https://www.indianewsstream.com/a-suggestion-for-india-on-the-afghanistan-peace-talks/

A suggestion for India on the Afghanistan peace talks

Some ten years back, India scared off Richard Holbrooke, a legend in cracking heads as a mediator, when he tried to manage the external security environment as a prelude to getting on with his mandate from President Obama to get the Taliban to the talks table. Central to his conflict analysis was the role of the regional players, India and Pakistan, in the conflict. Believing that he had been put to it by Pakistan, exercising its nuisance value through its hold over the Taliban, even Manmohan Singh’s relatively weak government in its second term, managed to fob him off. His failure perhaps led partially to a heart attack that soon claimed his life.

The United States (US) has learnt its lesson, though often and as recently as this week at Davos, the US reiterated its interest in an India-Pakistan engagement over Kashmir. This was at the behest of Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan in his meeting with Trump, the subtext being that since Pakistan is playing along with the US gameplan for an exit in Afghanistan, it needs to be obliged by the US leaning its on strategic partner, India, to cut them some rope on Kashmir. Reflexively, India – as earlier – has declined any role for third party assistance with its problem with Pakistan.

This latest regional spat apart, the tenth round of talks between the US and Taliban proceeds in Doha. Currently, the culmination ceremony of the previous round having been cancelled by Trump inimitably through a tweet last September, the talks have resumed. Whereas earlier the pressure over talks was for talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban, President Trump settled for talking directly to the Taliban as precursor to arranging talks between the Taliban and the Afghan government.

The Taliban had in September balked at the presence of the Afghan government, who they consider American puppets, at the signing ceremony that was to be held at Camp David. At the time of writing, the Taliban has offered to let off the Americans as they prepare for departure, even as they wind down – but not by much – their targeting of government forces. It is not known if the previous sequence of talks between the Taliban and the Afghan government at Oslo would follow this round of talks with the US, if successful.

For its part, India is wary of the talks. It’s long-held, if unrealistic, position has been in favour of intra-Afghan talks being Afghan-owned and Afghan-led. It thinks that US departing would be premature as it would lead to a power imbalance between the Taliban, which is supported by Pakistan, and the Afghan government, that is rather unsteady on its feet. For the reason that the Afghan government is fragile and propped up by external powers, including India through its military training program, political and donor support, the Afghan-led process has not gotten off over the past decade.

The eternal hope has been that the military training, among others by India, US and the United Kingdom, would finally get the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) up to speed to whittle the Taliban. This has proved wishful. Instead, it is to the Taliban’s credit that the threat of spread of the Islamic State in has been contained and pushed back. Knowing this, India is in an internal debate to the extent it needs touching base with the Taliban, though up-front it awaits the outcome Trump’s viceroy for the region, Zalmay Khalilzad, is to serve up soon.

To the extent that a settlement with the US buoys the Taliban in its talks with the government, the Taliban would drive a hard bargain. The Afghan elections process that began late last year is as yet incomplete. While there are reports of the ANSF perking up at long last, making gains in some six districts recently and taking on at least half the burden of bombing the Taliban by air, it is uncertain if this late surge on its part can compensate for the gain in Taliban’s image from having fought the superpower to a standstill and agreed to its departure with dignity, if not surrender as such. The understanding is that Taliban was much in its element in fighting off an infidel, external foe, and would not like to pursue a fight with their fellows, now that the US is out of the equation. It would put it afoul of their own kin and ethnic cousins on the other side. Besides, some reports have it that some fighters are exhausted and were enticed by the 2018 Eid ceasefire. Thus, the possibility of asymmetric talks with Taliban holding the upper hand is tempered somewhat.

This should mitigate India’s concerns somewhat, assuming these were genuine. It cannot be said with any certainty anymore if India’s heart beats for the Afghans. India in Modi’s regime has adopted a self-consciously hyper-realist perspective on national security. By this yardstick, an unsettled Afghanistan is in its better interest since it keeps Pakistan preoccupied to its western flank, thereby providing India with some breathing space to reconcile Kashmir to its new reality within India. Unsettled Afghanistan provides India a proxy war arena - to counter Pakistan’s proxy war in Kashmir - both within Afghanistan and, from Afghanistan, a handle into Pakistan’s ethnic cauldron. Its power-centric national security approach places India as a spoiler in the ongoing peace process in Afghanistan.

If its national interest is all that drives India these days, then there is another route by way of which it can bring this about. The national interest it wishes to further is perhaps to see that Pakistan does not get its way in Afghanistan, and having got its way there, turns on India yet again in Kashmir. India may also want to preserve its space in Afghanistan, by propping up hitherto allies and seeing its donor aid not go down the drain. Indian national security minders need to be persuaded that this national interest can be obtained without trying to outpoint Pakistan by jinxing the peace talks. 

There are two visits to Delhi. Trump is visiting in end February and the council of heads of government of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), being chaired by India this year, meets in autumn. The latter would bring four other heads of government with an interest in Afghanistan together: Russia, China, Pakistan and India. India could take a measure of where the Afghan peace talks are going when Trump is here and present a plan - outlined below – that would make India part of the solution rather than the problem as the US seems to see it currently.

 The plan proposed here is to that India make a pitch at the SCO for a meeting of minds on the peace process. Since Afghanistan’s membership is pending with the SCO, it could champion this. Already, the SCO has a contact group on Afghanistan that can in the interim work on supporting the peace talks in Afghanistan.

Just as the proof of the pudding is in the eating, a peace process is only as good as its implementation. The SCO as a continental organization is best positioned to undertake such support. This would be in keeping with the United Nations Charter and with its best practice of outsourcing peace initiatives to regional organizations with capacity, interest and will to take these on. The political heft of China and Russia can help with Security Council endorsement of an SCO initiative. China and India have the financial capacity for helping with peace building. Evan as the Americans wind up their military presence, they need to be around with rebuilding the country they brought to dust. It would not be entirely outlandish to suggest a peacekeeping operation under SCO aegis, including troops from China, India and Pakistan, among others as Muslim states and other South Asian states. 

Pakistan’s advantage in its hold over the Taliban would be moderated thus. In any case, while Taliban is beholden to Pakistan, it remains an autonomous player. India’s financial largesse would be much needed at a stage when the Taliban can dispense with political support and would not any more need the military support of its erstwhile sponsor. India can thus outflank Pakistan, without antagonizing that state. And, who knows what habits of cooperation interfacing in an Afghan peace process may instill between these two states?

IDSA COMMENT

Obama’s AfPak Review should emphasise on Peace Talks with the Taliban

http://www.idsa.in/idsacomments/ObamasAfPakReviewshouldemphasiseonPeaceTalkswiththeTaliban_aliahmed_231110

Ali Ahmed

November 23, 2010

Obama’s review of the AfPak policy is due this December. He would like to stick to his schedule, outlined at West Point last December, of having the departure from Afghanistan ‘begin’ in July 2011. By no means had he implied then that it would be anything but a measured departure, the commentary of critics of a US ‘exit’ notwithstanding. It is hoped that with an ANA trained to levels of military credibility, NATO would be able to draw down and hand over the responsibility by 2014, as required by Karzai and as stands decided at the NATO Lisbon summit. Even as the surge reaches culmination point, this can only be made possible through a more hands-on approach to the peace overtures to the Taliban currently underway.

Reports of a peace track have been around for over two years now. Earlier, the Saudis had figured as peace brokers. The scene shifted to UN peace initiatives under Kai Eide, but was aborted by the arrest by Pakistanis of their Taliban interlocutor, Mullah Baradar. This summer the peace jirga approved the overtures by President Karzai currently underway. Tacit support of the US for the process is evident from logistic support and safe passage being given to enable presence of the insurgent representatives. The Pakistanis have also chipped in by arranging access of the Haqqani faction to Kabul. A heartening report is of Hekmatyar’s Hizb-e-Islami willing to end the bloodletting for a price.

Peace deals in the offing testify partially to success of the ‘surge’. The idea behind the increase of about 30,000 troops over the past two years has been to militarily pressure the Taliban. Fissures within the Taliban in terms of differing motivations, varying intensity in ties with the core Taliban, and distance from al Qaeda were to be exploited to whittle it down. The Taliban are over 30,000 strong. No fissures have shown up among them so far that could be usefully exploited. How to bring the Mullah Omar Taliban round remains the key question.

The Taliban has expectedly vowed to ensure that the exit would be sooner than 2014 and an unceremonious one at that. Getting at them militarily has proven difficult, sitting as they are on the Pakistani side of ‘AfPak’. This year the Pakistan military had the floods bail them out from taking action against these sanctuaries. The threat of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, an ally of Taliban comprising both Punjabis and Pushtuns, expanding the war into Pakistani cities stays the Pakistani hand. In any case, the military are ‘hedging’, in order to have some say in the post NATO dispensation in Kabul using their good offices with the Taliban if accommodated in power in an exit deal with the US.

The fact that the Taliban has cannon-fodder available in the Pakistani hinterland and amongst Pushtuns radicalized by war indicates that attrition would have to continue over a considerable period. This would likely be at the price of rising distaste with the increasingly unpopular war in the US. The exhaustion of the Europeans is already self-evident. Therefore, eliminating the Taliban does not appear feasible. This leave the US with two options: continuing down the military route or privileging direct peace talks.

The military prong, having shifted under McChrystal to a classical counter insurgency, is not designed to produce quick results. The ANA is being trained to par to bring these about over a period of perhaps three to five years. The US is to scale back its operations and presence progressively as it outsources military operations to the ANA. The ‘Afghan on Afghan’ strategy smacks of ‘divide and rule’. As a strategy, while it enables a US-NATO ‘exit’, it is of no benefit for the region to have instability continue, exploited by neighbours by proxy. In any case, the US would continue being militarily engaged, even if increasingly in a support role. This is hardly an outcome worth the material investment made over the past decade and the cost in lives, particularly of non-combatants.

Obama’s accession, his ‘deadline’ of July 2011, cessation of operations in Iraq, and economy-centred introspection in the US, have all made anti-war sentiment recede. However, the war is already the longest war the US has engaged in. It has exacted 4000 casualties. Continuing Afghan deaths, whether of civilians as ‘collateral damage’ or of insurgents, would ultimately also come under question. Release of the Wikileaks trove, questioning the figures on Iraqi dead, indicates the potentiality of US public opinion turning against the war. The Obama review would take a political view, sensitive to the presidential elections due in 2012.

Continuing operations, particularly beyond the ‘culmination point’, would only increase radicalism, especially if Pakistan were to be destabilized further. The al Qaeda, reportedly reduced to 500 to 600 fighters, can be defeated by a strategy relying on covert operations or through drone attacks, rather than military operations. Whether a campaign has reached the culmination point is the critical strategic judgment. The December review provides the US-NATO combine the opportunity. A decision in favour of military predominant operations would reinforce failure. It is evident then that there needs to be a shift in strategy.

The judgment would be essentially predicated on potential of the ‘peace talks’ prong of strategy. This would be considerably enhanced with the US taking hands-on control of the peace process. Presently, it is only supportive of it. The talks are Afghan-led, but the Karzai regime’s credibility slows down the peace process. In any case, the final outcome would require the US to come on board. The US should instead pre-position itself on one side of the table. This would make the desultory process acquire content and urgency. Alternatives to military action would emerge once the superpower’s intellectual, intelligence, material and diplomatic resources stand unambiguously committed to a negotiated outcome.

The desired outcome needs working through along several parameters. It must preserve the results of the Bonn process. It should pre-empt civil war and reprisals. It should keep the US and its material resources engaged. It needs to get regional players on board. This can be done if their respective, sometimes contradictory, interests are protected. It requires the Taliban to moderate its ideological stance and cut off links with the al Qaeda. The European drawdown would have to be stage-managed. Only ‘win-win’ thinking can have each of the players taking something away from the table.

Obama’s appointment of an interlocutor to the peace talks would energise this prong of strategy. Honour placated, the Taliban would participate. A promise of moderation can be extracted, with the Saudis and Pakistanis as guarantors. It would set the stage for a ceasefire. Reintegration of the Taliban could follow. Graduated ending of Western military presence can be predicated on the Taliban’s good behaviour and operations against the al Qaeda. Eventually, an extended economic and reconstruction engagement could remain in place under UN auspices, with all regional players engaged.

War provides the context for radicalization and the threat that this creates. Ending the war would remove the conditions and context of radicalization. Such a tall order requires Obama to take charge. Obama has already received the Nobel Peace Prize for his intentions on the nuclear front. He could yet deserve it in case of peace initiatives in AfPak.

IDSA COMMENT

Seizing the moment: India and the ‘moderate Taliban’

Ali Ahmed

June 8, 2009

http://www.idsa.in/idsastrategiccomments/seizingthemomentindiaandthemoderatetaliban_aahmed_080609

The Taliban is doubtless a menace and requires to be combated. Towards this end the Global War on Terror, recently rechristened ‘Overseas Contingency Operations’, has been underway for the better part of this decade. The Taliban, however, only appears to be growing in strength and in the spread of its reach. Therefore, the Obama administration is simultaneously pursuing a policy of reaching out to the ‘moderate’ Taliban. It hopes to whittle down the Taliban, permitting an early exit of the US from the region. The policy is reminiscent of its experience in Iraq in which it used the Sunni Awakening movement to win over the Sunni triangle. The key architect of the US’ Iraq strategy, General Petraeus, has since moved as head of Central Command overseeing operations in Afghanistan. A similar strategy is set to unfold in Afghanistan once the elements are in place. This comprises a change in command of forces in Afghanistan, a troop ‘surge’, training of the Afghan National Army and police and a ‘peace corps’ of civilians for assisting with nation building as parts of the Riedel-Holbrooke conjured Af-Pak strategy. In the interim, Pakistan has been goaded into militarily ending the sanctuaries available to the Taliban and al Qaeda combine in FATA. Prior to getting to grips with the hard core of the Taliban, Pakistan is presently engaged in an attempt to roll back its expanding influence from other areas of NWFP such as Swat. These military operations have been at considerable human cost and the jury is still out on their long term success. Given the enormous effort the clearing of Swat has taken, taking the fight into Taliban areas of FATA is bound to prove a difficult challenge.

At this juncture in the situation in the neighbourhood, a persuasive Indian position has it that finally the Pakistani state is attempting to roll back the monster that it has creation. This is taken to be in India’s interest. The ascendant view has been articulated by the doyen of India’s strategic community, K Subrahmanyam, in his op-ed ‘Stand up and be counted’ in the Times of India of June 3, 2009. The argument is that “what the world is fighting against in the Af-Pak area is a dangerous ideology” and therefore compromise is unacceptable. In this view, ‘moderate Taliban’ is an oxymoron. Accommodation with the Taliban would result in re-emergence of a threat to Kashmir. It would compromise inroads into Afghanistan made through the exercise of India’s developmental support to the Karzai regime. It would once again make Pakistan punch above its weight by preserving its ‘strategic depth’. A return of an extremist regime in Kabul would embolden fundamentalist forces elsewhere in the subcontinent. Therefore, India should press for continuation of operations against the Taliban.

India’s interests are deemed to include preventing the return of Taliban to Kabul. It sees the Taliban as a Pakistani stooge and a continuing threat for the return of stability in Kashmir. It has also attempted to bracket the terror groups targeting India, such as the LeT and the JeM, along with the al Qaeda-Taliban threat so that Pakistan is also compelled to roll back these along side. While India has managed through deft diplomacy to keep Kashmir off the Af-Pak conception, it would like to continue to keep Kashmir off the radar screen as well. The Indian approach has so far been generally supportive of US actions. Aware that it cannot rely on the international community to furnish its national interest, it has also attempted to safeguard these through exercise of power. It has invested over a billion dollars in infrastructure support for the Karzai regime. It is providing training to the ANA. Its activities are apparently of such an order that Pakistan has objected to its consulates in Kandahar and Jalalabad!

However, the continuing relevance of this strategy in light of the possibility of accommodation of the moderate Taliban in the end game in Afghanistan needs to be reviewed. Persisting with this stance could prove anachronistic in case progress is made towards and in such talks.

Continuation of operations would be dependent on Pakistani capability and intent continuing into the near term. With Taliban expanding the scope of the conflict into Pakistan’s core areas, whether Pakistan would stay the course is questionable. Three million people have been internally displaced by operations in Swat. This has exposed the ethnic divide in Pakistan with people in the plains, particularly in Sind, reluctant to take in more Pushtuns. The situation is set to deteriorate to civil war like proportions. The Pakistani Army, comprising 15 per cent Pakhtuns, would also be reluctant to have its internal cohesion disrupted by operations in Pakhtun areas against the primarily Pakhtun Taliban. While public opinion was behind the Army operations in Swat, it would only wilt when faced with the escalating Taliban threat. The recent surge in operations has been interpreted as an exercise by the Pakistani Army to impress the Obama administration with its commitment and thereby extract the promised financial and military package. With the Zardari-Obama-Karzai summit now history, it is possible that Pakistan would return to hedging its commitment to clearing the Taliban from its territory. It would press for a policy of talking to the Taliban.

In principle, talking to an insurgent opponent is in keeping with counter insurgency doctrine. Analogy can be drawn from the situation preceding the demise of the LTTE in Sri Lanka. Prabhakaran’s end was predicated on the defection of his warlord in the Eastern Province, Colonel Karuna. Thus, it would be necessary to exploit divisions in the Taliban, for not all those in the resistance to US presence and action are activated by an expansive jihadist ideology. They are energised by differing motivations that include traditional tribalism and the renowned Pakhtun nationalism. Some, being unemployed, have joined with little ideological commitment. Thus there is scope for bringing about a distinction between the hard core and uncompromising Taliban and those who can be ‘purchased’. Not only would this preclude military operations but the Taliban that come across can be utilised to further constrain the hard core Taliban. The escalation that threatens stability of Pakistani state, its nuclear assets and society would thus be precluded. A stable Pakistan being in Indian interest, India need not be averse to talks with the Taliban.

It also remains to be seen as to whether a predominantly military strategy would succeed or even be persisted with by the United States. For the sake of its image as a superpower it cannot afford to fail. But Obama would not wish to divert much attention and energy to Afghanistan at a time when managing the global recession is the uppermost priority. Obama would like to see movement in the Af-Pak situation by the time he considers running for a second term. A military solution cannot be expected to eventuate in so short a duration. Therefore, the Obama strategy would be to accommodate the Taliban to the extent that it is willing to concede US interests. In such a scenario, the returning Taliban would view India as a hostile state and current Indian apprehensions of threat would prove a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The recommendation here is that India should not be averse to reaching out to the Taliban. India, being a regional economic and military power, would continue to be consequential. Continuing with its supportive activities and its exercise of soft power would undercut any blocks that Pakistan can conjure up. The instrumentality of the SAARC, presently in limbo, can also be energised as a vehicle of Indian and mutual interests. Such an engagement would increase the ‘moderate’ quotient of the Taliban. Its representation and interest in such talks would ensure that the hard core continues to be marginalised. By engaging with the ‘moderate’ Taliban, India would be able to gauge the attitude of the Taliban to it and also sensitise the Taliban to its concerns.

The present policy of having no truck with the Taliban has diminishing returns. It would have conceded the space to Pakistan by default through inaction. Anticipatory action is therefore warranted. The present situation in which a resurgent Taliban is being combated by an unwilling and incapable Pakistani Army and counter productive application of stand-off military might of the US-NATO combine should be interpreted as their search for a position of strength from which to negotiate a deal with amenable sections of the Taliban. Therefore, the impending political approach to the Taliban requires that India should not await the moment but seize it. Not only should it lend its weight to this but also lead the effort to carve out leverage in a post-conflict Afghanistan. The forthcoming visit of Hillary Clinton can be used by India to more actively join the international effort on this score.

AfPak: Talks as a way out

by Ali Ahmed

December 9, 2010

http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2010/12/09/afpak-talks-as-a-way-out/

That Pakistan is ‘hedging’ is now official. It has been resisting both pressures and incentives to ‘do more’ in the war on terror. Observers with empathy realize it has little choice. The Pakistan Army cannot clean up the sanctuary the Taliban have in Pakistan without risking stability of the state. Therefore, the demand of the Pakistanis has been toned down. They are no longer required to go after the Taliban but only to ‘cut off’ support.

The logic is that without Pakistani support the Taliban would whither away to levels at which the ANSF, built into a credible force over time, would be in control. With the surge at its culmination point, the ISAF is busying itself with eliminating the tactical level Taliban leadership. The CIA is doing the same with higher leadership on the Pakistan side through drone attacks. The ISAF would hand over areas to the ANSF progressively beginning next January. By 2014 the process of handing over is expected to be complete. The whittled down Taliban would then be countered where necessary with support of US-NATO troops, staying on longer for the purpose.

The idea is apparently workable. It would enable the US and the NATO to disengage and draw down. It draws on the Iraq model. It is predicated on the Pakistanis ending support to the Taliban and the ANSF raising its standards to levels enough to take on the prospective continuance of the Taliban in a lowered intensity of insurgency. What are the prospects out to 2014?

Pakistan has had the Kerry-Lugar bill cater for long term civilian programs. The military is to separately have another $2 billion injection. This is to ensure compliance. Since the revised demands do not require the military to ‘take on’ the Taliban, the Army could prove responsive. Unable to risk a civil war along ethnic or ideological lines, by cleaning up the Taliban from its side of the border, it would instead prefer a less demanding role.

The assumption appears to be that the Taliban are a product of Pakistani state support. They have instead been autonomous players and would have catered for such turning off of support. Their sources of finances are drugs, charities from the Arab world and opponents of regimes there. Pakistani action to cut them off from such sources and limit their autonomy, such as by interdicting them on the border, can only be expected to draw violence. This would place Pakistan once again later in an impossible situation of taking them on or backing off. The demands on Pakistan that currently appear reasonable – of stopping support – can only increase when such stoppage is seen to be producing little result.

Training the ANSF for levels of operations of low-grade counter insurgency is possible. The training is underway through an extensive program including combat unit’s mentoring of Afghan units. Yet, it would appear an ambitious program.

Turning out a functioning Army fit for counter insurgency is optimistic in the tight time frame. The experience of the Rashtriya Rifles is an example from India in which it took about half-a-decade for the force to really become effective and potent against lower levels of insurgency obtaining in Kashmir. The argument for training support to the ANSF ignores the language barrier that first needs to be overcome. And the fact that counter insurgents, operating as part of organized forces, require higher levels of training than insurgent fighters, relying on their innate instincts, martial culture and local resources.

Assuming, nevertheless, that is would succeed, what does this imply for Afghanistan and the region? Firstly, the insurgency would continue. Neither would the Taliban be a push over, nor the ANSF capable. While it may permit the foreign forces to leave, being an ‘Afghan on Afghan’ strategy in the best tradition of ‘divide and rule’, it would be no solution for the Afghan people. Secondly, before long it can be expected that the regional powers would be supporting their proxies, vitiating regional security. Thirdly, more should be expected by way of ‘solution’ for the resources expended in by others and costs incurred by Afghan people.

What should the West, likely to get tired of killing prior to the Taliban tired of being killed, do? Obama’s AfPak review is due in December, the third of his tenure. Being the political prong, it is a legitimate prong of strategy, as yet untried with any level of conviction. With the US weight behind it, its desultory course so far can be changed decisively. The military prong is beyond the culminating point. He has little alternative but to progress the peace prong of strategy by appointing a special interlocutor or redrafting Richard Holbrooke’s terms of reference.

The questions that need answer are: Can the Taliban be moderated by engagement? What extent is their extremism a product of the war? How much is their image a result of information war? To what extent would they retain links to the Al Qaeda? How accommodative will they be of their opponents? Answers to these reflexively negate the notion of talks. However, talks can prove a game-changer. Taliban can reconstruct itself as a strategic actor as the talks progress. Afghans deserve that the talks option be chanced.

Reconciling the Af-Pak Conundrum

by Ali Ahmed

April 18, 2010

http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2010/04/18/reconciling-the-af-pak-conundrum/

The meeting in Washington DC on nuclear security indicates the concern with the fallout of Bush’s Global War on Terror. It can reasonably have been expected that such a threat should have receded. Instead, the threat exists. This article discusses how the perceived threat can be made to recede further through ending sensibly what Bush began.

Any such consideration should begin by taking into account outcomes unacceptable to those involved. For Americans, leaving Af-Pak to triumphalist Islamists is unthinkable. For NATO countries with populations sceptical of the future in Af-Pak, an increase in the terror threat in Europe due to further degeneration of the situation is avoidable. Pakistan would prefer that the ‘blow back’ it has been suffering from over the past year, due in part to its actions against terror groups in NWFP and FATA, dissipate. India would not like an unreformed Taliban regime taking over power in Kabul. The Taliban for its part would not like to be eliminated. The Al Qaeda would like to outlive the war.

Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai, U.S. President Barack Obama, and Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari

Next, the preferences of these players are of consequence since they inform respective aims. Americans would like to end the war – if not depart the region – by rendering it stable under a regime that would not provide sanctuary to al Qaeda. NATO countries would like to leave the region soon without increasing the threat to homeland security. Pakistan would like to preserve itself to the maximum extent possible from spill-over of instability in the region into the Punjabi heartland and Karachi. India would like to see that any future regime in Kabul does not assist terrorists against India. The Taliban would like to end the war at the most favourable position possible in Kabul. Al Qaeda would like to see that Pakistan is destabilised in order to profit from the resulting radicalism.

A look at aims remains. American aims as spelt out by Obama are to ‘disrupt, dismantle, and defeat’ al Qaeda. With respect to the Taliban, the aim is to reverse the Taliban’s momentum. The aim of the other NATO states is to exit to avoid increased radicalism. Pakistan aims to create space for the Taliban so as to have a stake in Kabul. India seeks to constrict Pakistan space so as to influence its attitude to terror directed at India. The Taliban aims to return to Kabul. Al Qaeda aims at self-preservation in first place.

In the present discourse, the blame for the disturbed situation is being offloaded on corruption in the Karzai government. The regime is engaged in preventing the Taliban from exposing its current vulnerability through high profile terror attacks. It has sent out feelers that it is open to negotiation with the Taliban. A jirga is impending on this score. It has already evoked interest, with the Haqqani group biting. The ANA is under training for progressive employment in operations.

What are the criteria for evaluating the conundrum? Firstly, is measuring the prospects of success of each of the players against their own yardstick. Second, is on the manner the options impact the Afghan people.

By the first yardstick, all players fall short of their own aims, obviously since none is strong enough to prevail. US-NATO combine is unlikely to be allowed to prevail. The Taliban will not be permitted access to Kabul until it promises to verifiably reinvent itself. Elimination of the al Qaeda is difficult since its course is dependent on what happens in the Middle East rather than in South Asia. Care must be taken to preserve South Asia from expanding instability in any vain attempt to preserve stability in the Middle East. By the second yardstick, all players in their pursuing self-interest are oblivious to the continuing impact of the war on those they are purportedly out to help, the Afghan people.

Clearly, the war needs to end. But not on a note that brings an unreformed Taliban back to power. How can this be done? The answer is to privilege the political prong of strategy.

Keeping the war on in this region, so that America can remain safe is not reasonable eight years since the war began. It would be premature to ask for US vacation of the region. This implies that even while McChrystal goes about his irreversible pursuit of a gaining militarily a position of strength, Americans need to progress the political prong of their strategy with greater rigour. They need to engage the ‘hard core’ Taliban. American military power can remain in location but held in abeyance. NATO needs to depart. However, the EU is welcome to contribute to reconstruction.

Preserving Pakistan from instability and further radicalisation amounts to being an immutable ‘terms of reference’: Pakistan being a nuclear weapons state. Therefore, in exchange for permitting some space, Pakistan requires bringing the Taliban around, but at a price. In return for gaining Taliban access to power, it needs to extract a promise of moderation from the Taliban. This is necessary to preserve the gains from the Bonn process made thus far.

The ‘surge’ was to impress on the Taliban that winning is not possible. The Obama timetable assures them of US exit.  The promise of reconstruction and reintegration is a sweetener. The question is whether the Taliban are strategic beings. Even if the Taliban do not bite, not to attempt engaging them is inexcusable and the risk is worth taking. Al Qaeda has been whittled considerably. The US could now rethink strategy. It has little to do with South Asia. Therefore, South Asia should cease to be the locale of US action.

India needs to keep engaged in Afghanistan in its developmental effort. This soft power is more than adequate to balance any gains Pakistan may seek to make. The Taliban’s feelers towards India need to be capitalised on by India. In return for assistance with reconstruction, the Taliban need to assure India on anti-India activity.

Pursuit of self-interest has not taken any of these players far in any case. It’s time a criteria other than self-interest is used to assess action. How much does each self-confessed supporter do to help preserve the Afghan people from further violence is the criterion. By this yardstick all players fall short.