan High Peace Council (HPC) visisted Islamabad and secured the release of a dozen important Taliban leaders from Pakistani prisons. On the occasion, Pakistan also agreed to a peace plan drafted by the HPC, called Peace Process Road Map to 2015, which gives it a central role in the Afghan reconciliation process. hese US and Afghan moves for reconciling the Taliban with Pakistan’s help, indeed, represent a noticeable step in the Afghan peace making, but formidable challenges remain.
The Afghan Government and the Obama Administration did attempt to reconcile the Taliban before, but the haphazard moves they made for the purpose in the past few years became hostage to a host of impeding factors—including US military’s preference to wage war, Pakistan’s fear of being left out of the peace process, Afghan hardliners’ role as spoilers of peace and Taliban’s unwillingness for peace. Yet, even while the Afghan and US peace bids during the time did not succeed, their relative consistency creates a valid context for the current peace making efforts. Their successful outcome rests considerably on the negation of the same factors that impeded the reconciliation process in the recent past, which is worth reviewing briefly.
The increase in Taliban-led insurgency in 2006 beyond was a major reason why the Afghan Government attempted to reconcile the Taliban leadership. For the purpose, Afghanistan and Pakistan held a joint Jirga in August 2007, which brought together in Kabul some 700 participants from both countries, including religious scholars and tribal elders. However, the subsequent climate of distrust between the two sides scuttled the Jirga process. In 2009, President Hamid Karzai invited Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar to participate in the Afghan presidential elections, an offer that did not receive due response from the Taliban leader. The same year, Afghan government officials met with representatives of Afghan insurgent groups in Saudi Arabia, including some moderate Taliban leaders. These talks, which were informally sanctioned by the UN, could not translate into a meaningful peace process—as Pakistan arrested Taliban military chief Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, fearing he might be part of the Afghan government’s bid to bypass it in the peace process. Once the London Conference in January 2010 formally announced to initiate the Afghan reconciliation process, the Karzai regime began laying down the institutional foundations for the purpose. In June 2010, it launched the Afghanistan Peace and Reintegration Programme (APRP). The plan secured its mandate from the Afghan Council of Peace Jirga, which had earlier met in Kabul and included 1,600 broadly representative delegates from across Afghanistan. The APRP covers all members of the armed opposition who are willing to renounce violence, dissociate from al-Qaeda, accept Afghanistan’s constitution and contribute to its nation-building process. It has twin objectives of reintegration and reconciliation—the former aiming to bring the foot soldiers of insurgency back to mainstream Afghan society, with incentives of jobs, income and security; and the latter geared towards reconciling the leaders of insurgency, with offers of amnesty, political participation, and immunity from international prosecution.
In September 2010, for the purpose of reconciling insurgent leaders, the Afghan Government established the 70-member HPC under the leadership of President Rabbani. In January 2011, an HPC delegation led by President Rabbani visited Islamabad, and the governments of Afghanistan and Pakistan agreed to establish a Joint Peace Commission of their diplomatic, military and intelligence officials, with a mandate to facilitate the Afghan reconciliation process through direct talks with hard-line Afghan insurgent leaders. Subsequently, Pakistani civilian and security leadership interacted with its Afghan counterpart, both bilaterally and within the framework of the Turkish-led tripartite peace process. However, all of these interactions between Afghan and Pakistani authorities, and their respective peace initiatives, failed to produce any tangible outcome in terms of reconciling the Taliban.
Following the 2010 London Conference, the US also began pursuing the reconciliation path in Afghanistan, alongside the military effort. Besides limiting the goal of Afghan war to defeating al-Qaeda and its hard-core allies, the Obama Administration’s Af-Pak strategy announced in March 2009 had included the option of reconciling Taliban-led insurgents, provided they meet the same conditions as the Afghan Government later set in the APRP: renounce violence, dissociate from al-Qaeda and accept the Afghan Constitution. Obama Administration officials, particularly US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, subsequently built the discourse that peace would eventually be “made with the enemy.” In a February 2011 speech at the Asia Society in New York, she described pursuing conditional reconciliation with the Taliban as an important US goal in Afghanistan. It was a major shift in the US Afghan policy. The three conditions were still going to be the “red lines,” now they were no longer preconditions but to be treated as “necessary outcomes of any negotiation” or steps that could be taken at the end of the negotiations as part of a formal peace agreement. However, even while the US civilian leadership preferred the peace path, the US military still favoured the military course—a factor that produced visible tension in the American policy in Afghanistan. Yet the US State Department went ahead, with US officials meeting with Mullah Omar’s envoy Tayyab Agha in Germany and Qatar mostly during 2011. These talks showed Taliban’s willingness to directly engage the US. The US-Taliban dialogue was supported by the HPC, and complemented by concrete US-sponsored steps, such as separating Taliban from al-Qaeda in the UN Security Council’s list of Most Wanted Terrorists in June 2011.
However, contrary to relative clarity about Afghan and US reconciliatory moves, the response of the Taliban was mostly rhetorical and declaratory in nature. In his message on the occasion of the Muslim festival of Eid-al-Fitr in September 2011, the Taliban leader talked about the establishment of “a real Islamic regime, which is acceptable to all people of the country” and “will be not to be aimed at monopolizing power.” While pledging to prevent the recurrence of civil war in Afghanistan, Mullah Omar urged his cadres to “protect civilians.” Subsequent statements by the Taliban movement issued between December 2011 and February 2012 justified its leadership’s decision to open a liaison office in Qatar so that peace could move forward, as well as its recognition of Qatar’s neutrality, despite visible closeness of the Gulf Sheikhdom with the US. More importantly, these statements revealed Taliban leadership’s inclination to talk about specifics rather than generalities, particularly the offer of a prisoners’ swap: five Taliban prisoners holed up Guantanamo Bay in exchange for a US soldier in Taliban custody. In March 2012, however, the Taliban unilaterally walked out of talks, alleging that new US proposals negated the previously agreed framework for talks. At the time, the Obama Administration faced legal problems over the issue of Taliban prisoners’ release from Guantanamo Bay, which was reported to be the main reason why the Taliban leadership quit these talks unilaterally. That neither the Karzai regime nor the Pakistani government was made part of these talks could be another reason for their collapse. For while Taliban’s readiness for peace is an absolutely essential variable for peace making, its manifestation on the ground is not possible without all of Afghanistan’s internal and external stakeholders playing their respective complementary roles in the peace process—especially one that is led by the Afghans, facilitated by Pakistan and guaranteed by the United States.

Revised Approach

Reconciling the Taliban-led insurgents is a hard but inescapable choice—the need for which might not have arisen in the first place if the long and extensive war effort in Afghanistan had succeeded in achieving its strategic and political goals. The current challenge in Afghanistan is not why to make peace but how to realise it. Peace is needed because of the uncertainties pertaining to Afghanistan’s security transition from NATO to ANSF until and after 2014, and the manifold implications of the Afghan war. While the US and its Western allies have their own reasons for ending the military campaign in Afghanistan, the severity of human and material cost of the war for Afghanistan and Pakistan leaves them with no other choice. For renewed civil war in Afghanistan will only bring the situation back to square one and lead to an even more unaffordable eventuality. If how to realise peace in Afghanistan is the real challenge, then there is certainly need for reassessing previous thinking on the Afghan conflict—on the basis of which the Afghan war began after the events of 9/11 and has subsequently been waged.
The quest for meaningful Afghan reconciliation will remain uncertain as long as mistakes made in the past are not recognised, the Taliban movement and its motivations are not reassessed, and Pakistan’s previous and prospective role in Afghanistan is not reviewed. Three observations are worth mentioning in terms of the past narrative of the Afghan conflict—premised on the use of military means alone for resolving the conflict and the portrayal of Taliban and Pakistan’s support to them as its main causes. First, the current war was avoidable in the first place. The issue of the presence of al-Qaeda and particularly Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan could have been tackled without going to war. Recent studies confirm that Taliban and al-Qaeda had inherent differences in ideology and objectives. As compared to half a trillion dollars the US alone has spent on Afghan war, only peanuts were required, in addition to tightening the scope of already enforced two sets of UN Security Council sanctions on Afghanistan, to squeeze the Taliban regime for bringing to task Osama bin Laden and other alleged al-Qaeda perpetrators of 9/11. Even if there was no way to prevent Kabul falling into the hands of the Afghan minority grouping of the Northern Alliance after the war began in October 2001, the failure to pursue reconciliation process in the initial years of the war during which Taliban-led insurgency had not gained momentum was another major mistake.
Second, there is need to reassess the Taliban movement, which, like al-Qaeda, is essentially a legacy of US-sponsored jihad against the Soviets. Neither Taliban might have risen to terrorise the Afghans nor al-Qaeda might have born to terrorise the world, had Afghanistan not been abandoned by the US and its allies after that jihad. Pakistan no doubt had a major hand in creating and sustaining the Taliban movement in the 1990s, but the intra-Afghan warfare following the Soviet withdrawal cannot be overlooked as a major contextualising factor for its emergence. While relative disarmament and fairer taxation during Taliban’s rise and initial days is a debatable issue, their regime’s success during the time to bring poppy cultivation down considerably and conduct quite cleverly on projects such as the gas pipeline from Turkmenistan is a subject of least controversy. Yet it is hard to ignore what the Taliban did once they established a firm grip over power in Kabul and much of the country under their control. The Afghan people, including minorities and dissidents from within Pashtun majority, experienced an unprecedented reign of terror at the hands of their regime. However, in the post-2001 period, one of the main causes of the Taliban-led insurgency against US-led coalition is believed to be Pashtun marginalisation in Afghanistan’s security, political and economic structure —even though Taliban may not qualify as the sole representative of Afghan Pashtun aspirations.
Third, Pakistan’s role in Afghanistan and its security predicament from successive wars in Afghanistan also deserve a critical rethinking. While the US disengaged from the region after the end of the Afghan jihad against the Soviets, Pakistan continued its jihadi engagement, with devastating consequences for itself and the region. While the post-Soviet anarchic Afghan context paved the way for the country’s subsequent support to the Taliban must also be seen within this context—a major reason for the purpose was its security establishment’s India-centric policy of ‘strategic depth’ to dominate Afghanistan in the 1990s. Likewise, the issue of Taliban safe havens in Pakistan’s tribal regions fuelling Afghan insurgency is rooted in the era of anti-Soviet jihad and subsequent anarchy. It cannot as well be divorced from intricacies of the border region and cultural peculiarities of its Pashtun population, notwithstanding its salience as being the main irritant in Pakistan’s relations with the US and Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban regime in late 2001. Another transformative reality of the recent times that needs to be duly acknowledged is the recent conceptual shift in Pakistan’s ‘strategic depth’ policy. This adventurist approach has cost the country dearly, especially in the domains of internal security, regional relations and international standing. Visible progress in India-Pakistan trade and travel, Pakistan’s renewed cooperation with the US and Afghanistan to facilitate Afghan reconciliation and its extensive outreach reach campaign to cultivate support among non-Pashtun Afghan leaders are but some of the tangible indicators of the recent shift away from the ‘strategic depth’ policy framework.

Cautious Optimism

However, a more important issue than rethinking the recent past approaches towards understanding the Afghan conflict and its causes is whether a meaningful attempt to politically resolve it has been in the offing or not. As discussed before, preliminary moves to realise Afghan reconciliation have already been made. The UN Security Council’s decision in June 2011 to split a sanctions blacklist for the Taliban and al-Qaeda has been a major step to encourage the Taliban towards reconciliation. The Taliban have shown willingness for the purpose, but only in the form of holding limited direct talks with the US. Moreover, al-Qaeda’ position in both Afghanistan and Pakistan has significantly weakened, especially after Osama bin Laden’s death, thereby making one of the pre-conditions of making peace with the enemy—namely, Taliban’s disassociation with al-Qaeda—significantly immaterial. More importantly, for Taliban and other Afghan insurgents, the key precondition of the withdrawal of foreign troops is being met.
The notion of Taliban save havens in Pakistan may also become equally meaningless, if the peace process moves forward—even if the issue of Haqqani Network, now listed by the UN as a terrorist organisation, remains a major irritant in US-Pakistan relations. Already a role reversal is visible over Afghan Taliban leaders’ participation in talks with the US. The previous US allegation of Pakistan providing safe havens to Taliban for the insurgency in Afghanistan now contrasts with the US approach of persuading Pakistan to facilitate Taliban leaders’ safe passage for talks with the Afghan Government. Another argument finding salience in recent literature on Afghan conflict resolution points to Pakistan’s motivation for having a broad-based government in Kabul that is dominated by the Pashtun but not led by Taliban. Such transformation in Pakistan’s Afghan policy makes sense, given the horrific experience it has undergone at the hands of its own Taliban movement. Afghan Taliban’s recapture of political power may, in turn, fuel the extremist ambitions of Pakistani Taliban—an eventuality that, realistically speaking, should be unaffordable for Pakistan.
The Afghan Government wants to be in the driving seat of the reconciliation process, as clear from its adoption of an institutionalised approach on the issue since 2010. However, the success of its Peace and Reintegration Programme effectively hinges on the HPC’s ability to reach out to Taliban and other insurgent leaders. The preliminary moves for the purpose have already been made with the help of Pakistan, which has stated categorically its support for an “Afghan-led and Afghan-owned” peace process. For instance, at the third round of the British-sponsored tripartite talks on Afghanistan in February in February 2013 in the United Kingdom, President Karzai and his Pakistani counterpart, Asif Ali Zardari jointly pledged to adopt “necessary measures” to secure a peace deal with the Taliban “within the next six months.” They also called upon Taliban to open an office in Qatar as a point of contact for peace talks with the HPC, which is in line with its peace plan, Roadmap 2015. 
Moreover, since the summer of 2012, the breakdown in US-Pakistan relations of the previous year and a half has given way to their resumption on terms acceptable to both. If and when the process to reconcile the Taliban-led insurgents resumes—with Afghanistan as the lead player, and Pakistan and the United States performing their respective roles as a facilitator and a guarantor—the challenge will then be to sort out the substantive issues of renunciation of violence by all sides and reincorporating Taliban in Afghanistan’s political, security and economic structure.  
Most Afghans want peace, and are hunted by the war fatigue. The reality and repercussion of a long war as well as a November 2012 public opinion survey by The Asia Foundation suggest so. If the war’s longevity and accompanying costs have led to a change of course for the US-led coalition, the same factors should presumably persuade the Taliban-led insurgents for making peace. For the end of hostility provides them an opportunity to govern their country again, if not alone but through sharing power with other Afghans. Taliban’s motivations for peace are is a focal subject in current scholarship on Afghanistan. For instance, a 2011 report by The Century Foundation co-authored by Brahimi and Pickering, covering a diverse range of insurgent opinion, mentions several factors that could persuade Afghan insurgents towards political compromise. It noted “signs of realisation among the Taliban that their progress in recent years has provoked sufficient counter-force to contain them. Taliban have encountered increasing resistance from the population in areas beyond their most dedicated base when they have sought to impose the stern morality code of the emirate days.” Ahmed Rashid argues in Pakistan on the Brink that Taliban do not share al-Qaeda’s global agenda, and have “mellowed on the issues of girls’ education, the media, and health services for women”. A 2010 Fatwa by Mullah Omar banned the destruction of schools, contrary to Taliban’s previous policy. “They have reportedly no objection to the opening of new schools as long as curriculum and instructors are of their choice.
Moreover, as previously discussed, the phased withdrawal of US and NATO forces from Afghanistan meets a primary precondition set by Taliban and other Afghan insurgent groups for entering peace talks with the Afghan government. Further erosion of al-Qaeda’s role in Afghanistan after the demise of Osama bin Laden creates a possibility whereby leaders of Afghan insurgency, particularly Mullah Umar, could be persuaded to publicly dissociate from al-Qaeda and, thus, meet a major precondition set by the Afghan government for joining the reconciliation process. Linschoten and Kuehn point out that a “break with al-Qaeda is something for which there would be support within the senior leadership, but how this is processed and instrumentalized will demonstrate how likely a possibility it would be.” However, recently reported interviews with senior Taliban leaders seem to suggest the possibility of Taliban formally dissociating from al-Qaeda once a general ceasefire and political agreement are decided. These interviews, published in July 2012 by London-based Royal United Service Institute in a report, titled ‘Taliban Perspectives on Reconciliation’, suggest that Taliban will “be open to negotiating a ceasefire as part of a general settlement, and alsoas a bridge between confidence-building measures and the core issue of the distribution of political power in Afghanistan.” Finally, as clear from the preliminary talks between Taliban and US officials, the Taliban leadership is willing to discuss the specifics of peace settlement rather than merely sticking to generalities such as the withdrawal of foreign troops or the illegitimacy of the Karzai regime.     

Future Viability

However, just as the rush to war well over a decade ago was a mistake, the euphoria for peace based on erroneous interpretation of Taliban motivations will be a blunder. By pursuing dialogue, the Taliban may only be buying time, awaiting the withdrawal of foreign forces and then settling scores with Kabul’s present rulers. This possibility cannot be precluded, given Taliban’s past track record as rulers. After all, there is never a guarantee that radical religious movements, upon entering the corridors of power, will abide by the commitments they make during the peace process. Another long war, which the Taliban have not lost, may have fuelled their jihadi resolve and extremist mindset even further. Given the unpredictability of Taliban’s motivations, specific incentives and disincentives will be needed to respectively persuade them towards a peaceful settlement grounded in power-sharing and to dissuade them from renewing the deadly ambitions against opponents and dissidents inside Afghanistan. The war-torn country has made significant strides in the political domain and human rights spheres, which have to be preserved in any peace process. The Afghan Constitution prohibits discrimination between citizens ‘whether man or woman.’ Consequently, Afghan women have a visible presence in parliament, cabinet, civil administration and media. As pillars of civil society activism, they have played a crucial role in expanding female education across the country.
Reversing the gains Afghanistan has made since the demise of the Taliban regime in 2001, whatever their scope, is not an option. Understandably so, there is widespread fear among the Afghans, especially among women and minority groups, that these gains may be sacrificed, as the US and NATO, motivated by their own pragmatic constrains, rush to reconcile the Taliban. In order to overcome this fear, civil society and minority groups have to be duly represented in peace talks. For Taliban to re-enter the political process, the current Afghan Constitution may not require major modifications. It already describes Afghanistan as an Islamic Republic, and the country’s current legal system is also by and large at par with Islamic values. Some aspects of Afghanistan’s present legal structure are not in tune with universal norms. Yet evolving a new constitutional setup and the justice system, one that incorporates Taliban aspirations, remains perhaps the biggest challenge of the peace process. As for determining who rules and makes decisions through electoral politics, there may not be much of a problem. Taliban leaders can certainly not hope to revive the same Sharia order they once imposed on the Afghans, and may not have much of a choice but to reshape their political religious in accordance with the radically changed Afghan political realities underpinned by the emergence of new political and business elites in the last over a decade.
The limited US military presence in Afghanistan with drone capability beyond 2014, under its strategic pact with the Afghan government, will be an important deterrent to the revival of Taliban’s reign of terror. Perhaps the UN as a neutral actor can take the lead in the peace process, once a comprehensive ceasefire is mutually agreed between the two contenders of Afghan war. But such issues can only come on the table, once the US-led coalition and Taliban-led insurgents agree to cessation of violence. For the purpose, the US-led coalition, with Afghanistan playing the lead role and Pakistan offering its supportive role, can move beyond issues such as prisoners’ swap, which is possible in the near future, to first agree on time- and space-bound limited ceasefires, then widening the scope of these ceasefires across the insurgency-ridden areas of Afghanistan. This will pave the way for resolving the larger issue of making Afghanistan’s political, security and economic structure truly reflective of its multi-ethnic composition. 
It is but natural that those who have dominated the post-Taliban order may most likely resist Taliban’s inclusion in the governing structure or, in other words, the Pashtuns being awarded the due share in political power and security structure that is proportional to their population. The Tajiks dominate the army, especially its officer ranks, a position they will resist to maintain. Even the morality of their opposition to peace with Taliban is questionable—since many of the rulers of post-Taliban era, warlords such as Muhammad Fahim and Rashid Dostum, have no less Afghan blood on their hands. Other spoilers of peace may emerge from amongst the Taliban ranks. However, unlike Pakistani Taliban, the Afghan Taliban movement has by and large remained intact. The Hizb-e-Islami of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar already has significant presence in Afghan parliament, and Hekmatyar himself has made several peace overtures towards the Karzai regime. This leaves the Haqqani Network to emerge as a potential spoiler of the Afghan peace process. But its ability for doing so will be significantly constrained if the Afghan Taliban join the peace process and Pakistan becomes its key facilitator. This is because of Haqqanis’ stated subservience to Taliban movement and their linkage with Pakistani security establishment. Moreover, after being designated as a terrorist organization, pressure may overtime mount on its leadership to join the Afghan peace process.
The Afghan conflict has over the last three decades regionalised to an extent that possibility of its resolution cannot be visualised in isolation from the interests and motivations of Afghanistan’s immediate and proximate neighbours—including Pakistan, India, Iran, China, Russia, and the three Central Asian republics of Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Pakistan sought ‘strategic depth’ in Afghanistan due to its India-centric regional security approach. A shift in this approach is visible now in the form of its support for the ‘Afghan-led, Afghan-owned’ peace process. Since the start of 2011, Pakistan’s peace process with India has also made headways, especially in bilateral trade and travel, and it is expected to gain momentum under the Pakistan Muslim League led regime of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. It is possible that, as their peace dialogue makes further progress, India and Pakistan may as well start to perceive mutual benefit in the establishment of a broad-based Afghan regime with due Taliban representation.
Since the demise of Taliban regime in late 2001, India has invested significantly in developing the Afghan infrastructure. Like China, India has geo-economic ambitions in Afghanistan and Central Asia, which can only be realised if Afghanistan is at peace and Pakistan is willing to act as a transit corridor for Afghan mineral resources and Central Asian natural gas. Russia, China and the Central Asian republics have had long-standing concerns regarding the export of extremism from Afghanistan. They will support any peace process in Afghanistan if its eventual outcome in the form of a broad-based Afghan regime, offering them fool-proof guarantees that Afghan soil will not be used for exporting extremism in the neighbourhood. Iran and Pakistan did compete for influence in Afghanistan in the 1990s, as Pakistan supported the Taliban and Iran backed the Northern Alliance. Iran has no reason to opt for the same approach, if Pakistan’s pursuit in Afghanistan is limited to the end of Pashtun marginalisation in the Afghan security, political and economic structure—largely as a means to satisfy its own restive Pashtun population bordering Afghanistan. Even otherwise, the two countries are part of a mutually beneficial gas pipeline treaty. After President Obama’s re-election, the possibility of US nuclear row with Iran taking a militaristic turn, thereby disrupting the Afghan peace process, is also relatively remote.
Finally the crucial role that a long-term international commitment can play is hardly debatable, especially if we keep in mind the implications of the abandonment of Afghanistan after the Soviet defeat over two decades ago. There are pragmatic reasons why the US and its NATO allies want to extricate themselves from the Afghan war, which cannot be won militarily and sustained financially. But there are also pragmatic reasons for not repeating the mistake they made by handing over post-Soviet Afghanistan to the forces of jihad. The Afghans and other nations of the region should not be left alone again to deal with the complex mess created by yet another international war in the region. The US and its allies cannot think they can easily walk away from Afghanistan without facing another blowback of the renewed civil war, and the re-emergence of the region as a source of global jihad.  It is in the realistic, if not moralistic, interest of the world community to join hands with Afghan forces and regional actors to achieve stable peace in Afghanistan.
To conclude, prevailing concerns about Afghanistan’s security transition aside, for its political transition to progress smoothly the period in in the run up to April 2014 presidential elections, will be crucial. Pakistan can play an important role for the purpose, by bringing Afghan Taliban leaders to the negotiating table. The country does have meaningful clout over them, if not complete sway. For it has hosted them for so long and under so much outside pressure. More importantly, as clear from the preceding discussion, Pakistan perceives real risk of the worsening of its current security quagmire at the hands of local Taliban in the case of Afghanistan’s security and political transition without reconciliation beyond 2014. Consequently, Afghan-Pakistani reconciliation approaches will have to build upon the existing level of convergence, and be compatible with the interests of other regional countries and international actors involved in Afghanistan, to achieve meaningful progress in the Afghan peace process. However, even if an inclusive Afghan political settlement is realised with Pakistan’s help ahead of 2014, its viability will still rest considerably on how far the US-led coalition is committed afterwards to securing and stabilizing Afghanistan. Any leeway in such commitment could lead up to the war-ravaged nation once again descending into chaos, with corresponding ripple effects in the region and beyond.  

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The Jinnah Institute.(2011). Pakistan, the United States and the Endgame in Afghanistan: Perceptions of Pakistan’s Foreign Policy Elite. Islamabad: The Jinnah Institute, co-published with Washington-based US Institute of Peace.

Newspapers/Journals/Magazines

Afghan officials say Pakistan's arrest of Taliban leader threatens peace talks. (2010, April 10).Washington Post.
Afghan reconciliation: Haqqanis may join US talks under Taliban tutelage. (2012, November 14). The Express Tribune.
Ahmad, Ishtiaq. (2001, October 3). US-Taliban relations: friend turns fiend as pipeline politics fails. Tehelka.
Ahmad, Ishtiaq. (2010). The US Af-Pak strategy: challenges and opportunities for Pakistan. Asian Affairs,29(3).
Ahmad, Ishtiaq.(2008). Why NATO is failing in Afghanistan. IPRI Journal, 8(1).
Burki, Shahid Javed. (2010, January 22). Rescuing Afghanistan: Let the region take charge. ISAS Brief, No 151.
Charbonneau, Louis. (2012, June 17). U.N. council splits U.N. Taliban, Qaeda sanctions list. Reuters.
Chawdhury Iftekhar A. (2012). India-Pakistan Ties: Do signs of warming indicate climate change. ISAS Brief (125).
Cole, Steve. (2011, February 28). Us-Taliban Talks. The New Yorker.
Farrel, Graham & John Thorne. (2005). Where have all the flowers gone? Evaluation of the Taliban crackdown against poppy cultivation in Afghanistan,” International Journal of Drug Policy,(16).
Gearan, Anne & Kathy Gannon. (2010, August 29). US-Taliban talks were making headway. Associated Press. 
Global Insider: Turkey-Afghanistan-Pakistan Trilateral Forum,” World Politics Review, April 25, 2011.
Karzai invites Taliban to talk despite city attack. (2009, August 11). Associated press.
Lodhi,   Maleeha.(2012, January 4). A shift in US focus?”. The News.
Nordland, Rod. (2012, November 17). More Taliban Prisoners May Be Released. The New York Times.
Qazi, Shehzad H. (2012). “Pakistan’s Afghanistan Plan: Strategic Depth 2.0,” World Politics Review.
Qazi, Shehzad H. (2012, May 22). Toward a sustainable peace in Afghanistan: part I. World Politics Review.
Rakisits, Claude. (2012). The end game in Afghanistan: Pakistan’s critical role. Future Directions International.
Saffad, Syed Baqir. (2011, January 28). Pakistan gets a role in Afghan peace talks. Dawn
Sandra Destradi, et al, “The ISAF Withdrawal from Afghanistan: Perceptions and Reactions of Regional Powers,” GIGA Focus, No 5 (2012).
Shahzeb, Adil. (2013, February 15). Afghan endgame: big deal. The Friday Times.
Text of Pak-Afghan Peace Jirga Declaration,” Daily Times, August 13, 2007.
Torjesen, Stina. (2012, October). Afghanistan and the regional powers: History not repeating itself?. NOREF Policy Brief .
Weitz, Richard. (2012, February 14). Global Insights: Negotiating With the Taliban. World Politics Review.
Yasir Rehman,” Hizb-e Islami backs Afghan-led reconciliation process.(2012, January 13) Central Asia Online.
http://centralasiaonline.com/en_GB/articles/caii/features/main/ 2012/01/13/ feature-01. Accessed on November 5, 2012.