Missed Opportunities and Obstacles in the Afghan Peace Process - M. Masoom Stanekzai

Missed Opportunities and Obstacles
in the Afghan Peace Process

M. Masoom Stanekzai

 

 

Abstract

This paper analyses why Afghanistan has failed to achieve lasting peace despite over forty years of national and international efforts. Drawing on the author’s fourteen years of direct involvement in peace and reconciliation, including leadership roles in the High Peace Council and the government’s negotiating team, it identifies four missed “windows of opportunity” for peace between 2001 and 2021. Each was undermined by conflicting agendas and inconsistent strategies among international, regional, and national actors. Early reconciliation after 2001 was constrained by the United States’ retaliatory policies, over-reliance on military solutions, and divisions among Afghan factions. Later efforts collapsed amid policy rifts between Washington and Kabul, Pakistan’s duplicity, and the absence of a unified Afghan political front. Shifting U.S. priorities, from counterterrorism to an uncoordinated withdrawal, produced the exclusionary Doha Agreement, which sidelined the Afghan government and eroded the Republic’s legitimacy, hastening its fall. The paper also examines deeper structural barriers, including elite fragmentation, regional rivalries, and Taliban intransigence, all of which weakened the state and obstructed progress toward a political settlement. Afghanistan’s experience, it concludes, highlights the perils of externally driven peace efforts that lack coherence, inclusivity, and sustained commitment. Lasting peace will depend on an inclusive national dialogue, regional consensus, and a framework grounded in compromise, accountability, and genuine partnership with the Afghan people.

Keywords: Afghanistan; peace process; conflict resolution; reconciliation; regional politics; U.S. and Afghan government policies; Taliban; Doha Agreement; state collapse

 

Bio

 

Masoom Stanekzai is an Honorary Fellow at the Asia Institute and a Research Affiliate with the Initiative for Peacebuilding at the University of Melbourne. He previously served as the Chief Peace Negotiator, Minister of Defence and Communications, and Chief of the National Directorate of Security of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. Mr. Stanekzai also held senior leadership roles as Head of the Joint Secretariat of the High Peace Council, Chief Executive Officer of the Peace and Reintegration Program, and Vice Chair of the Disarmament, Demobilisation, and Reintegration (DDR) and Disbandment of Illegal Armed Groups initiatives.

He holds a Master’s degree in Engineering for Sustainable Development from the University of Cambridge, a postgraduate qualification in Environment, Social, and Governance (ESG) Leadership from Edith Cowan University, and a Master’s in Business Management from Preston University.

 

 

Introduction

Between the ouster of the Taliban in 2001 and their return to power in 2021, several opportunities to nurture a successful peace process in Afghanistan were missed. The joint efforts of the Afghan government and the international community to develop a peace process also had to contend with a wide array of obstacles that might have impeded or torpedoed progress even if those opportunities had been seized.

This chapter presents an account and analysis of unsuccessful efforts to conduct a peace process from the author’s perspective and firsthand experience over 14 years of engagement in various high-level peace and reconciliation efforts in Afghanistan. His roles included heading the Joint Secretariat of the Afghanistan Peace and Reintegration Program; heading the secretariat of the High Peace Council from 2010 until 2014; playing a key role in negotiating the 2016 peace deal between the Afghan government and the militant group Hezb-i-Islami led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar; and helping negotiate a power-sharing deal between President Ashraf Ghani and Dr. Abdullah Abdullah after the 2019 election. After the United States and the Taliban signed the Doha Agreement on February 29, 2020, the author led the Afghan government’s team in negotiations with the Taliban.[1]

This chapter thus offers a view from, broadly speaking, within the ranks of the government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (hereafter, the “Republic”). However, this is by no means an official account. It is a personal assessment of the failure to generate a peace process, and it is critical not only of other actors but also of the Republic. The sources for this analysis range from published books and articles to personal conversations with many of the participants in the events described in the following pages. For reasons of confidentiality, the author has generally not named those participants nor associated a particular opinion or recollection with a particular person.

This chapter is divided into five parts. The first part examines four windows of opportunity that were missed by the Republic, the US government, and other members of the international community between 2001 and 2021. Early in the US-led intervention, the chances of success in bringing peace and stability via political negotiations among Afghan parties—to include the Taliban—were higher than in later years of the war. Reconciliation with the Taliban, however, was not on the agenda for the United States nor for Northern Alliance warlords who secured influential positions in the new political order—despite the UN and the interim leader and then-elected president, Hamid Karzai, being in favor of reconciliation. The expectation was that Taliban members who lay down their arms would receive amnesty and participate in the Emergency Loya Jirga and constitutional process for integration. However, opposition from the U.S., major powers, and the dominant faction in Kabul doomed these efforts from the start[2]. 2009–13, although the US and Afghan governments still sought a military victory, there was a gradual shift in US policy, and some attention was paid to reconciliation. After HK's re-election in 2009 and his alienation from the US, Obama invited him for an official visit. I was also part of the delegation. In preparation for that visit, the US lifted the "blacklist" that had been imposed in 2004, which had prevented contact with those in the leadership. During the visit, as you may recall, Obama and Clinton both informed the president that the US supports an "Afghan-led" reconciliation. However, it was not clear how. The chances of reaching a negotiated settlement at that stage were high because both the US and the Afghan governments were in a strong negotiating position vis-á-vis the Taliban. However, that chance was missed due to policy differences between the US and the Afghan government, and the double-game played by Pakistan and other regional players that supported the Taliban. A third, smaller window of opportunity briefly opened in 2014–15, but a much bigger window seemed to open in 2018 with a clear policy shift toward reconciliation and concerted efforts and steps taken by both the Afghan and US governments. Yet again, however, efforts to negotiate a deal to bring peace and stability ran into a variety of major obstacles, some of which—such as hasty US decision-making as the US did not consider peace and stability in Afghanistan as a strategic goal of the US policy, the real agenda was safe troop withdrawal and CT and Taliban intransigence—were probably unsurmountable from the Republic’s perspective. The Republic itself was by no means entirely blameless for the dismal outcome: the exit of US troops and the swift collapse of the Republic.

The impediments to the peace process are the focus of the second part of this chapter. A host of major obstacles presented themselves, including abrupt shifts in US policy; the failure of the US and Afghan governments to agree on a roadmap for peace; a tendency to focus on either military or political solutions rather than to ensure military capabilities and political ambitions were in harmony; divisions and weaknesses within the Republic government and Afghan political leadership; the Pakistani government allowing the Taliban to operate within Pakistan while claiming Pakistan was a partner in the war on terror; the lack of a regional consensus; and, most important, the absence of a genuine Taliban commitment to a peace settlement. Some other impediments related to specific aspects of negotiations, such as delays and unrealistic time frames, inadequate coordination of international efforts, and the terms specified in the Doha Agreement that the United States reached with the Taliban without consulting the Republic. Cumulatively, this array of obstacles meant that by 2021 the resilience of the Afghan state to political, security and even economic shocks was fatally weakened: it had a deficit of legitimacy and its security forces lacked the preparation, capability, and confidence to push back the Taliban without US and NATO support.

The third part of the chapter briefly identifies the causes of the rapidity of collapse of the Republic in 2021. The fourth part consists of lessons for politicians, peace researchers, and civil and military policymakers from the failure to create an effective peace process in Afghanistan. Among those lessons are the need for local ownership and leadership of a peace process, for close consultation between partners, for the inclusion in a peace process of all parties, and for facilitation and mediation. Dangers to be avoided include missing early opportunities to pursue a peace settlement, making abrupt changes in policies and positions regarding peace, and failing to limit the disruptive actions of spoilers, whether foreign states or domestic actors. In the meantime, one of the main lessons was that resolving a difficult conflict requires the full commitment of the most powerful actor, which in this case was the US, and that such full commitment was not given. The chapter concludes with a call for Afghans to avoid repeating past mistakes and to launch an inclusive dialogue that might lead to true reconciliation and a durable peace.

 

Missed Opportunities

Crucial opportunities for making progress on peace and stability were missed at four key periods between the toppling of the Taliban regime and the group’s return to power: 2001–4, 2009–13, 2014–15, and 2018–21.

 

The First Window of Opportunity, 2001­-4

In the Republic’s first few years, the political environment inside and outside Afghanistan was such that any engagement with the Taliban was widely regarded as taboo. The United States and countries such as Russia, Iran, and India that were supporting groups fighting against the Taliban rejected out of hand any notion of reaching a peace settlement with the Taliban. So, too, did the leaders of the Northern Alliance, who held dominant positions in the newly established government. The Northern Alliance and other national and regional actors were clearly following the US-led rejection of the idea of engagement. However, if the United States had supported a policy of reconciliation, others would likely have followed suit because they knew the extent to which the government depended on US support to function and prevent the potential return of the Taliban. For its part, Pakistan claimed to be a major US partner in the newly declared “war on terror” but in fact provided bases for the Taliban and al-Qaeda and did not want international efforts to create a stable Afghanistan to succeed. Based on various statements and discussions over the past twenty years and their backing of the Taliban, it was evident that Pakistan did not want efforts to stabilize Afghanistan, from their perspective, in a way that aligned with India. It sought a stable Afghanistan aligned with Pakistan, and their second chance was instability.

Among the few actors who were prepared to contemplate some form of a peace deal with the Taliban was the man who had led an uprising in the south against the Taliban in October 2001 and who, in 2004, would become the Republic’s first elected president, Hamid Karzai. He was elected, but the country was too dependent on US and NATO support, and there were limitations.

The chance of establishing a durable peace in Afghanistan was undermined right from the beginning by not including the Taliban and Hezb-i-Islami (one of the main jihadi parties that had fought against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan) in the Bonn Conference, at which the Taliban’s adversaries gathered in December 2001 to decide on the leadership and initial structure of a new Afghan government. The Taliban were left with no option but to hide and fight. When the Taliban government and its network of supporters disintegrated in the wake of the US-led intervention, many members of the Taliban sought amnesty. Messages to that effect were passed on through Taliban leaders and tribal elders to Karzai, who was chosen as interim leader. For instance, according to the former Taliban commander Amir Mohammad Agha, he was a member of a delegation that met with Karzai in Shawali Kot of Kandahar in 2001 and delivered a message from Taliban leaders that they would cooperate in the transition of power. in return for amnesty and the opportunity to be allowed to return to their homes.[3]

In December 2001, Karzai proposed reconciliation and amnesty for the Taliban leadership, though the US secretary of defense, Donald H. Rumsfeld’s position was clear that “the United States would not accept a negotiated surrender” between the Taliban and the new interim government if the terms of that surrender included amnesty for Mullah Omar.[4] Based on informed sources in the US government, the US formally adopted a policy that individual Taliban could reintegrate if they met the three conditions, while drawing a blacklist of over 80 Taliban who would be permanently excluded. in remained in force until January 2010

In 2003, international attention to Afghanistan diminished as resources and focus were diverted to the US-led invasion of Iraq. This intervention proved to be the inspiration for a surge of recruitment into al-Qaeda and other extremist groups to fight against the US and coalition forces both in Afghanistan and Iraq.[5] This further expanded the breeding ground for a new generation of extremist groups at a later stage of the war. These groups were inspired by violent extremist ideology and used brainwashed teenagers as human bombs, which turned into a serious security challenge and obstacle to peace.[6]

In 2003, elders from Uruzgan, Helmand, and Kandahar met with interim president Karzai in the presidential palace in Kabul and asked for his permission for them to invite the Taliban to return to their homes and to give them guarantees that they would not be arrested by US forces. Karzai raised this overture with the United States (through Ambassador Khalilzad, who was President Bush’s envoy for Afghanistan), but the US response was negative. At that time, the US position was that the Taliban should be brought to justice and handed over to the United States before any discussion regarding peace could take place. Karzai could not agree to such an arrangement, which he felt was against both Afghan law and Afghan tradition.

In November 2004, more than one hundred Taliban leaders and senior commanders gathered in the Shakase area of Peshawar, Pakistan. The meeting was called to discuss a peace message that had been sent to them from President Karzai, via a tribal leader. Individuals who attended this meeting recall participants complaining about the operation of foreign forces against members of the Taliban inside Afghanistan and suggesting that if Karzai could stop those forces targeting the Taliban, then the Taliban fighters would go and live in peace in their own country. However, if Karzai could not rein in the foreign forces, then the Taliban would be forced to continue fighting. The majority of participants were in favor of peace talks; only a few argued that the presence of foreign forces was unacceptable and that they would have to leave Pakistan before peace talks could begin.[7] However, the consensus at the meeting was that Karzai’s government had very little authority, and this perception contributed to the participants’ skepticism about the prospects of making peace with the Afghan government.

At this meeting, Mullah Hassan Rahmani member of the leadership council and former governor of Kandahar under Mullah Omar, said that he felt Karzai was a good person and a good Muslim and a better option to negotiate with than anyone else. Rahman believed it was better for the Taliban to return to their own country than to stay in Pakistan. The majority of the participants at this meeting agreed with him. However, there were two concerns. One was that Pakistan’s powerful intelligence agency, Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), wanted the Taliban to continue fighting and would hand the Taliban over to the Americans rather than allow them to return to Afghanistan in peace. The second was whether the Taliban could trust the Afghan government and the Americans. A decision was taken at the meeting to proceed carefully and take steps to discover what Karzai could offer.

After a second meeting, held three months later in Karachi, where the same group of people participated, a small team volunteered to travel to Kabul and hold talks with the government. This team was led by Malawi Aarsalla Rahmani. However, as noted above, the assurance the Taliban sought from Karzai—that they would not be detained by international forces—was not forthcoming. Within the Afghan government, many political elites were opposed to negotiation with the Taliban, because they believed that the Taliban had been decisively defeated and that US and international forces would remain in Afghanistan indefinitely. In parallel, the US military and intelligence agencies were implementing a military strategy without any political roadmap.

In this period, Karzai’s plan for reconciliation had four simple elements: for the United States to allow the Afghan government to engage with the Taliban leadership; amnesty granted by both the Afghan and US governments, so that reconciled members of the Taliban would not be arrested; the option for reconciled Taliban to resettle either in Afghanistan or any other Muslim country, except for Afghanistan’s immediate neighbors; and security and respectful reintegration for the Taliban. The United States would not agree to such a plan for the senior commanders and leaders of the Taliban. However, at the early stage, there was no detailed plan as the idea was rejected by the US.

The desire by the United States and some within the Afghan government to seek revenge for the Taliban’s collaboration with al-Qaeda and to focus exclusively on a military strategy blinded them to the fact that the first few years of the Republic provided the best possible opportunity to achieve reconciliation with the Taliban. The Republic was in a position of strength that would have given it significant leverage over the outcome of peace talks with the Taliban.

 

The Second Window of Opportunity, 2009–13

In November 2009, President Karzai was declared the winner after a disputed election (Dr. Abdullah, a leading candidate and a former foreign minister, contested the results but ultimately pulled out of a runoff election). In his inauguration speech, he announced three major priorities for his second term:

1. Enabling Afghan security forces to assume responsibility for unstable areas in three years and to take complete control of security within five years.
2. Reaching out to the Taliban for reconciliation and peace.
3. Fighting corruption and promoting administrative reforms.

At the end of November 2009, Karzai spoke with US President Barack Obama via video teleconference. They agreed on the need for more rapid development of the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF) so that Afghans could assume greater responsibility for the security of their country. The two presidents also discussed the way ahead on peace, corruption, and regional issues.[8] This was the first time the two leaders seriously discussed peace and reconciliation with the Taliban, albeit with certain conditions.

The next day, December 1, President Obama announced a surge of military and diplomatic resources for Afghanistan. He stressed that international efforts in Afghanistan were not open-ended and must be evaluated against measurable and achievable goals. Unfortunately, however, the surge was announced at the same time as plans for the eventual withdrawal of US surge troops, thereby creating an incentive for the Taliban to simply pause and wait until those troops went home. The withdrawal of US surge forces began 18 months after the 2009 announcement and was completed in 2014.

In 2010, serious steps were taken to implement Karzai’s new policy priorities. A Loya Jirga was held and a High Peace Council (HPC) was established, chaired by former president Burhanuddin Rabbani. The Loya Jirga recommended that concerns raised by the Taliban be addressed so the Taliban could participate in negotiations. These concerns included removing those who participated in talks from sanctions lists and ensuring that they would not be illegally detained by US and NATO forces. As a result of Karzai’s initiatives some progress was made to engage the Taliban and Pakistan. However, due to differences between the US political and military approaches and the assassination of the Chair of the High Peace Council, Burhanuddin Rabbani in September 2011, the progress was reversed.

On the military front, the development of Afghan national security forces was accelerated. This development was important for the peace process because it was intended to send a message to the Taliban and the Afghan people that their security would be handled by Afghans, not international forces, and that at the appropriate moment those forces would eventually leave the country. At the same time, the counterinsurgency strategy of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) was shifting from “clear, capture, and kill” to “clear, hold, and build.” This was a signal to those Taliban who wanted to stop fighting and join a local peace initiative. It was packaged as a peace dividend.

For the first time, the United States engaged with the Taliban in late 2010 (Nov 28, 2010). A discreet meeting took place in Germany. As discussed below, in 2011, Qatar, the United States, and the Taliban started discussions about opening an office for the Taliban in Qatar to facilitate prisoner exchanges and possible peace talks. The Afghan government was consulted but was not directly involved in these discussions.

Tensions between Presidents Obama and Karzai had been growing since the 2009 presidential election, in which massive fraud was reported. During and after the election, Karzai had heard that some international partners and the United States were trying to influence the result of the vote. As Rangin Dadfar Spanta, the former national security advisor, highlighted, “the government received reports that Richard Holbrooke and Peter Galbraith [the UN deputy special representative of the secretary-general] were involved in pushing the election to the second round and by supporting the other candidates.”[9] Holbrooke and Galbraith made that push because of the ineffective electoral system and the prevalence of fraudulent votes.

Mistrust between Obama and Karzai fed growing policy differences between the United States and Afghanistan in three areas. First, President Karzai publicly criticized the United States for causing civilian casualties during US operations against the Taliban and for detaining ordinary Afghans (who were often held based on malicious misinformation and many of whom became radicalized once released). Second, the United States wanted a bilateral security agreement, which would allow US troops to remain in Afghanistan and provide continued US access to military bases in the country, to be signed before 2014. President Karzai, however, conditioned his signing of the agreement on progress in direct talks with the Taliban (so the decision on signing the agreement could be made in consultation with the Taliban and pave the path for durable peace and avoid excuses for the continuation of violence); on the transfer of the Bagram detention center from US to Afghan control; and on respect for Afghan sovereignty. Third, the United States pushed Karzai to take action against corruption, to make merit-based appointments, and to give more support to the Afghan security forces. Karzai was asked to stop publicly criticizing the United States and instead to work with the United States to find solutions for the problem of civilian casualties and direct talks with the Taliban.

Despite developing some good strategies and making significant investments of civilian, military, and economic resources, progress toward sustained security and starting direct and genuine peace talks was undermined by four main factors, in addition to the growing mistrust between Karzai and the United States: the lack of a regional strategy; US messaging that encouraged Taliban resistance and did not align military and political approaches to the war; US underestimation of Pakistani support for the Taliban, deceived itself about Pakistan that it will change their policy with aid and conflicting domestic political legacies and timelines for both Karzai and Obama.

There was no coherent strategy for winning the support of, or at least not alarming, regional neighbors. The Afghan and US governments did not share a coherent regional strategy, and neither of them had one of its own. In some cases, their approaches were contradictory and in conflict with each other—with one reaching out to Pakistan at a time when the other was at odds with Islamabad. This gap contributed to a failure to maintain the level of international consensus that had emerged during the Bonn Conference of 2001. Misperceptions about US long-term goals in the region—namely, that the United States sought a permanent military presence in the region—grew, especially in the wake of the US troop surge. China, Russia, Pakistan, and especially Iran all had concerns, albeit different concerns and different levels of concern. Thus, regional cooperation on Afghanistan gradually changed to confrontation.

Further, there was inconsistency in US policy and messaging, most notably, when the US surge and withdrawal were announced at the same time. Announcing that the troop surge would last for only 18 months signaled that US military pressure would soon decline—and this represented a US failure to align its military strategy with a political endgame. The announcement allowed the Taliban and spoilers in the region to wait out the height of the US military presence, encouraged the Taliban to believe military victory would eventually be possible, and undercut any incentive the Taliban had to commit to peace talks.

The United States also lacked a detailed understanding of the Taliban and their support network, which impaired US decision-making. It was the late 2000s before the US military better understood the sophisticated jihadi and support network operated by former ISI officials for the benefit of the Taliban. This problem was compounded by a failure to recognize the extent of biased information that Pakistan provided the United States, and by a lack of attention to Pakistan’s “double game” of allowing the Taliban to operate within Pakistan while claiming Pakistan was a partner in the war on terror. In addition, US military operations relied too much on technological capabilities, which made it difficult for US troops to differentiate between an ordinary villager and a Talib commander in many cases.

Presidents Obama and Karzai appeared to set timeframes for achieving strategic goals around their personal legacies, rather than adopting realistic schedules, which meant Afghan security forces were not ready to maintain security when foreign forces began to significantly draw down their presence. This led to steady Taliban gains on the battlefield from roughly 2012 onward, reinforcing their confidence that they could eventually win the war and hardening the Taliban’s position against peace talks. Karzai’s distrust of the United States made it difficult for US officials to maintain Karzai’s support for their efforts to talk with the Taliban in the absence of the Afghan government, especially given the fear within the Afghan government that it would be sidelined and a deal reached that would not benefit Afghanistan. Karzai believed that the Taliban’s unwillingness to include the government in the direct talks was part of a Pakistani game and a mistake.

The growing policy differences and misunderstandings between the United States and the Republic led to significant missteps in the peace process. This was clearly illustrated by the fiasco surrounding the establishment of an office for the Taliban in Qatar.

A Taliban office for peace talks had been discussed since 2010, when representatives from Germany and Qatar, through intermediaries, established direct contact with representatives of the Taliban.[10] In mid-2011, US Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan Marc Grossman, in a meeting with President Karzai, informed the president that Germany and Qatar had established direct contact with the Taliban and had held several meetings, and that now the Taliban wanted to meet with the United States to discuss peace. He asked for Karzai’s blessing to hold this meeting.

The next day, Karzai told the author (who at the times was head of the Joint Secretariat for the High Peace Council) that the United States was now interested in the peace process. The president said that the Afghan government’s position was to allow the United States to hold one preliminary meeting with the Taliban, but a second meeting should be with the Afghan government’s High Peace Council as well as the United States and the Taliban.

This initial contact focused on the release of US Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl, explored possibilities for political negotiation, and discussed confidence-building measures, including prisoner exchanges and the possibility of the Taliban renouncing terrorism, and opening an office in Qatar.

During the second Bonn International Conference on Afghanistan in December 2011, both Grossman and Germany’s special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Michael Steiner, sought Karzai’s agreement to conditions for the opening of an office for the Taliban that could be announced at the conference and would make big headlines. After consulting with his senior advisors and officials, Karzai rejected the proposal. He wanted time for more consultation with political leaders, and he was concerned that direct talks between the United States and the Taliban might produce a secret deal that would gradually sideline the Afghan government.

In 2013, the Taliban, Qatar, and the United States, with the consent of the Afghan government, finally agreed on terms and strict conditions to open an office for the Taliban. The office would be called “a Taliban political office” and not “the political office of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,” and there was to be no flag on the building. It was agreed that once the office was opened, a meeting between the United States and the Taliban would take place on the same or the next day followed by a meeting between the Afghan government and the Taliban. According to the former head of the Political Commission of the Taliban, Tayeb Agha, “this sequencing [first, the office opening, and then the start of formal talks] was approved by the Taliban’s former leader, Mullah Omar, and talks with the Afghan government were part of the plan.”

Unfortunately, a mistake by Qatar meant that, at the opening, the Taliban flag was flying and a signboard outside the office proclaimed it to be the office of “the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,” which provoked an immediate and angry reaction from Karzai and many other Afghan political figures. The office was quickly closed by the Qatar authorities in cooperation with the US team.[11] The dramatic opening and closing may have been a technical mistake, but it intensified mistrust and misunderstanding and impeded the start of peace negotiations. A real opportunity for formal peace talks was lost and the meetings planned did not happen. Although the office was officially closed, the Taliban were allowed to use the building as their office and address.

 

The Third Window of Opportunity, 2014–15

When the security transition to the ANDSF was completed at the end of 2014, US and international forces formally transitioned to a train, advise, and assist role, and roughly 13,000 international forces remained in Afghanistan. Under the plan Obama announced at the White House, the United States decided to gradually withdraw troops until only a small residual force would remain after 2016, depending on the situation on the ground.

 A timetable for the withdrawal of all remaining international forces was announced and around 32 senior members of the Taliban (including five who were released from Guantanamo Bay) and their families were provided safe passage and relocated to Qatar. Yet, while the Taliban’s demands were thus met, neither the Taliban nor Pakistan (which also demanded the withdrawal of foreign troops as a condition for cooperating in the peace process) reduced violence, which could have accelerated the withdrawal and brought an early end to the war. Instead, the Taliban—and, behind the scenes, Pakistan—continued to attack civilians, the ANDSF, and international forces in Afghanistan and many Taliban were also killed. Those concessions mentioned above could have been used as leverage to bring the Taliban into direct talks with the Afghan government and the United States for a political settlement, instead of being announced as a fait accompli by the United States.

The withdrawal of the bulk of international forces from Afghanistan also coincided with the presidential election in 2014. Karzai was not able to stand for a third term as per the Afghan constitution and there was a close race between Ghani and Abdullah. Although Ghani was announced as the winner of the election, Abdullah did not accept the results. After months of mutual accusations of fraud, of uncertainty, and of negotiations (which included a push to reconcile their differences from US Secretary of State John Kerry), they agreed on the formation of the National Unity Government, which featured a newly created position for Abdullah as chief executive of the government. This was a very weak and shaky coalition. The day after Ghani and Abdullah were sworn into office, the Bilateral Security Agreement was signed. This was interpreted negatively by the Taliban and Pakistan, Russia, China and Iran, which perceived it as contradicting the plan for withdrawal.

On November 14, 2014, Afghanistan’s newly elected president, Ashraf Ghani, visited Pakistan. During this trip, he visited the Pakistan Army General Headquarters, where he met with Chief of Army Staff General Raheel Sharif, seeking to open a new chapter in the relationship between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Ghani hoped to accelerate reconciliation with the Taliban and improve political, economic, and military relations between the two countries. His decision to visit the army’s headquarters received a negative reaction from the Afghan public and politicians, but he believed that tough decisions were needed to overcome repeated vicious cycles of violence.

By now, however, both Pakistan and the Taliban knew that the United States was leaving Afghanistan and the timetable for doing so was already announced; thus they saw no need to respond to Ghani’s reconciliation overture despite concerns they raised about the Bilateral Security Agreement. In Afghanistan, there was infighting between the factions within the National Unity Government, and all indications suggested that Pakistan would not shift from supporting the Taliban to supporting a legitimate but weak and divided Afghan government. Instead, Pakistan increased its support to the Taliban, enabling them to launch more complex attacks (involving a combination of car bombs and small arms fire) on major cities and on Afghan army bases, seeking to accelerate the withdrawal of the remaining international forces.

During this period, four key problems surfaced. First, Pakistan and the Taliban changed their strategies, aiming to achieve more concessions (such as a firm commitment to withdraw) in their negotiations with the United States, while refusing to talk directly with the Afghan government. The Taliban’s aim was to put themselves at the center of talks with the United States and sideline the Republic, following the US. Second, Pakistan started a military operation in South and North Waziristan, which borders Afghanistan, against terrorist groups, but mainly to push those groups fighting against US and Afghan forces into Afghanistan to increase pressure on Afghan security forces. This operation pushed a number of terrorist groups, including the Afghan Taliban and al-Qaeda, that had been previously based in Pakistan’s tribal areas to cross over and position themselves inside Afghanistan. Third, the ANDSF was stretched thinly across the country, securing military bases vacated by international forces. This left the ANDSF with limited ability to take an offensive approach to head off the growing challenges. Ongoing pressure from the Taliban, supply issues, and difficulty accessing medical evacuation further stressed the forces. Fourth, the disputed election that brought Ghani and Abdullah as equal partners to power deepened the divides within Afghanistan’s political elites.

 

The Fourth Window of Opportunity, 2018–21

In August 2017, President Donald Trump announced a new US strategy in Afghanistan (the South Asia Strategy), which involved Afghanistan within the context of the wider region (India and Pakistan). The South Asia Strategy included taking a tougher approach on Pakistan for its support of the Taliban and for promoting violence in Afghanistan. This “conditions-based” approach led to some military successes for the ANDSF, with enabling support from US forces, and major losses for the Taliban. The strategy envisioned that the United States would continue to maintain an advisory group, a small Special Forces contingent, and some combat air power, if conditions on the ground made it necessary to retain a residual US presence. This position was consistent with the terms of the US-Afghanistan Strategic Partnership Agreement concluded in 2012 and the Bilateral Security Agreement of 2014. Obviously, at the time, the United States was not opposed to withdrawing its forces within the context of a possible peace settlement between the Republic and the Taliban.  

On the Afghan government side, Ghani also initiated peace efforts. In 2017 the Afghan government started the “Kabul Process,” which aimed to mobilize support for an Afghan vision for peace and security and to seek the commitment of regional partners and key stakeholders for cooperation. The first meeting was held in Kabul on June 6, 2017, and focused on security cooperation. In 2018, political efforts to end the war and open the path for durable peace received renewed attention. On February 28, 2018, during the second conference of the Kabul Process, President Ghani announced a new offer to the Taliban to promote peace. His offer had five main components:

• • Recognizing the Taliban as a political party
  • Granting amnesty for Taliban fighters and releasing prisoners
  • Ending sanctions
  • Issuing passports to Taliban leaders to enable them to travel after the end of the sanctions
  • Opening an office for the Taliban in Kabul

Ghani’s aim was to send a clear message to the Taliban and Afghanistan’s neighbors that the Republic was making a genuine attempt to end violence in Afghanistan before the remaining international forces left the country and to prevent another cycle of violence.

The Taliban did not respond to Ghani’s offer immediately, but just over three months later, under pressure from the public and religious leaders, they did agree to observe a ceasefire that Ghani had called for during the three-day religious holiday of Eid in June. The ceasefire held, thereby generating some hope for peace. However, the Taliban’s leadership did not agree to extend the ceasefire for three months, as Ghani proposed, fearing that they would lose control over their fighters. During the three days of the ceasefire, the Taliban fighters for the first time interacted with the Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police peacefully and celebrated together. Pictures and moving stories circulated in the social media showing how much the Afghan people, even the fighters, desired peace. Taliban leaders feared that if they extended the ceasefire for three months, it would be difficult to order their fighters back into action.

By this time, President Trump had lost faith in his own strategy, and appeared anxious to fulfill his campaign promise of getting the United States out of the war. In April 2018 there was an unofficial, exploratory meeting between US and Taliban representatives in Doha, and in July that year, US senior officials re-started direct engagement with the Taliban. According to a Taliban official who participated in the meetings, the leader of the US team attempted to persuade the Taliban to include the Afghan government in the talks, but the Taliban resisted and the United States was impatient.

According to Lisa Curtis, who was then senior director for South and Central Asia on the US National Security Council, “when the White House made the decision in July 2018 to pursue direct talks with the Taliban to jumpstart more comprehensive peace efforts, the intention was to quickly bring the Afghan government into the peace process and at that time it was not envisaged that the United States would sign a deal with the Taliban.”^[12] The intention was genuine but in practice the opposite happened.

A major step in the Trump administration’s move toward negotiations with the Taliban was the appointment in September 2018 of Zalmay Khalilzad, former US ambassador to Afghanistan and an Afghan American, as US Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation. Khalilzad was charged with advancing reconciliation between the Afghan government and the Taliban. Negotiations between Khalilzad and the Taliban, without any Afghan government representation, formally started in October 2018 in Doha. After each round of talks, Khalilzad visited Kabul and first met with President Ghani and his core team in the presence of the first vice president. This small meeting was followed by a large group meeting that took the form of a question-and-answer session, usually over a dinner hosted by the president. Khalilzad’s responses were typically very general, leaving people unsure what had really occurred in the latest round of US-Taliban negotiations. Khalilzad usually stressed two points: first, the United States was withdrawing its troops and Khalilzad was trying to find a solution to protect Afghanistan’s interests. Second, the United States was determined to hold the Taliban accountable and had a variety of ways to do so.

In the days following his meetings with President Ghani, Khalilzad would meet with former president Karzai and his team and sometimes with members of civil society, including women’s groups. Khalilzad would also meet with Dr. Abdullah (initially, when he was CEO of the National Unity Government and, later, when he chaired the High Council for National Reconciliation) and members of his team. These separate meetings were perceived by different people differently and became the source of rumors, especially after the hotly disputed election of September 28, 2019, plunged the Republic into a political crisis from which it did not emerge until Abdullah and president Ghani struck a power-sharing deal the following spring.

In September 2019, just before the election, the author was present in two or three higher-level meetings where some important issues and the draft US-Taliban agreement were discussed. In the meetings, Khalilzad was usually accompanied by the US ambassador to Afghanistan, John Bass, and the commander of US and coalition forces, General Scott Miller. During those meetings, the Afghan government raised concerns about the terms of the draft agreement and sought amendments on a range of issues:

• The lack of concrete commitments from the Taliban in return for full withdrawal of US troops. The Taliban had a concrete commitment to the US on CT and established a joint mechanism for coordination and implementation.
• The fact that timeframes did not allow enough time for the Republic and the Taliban to reach a political settlement and ceasefire or for Afghan security forces to fill the security gaps that would be left without US and coalition troops and contractors.
• The acceptance of the Taliban’s demand that an exchange of prisoners, who were in the custody of the Republic, not the United States, be a precondition of talks, thereby effectively removing a critical source of leverage for the Republic in its future talks with the Taliban.
• The fact that the draft did not mention the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan but mentioned the Emirate several times in each part undermined the republic's legitimacy.
• The Afghan government was unhappy with the draft’s use of the term “Intra-Afghan Negotiation” to describe future negotiations between the Taliban and the Republic, because it effectively reduced the status of the Afghan government to a group of divided factions and elevated the status of the Taliban to a de facto government.
• The predictably negative consequences of using the term “future Islamic government” without specifying any core principles and rights the government should respect.
• The inclusion of a provision stating that the Taliban would not issue passports and permits to terrorist groups, but implying that the Taliban could issue regular visas and passports. The Republic team called for the removal of this provision, which gave the impression that the Taliban were the future government.

The US team was also repeatedly asked to clarify the US position regarding contradictions between the draft US-Taliban agreement, the Bilateral Security Agreement, and the Strategic Partnership Agreement and to state clearly which agreement would have precedence over the other. The US team did not provide a clear response to this question and instead ignored the issue.

Khalilzad noted that he had briefed President Ghani and Dr. Abdullah in detail but the fact is that such consultation had little impact on the outcome. When the United States and the Taliban signed the Doha Agreement on February 29, 2020, and the text was made public, it came as an unpleasant surprise for many who had been involved in the consultation process. The final document did not reflect any of the points the Afghan government raised.

As the Republic team had pointed out, the agreement timelines were unrealistic, which led to implementation problems from the start. There were three major preconditions before the Intra-Afghan Negotiation could start: the formation of an inclusive government negotiating team, the formation of the High Council for National Reconciliation (HCNR), and the release of 5,000 Taliban prisoners. In return, there was no precondition on behalf of the republic and Afghan people for a ceasefire.

The prisoner exchange became a major source of tension between the United States, the Afghan government, and the Taliban. The Taliban wanted to name the 5,000 prisoners to be released, but legal issues and the concerns of other countries made it extremely difficult to release some of the prisoners on the Taliban list.

Another critical failure of the Doha Agreement was that it did not specify a timeline for a ceasefire or spell out what conditions had to be met in order for the intra-Afghan talks to succeed. During the US-Taliban talks, the Afghan government and all political and social groups with the Republic took a united position that stressed a ceasefire as a top priority and declared that if the Taliban respected a ceasefire, they would support the Doha Agreement because it would have attained a commitment from the Taliban for peace. However, instead of requiring a complete and enduring ceasefire, the United States and the Taliban merely agreed that seven days of significant reduction of violence should be observed after the agreement was signed. The US negotiating team had assured the Afghan government that the Taliban would not attack district centers and provincial capitals, but the Taliban continued their attacks.

Civil society groups, human rights activists, and women were extremely worried about the Doha Agreement. It made no mention of women’s rights and human rights, which had long been part of international declarations issued at the end of nearly all international conferences on Afghanistan.

The signing of the agreement fed a growing apprehension among not only civil society but also the ANDSF and even members of the government that the government—and, indeed, the Republic—was doomed. The Taliban evidently did not want to negotiate with Ghani, and Ghani—and the Americans—had little to no leverage to compel the Taliban to do so.

From the second half of 2018 until August 2021, there were regular, dramatic policy changes that made it impossible for the Afghan government to prepare adequately for an orderly withdrawal and prevent the collapse of the Republic. For example, the United States signaled to the Afghan side that it would lower the number of troops to 8,600, then to 5,600, then to 4,500, and then to 2,500, until it finally shifted to an unconditional withdrawal. To take another example, the United States repeatedly assured the Afghan government privately and publicly that four key elements of the Doha Agreement (the withdrawal of international forces, the Taliban’s counter-terrorism assurances, negotiations among Afghans on the country’s political future, and a permanent and comprehensive ceasefire) were conditional to progress in each area, but eventually, when the United States later announced the unconditional withdrawal of foreign forces by September 2021, in practice the agreement was put aside.

2020 was marked by frequent announcements about the number of US troops who would remain in Afghanistan, but there was no public discussion of the Republic’s legitimate concerns about weaknesses in the agreement that would undermine the government’s position and leave the Republic acutely vulnerable to a Taliban onslaught. The Strategic Partnership Agreement (SPA) and the Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA) that the United States had previously signed with the Afghan government were also undermined. For example, according to the BSA, the US forces’ mission was to “enhance the ability of Afghanistan to deter internal and external threats against its sovereignty,” and, in the case of external aggression, Washington and Kabul would work together to develop “an appropriate response,” including considering political, military, and economic measures. But the Doha Agreement did not mention these previous agreements or US commitments to the security of the Afghan state contained therein.

The start of intra-Afghan negotiations was delayed for some time due to the impractical deadlines set by the US-Taliban agreement. These deadlines included meeting preconditions such as the President Ghani administration’s release of 5,000 Taliban detainees and the formation of an inclusive Afghan government negotiating team. The negotiations finally began on September 12, 2020. The immediate problem faced was the lack of prior agreement on the basic principles and structure of negotiations in the absence of an agreed-upon facilitator or mediator. Mistrust was very high, and both sides represented two very different worldviews about the country’s future.

It took approximately three months for the two teams to agree on basic principles for organizing themselves and negotiating respectfully toward a political settlement and lasting ceasefire. The Taliban’s stance was that the Doha Agreement should be the only basis for negotiations and that, in a future Afghan state, the Hanafi fiqh (one of the four major Sunni schools of Islamic law) should be the sole method for resolving disputes while disregarding Jafari jurisprudence (part of Shia Islam). More broadly, the Taliban appeared to feel that they were on the path to regaining power; therefore, they wanted to buy time.

After the first month of negotiation, the Afghan government team realized that the Taliban were more focused on their discussion with the US civil-military team on the implementation of the timeline for the withdrawal of foreign troops and on a reduction of violence that was not specific or measurable. The Taliban were less interested in seeing progress in intra-Afghan negotiations for a political settlement.^[13] At the same time, the Afghan government was also not ready to make any bold move, fearing the government and its security forces would disintegrate before reaching a ceasefire. Yet the Taliban were not ready to agree to a ceasefire and continued to push their military campaign.

The negotiation process after November 2020 was significantly influenced by the US presidential election. The government and the Taliban held different expectations and concerns regarding the US election outcome and, once the election was decided, the Afghanistan policy review undertaken by the incoming Biden administration. During this period, the Taliban often employed various excuses to avoid engaging in the intra-Afghan negotiations. No regular sessions occurred between 5 January 2021 and 10 March 2021. For the second time, after 14 April 2021 until June 8, 2021, the Taliban returned to the negotiation table under pressure from Pakistan, the United States, and Qatar.

In April 2021, the United States declared that its forces would withdraw completely and unconditionally in September. Despite extensive diplomatic efforts by the United States and the Afghan government at national, regional, and international levels to accelerate the peace process, despite these diplomatic efforts and pressure, limited ongoing talks between the government and Taliban teams did not result in any breakthroughs.  

The Afghan government sent a high-level delegation led by Dr. Abdullah, chair of the HCNR, to engage with the Taliban's top officials in Doha during June and August. Several rounds of discussions were held in the presence of international and regional representatives, but no significant progress was made. The Taliban declined to participate in some of these meetings and made no commitments during the ones they did attend. They were refusing to engage in any discussions about power-sharing arrangements.

The main differences between the two sides concerned the type of political system Afghanistan should have, power sharing, the formation of an inclusive government, constitutional order, human rights, and the rights of women and religious minorities. The Taliban wanted to discuss the constitution first and use the constitution of 1964 as the base for the review, while the Afghan government prioritized power sharing and suggested that both issues (the constitution and power sharing) could be discussed in two separate committees due to the pressure of time. The Taliban, however, refused to reach a compromise and no substantive discussion was held on these critical questions.

During this time, both sides had to demonstrate their military prowess on the battlefield. Initially, the Afghan security forces showed strength despite facing significant pressure and sustaining casualties. However, as they lost air and logistical support and the US contractors began to evacuate, military units began to disintegrate at an accelerated pace under weak military leadership.

This situation highlighted a reversal in the amount of attention the US and NATO gave to military and political efforts. During the start of the US intervention, the military received most of the attention, with less emphasis devoted to finding a political solution. However, in the end, the opposite occurred: more attention was given to finding a political solution, while the Afghan military received insufficient attention to prevent its complete collapse. Furthermore, the Taliban’s supporters increased diplomatic and military aid to the Taliban.

Negotiations were extremely difficult because of the Taliban's advantage, established by the Doha Agreement, and because of internal divisions that weakened the Afghan government both politically and militarily. President Ghani and Chairman Abdullah agreed on general principles, but their negotiating styles differed significantly. Moreover, many opposition leaders were focused on obtaining their share of power in any transition process, and some even called for the president’s resignation, influenced by the Taliban's narrative to make progress in the peace talks. For his part, Ghani declared he would not consider resigning until the Taliban either joined the government through a Jirga or agreed to a ceasefire. This loss of internal cohesion made it challenging for the Republic to negotiate effectively.

 

Obstacles to the Peace Process

To achieve lasting peace and stability in Afghanistan, it is crucial to end violence and interference from neighboring countries. This can only be achieved by reaching a national, regional, and international consensus on the necessary conditions for a stable Afghanistan. However, conflicting interests and incentives among various Afghan and international actors have hindered the attainment of such consensus.

 

Divisions among Afghanistan’s Ruling Elites

The divisions and mistrust among Afghan ruling elites intensified during the conflict and was a major factor contributing to the repeated failure to achieve a political settlement. Five factors explain this divisiveness.

The first factor was Afghanistan’s legacy of decades of repeated cycles of violence, foreign intervention, and regime changes, which destroyed or weakened institutions and created a generation of divided wartime leaders. These leaders had separate power bases and militias that undermined the rule of law and the state’s monopoly over the use of force. They survived through a combination of securing support from foreign actors; using government positions as leverage to access resources; and mobilizing communities along ethnic, linguistic, or religious lines for personal interests. While the leaders competed with one another for power and resources, the Afghan people suffered from violence, poverty, and injustice, because none of the governments that came to power could provide adequate security, employment, and justice. This legacy was a major impediment to peace and the implementation of the rule of law during the life of the Republic.

A second factor was the impact of presidential elections, especially the elections in 2014 and 2019. Their outcomes were disputed by the rival candidates, thereby exacerbating existing divisions among the political elites, amplifying ethnic and tribal differences, and further weakening the government and political system.

The elections led to the establishment by the end of 2014 of a National Unity Government, but rather than repair the fractures caused by the elections, this government brought together two leaders who proved unable to work well together. On many significant issues, such as foreign policy and development, the two leaders, President Ghani and Dr. Abdullah, held common views. However, they did not like each other’s style of leadership and management. They had deep differences on appointments to senior government positions, on the delegation of authority, on protocols, and so on.

Ghani had great difficulty dealing with influential and divided political elites, and with those inspired by the narrative of growing extremist ideology. The pace of change he sought to achieve was resisted by these groups and was, moreover, beyond the absorption capacity of a nation at war. As a result, some of his reforms backfired. For example, the appointment of young and inexperienced men and women in senior civil and military positions created opportunities for the Taliban to spread negative propaganda when these youthful appointees proved unable to balance modernization with existing social norms, especially at provincial levels. Ghani’s championing of generational change should have been done more gradually and carefully.

Abdullah had more experience dealing with political elites and mujahedeen commanders. If he and Ghani could have put their egos aside, they might have been able to complement each other and steer the country toward safety at a moment when international withdrawal was on the horizon and difficult decisions regarding peace and war needed to be made.

The third major factor after the US-Taliban negotiations began in 2018 was a loss of confidence and growing fear within civil society and among ANDSF personnel, members of the parliament, and some members of the government. The opposition political elites reached the conclusion that the government would not last for long; they also heard from various regional and international actors that the Taliban did not want to negotiate with the government or the president. This encouraged them to more actively oppose Ghani and his administration.

The fourth factor was the spread of destabilizing rumors after each round of negotiation between the United States and the Taliban. Rumors circulated about the formation of a transitional government and names of potential candidates to head the transitional arrangement. Many political figures were competing for positions in such an arrangement and some opposition leaders pushed for the early resignation of the president.

These rumors were intended by the Taliban and their interlocutors at that stage to put pressure on the government and key political figures to weaken their resistance to making more concessions and to persuade them to agree to the outcome of the US-Taliban discussions. But this tactic backfired: the transitional arrangement was a major source of confusion and fear of disintegration for Ghani and the government leadership.

As uncertainty grew about how long President Ghani’s administration would survive, political figures and their representatives rushed to Dubai, Pakistan, and Qatar, competing to be heard at any conference where the Taliban were present. They sought to establish contact and secure a role in the transitional arrangement. During this time, the Taliban were also reaching out to individuals, making promises to them.

For example, out of frustration at the naiveté of the opposition leaders, Dr. Abdullah spoke to the media in February 2019, a day before a delegation of representatives of nearly all Afghan political groups went to Moscow for discussions with the Taliban. He said:

The result of our division is clear, the Taliban Emirate will be imposed on us, and we will all fail, including me and the government system, if we do not take a united position in relation to peace. We must fix this. Some think and believe that anything that will weaken the government is acceptable, because of their anxiety about the leadership. This is a mistake and every one of us will be a loser.[14]

Abdullah also said, “The Taliban believe that after the withdrawal of foreign forces, they will not need to negotiate, and they will return by force.”[15]

A fifth factor that contributed to divisions within the Afghan political class was inaccurate information about the security situation and mixed messages about US intentions. In the last one and half years before the collapse, President Ghani received misleading information about security and the capability of Afghan security forces from the leadership of the Afghan security institutions, leading Ghani to think they could hold on even if international forces left the country. Similar misinformation was prevalent in the US system, misleading the decision-makers in Washington.[16]

Republic leaders also received divergent messages from various senior US civilian and military officials about whether US support for the ANDSF would continue. The confusion created by these mixed messages was reflected in the different views held by the Republic’s leaders. Ghani believed that if US support were to continue, the Taliban would not be able to take over militarily. Abdullah believed that without wider political support to mobilize people behind the Afghan security forces, the ANDSF would disintegrate in the event of full US troop withdrawal. Former President Karzai believed that the United States would not fully withdraw and that it had already made deals with Pakistan and the Taliban. In general, both President Ghani and Dr. Abdullah hoped that the US forces would make some adjustment to their policy and would not leave before a political settlement was reached—and that a small number of US forces might remain to help the ANDSF (as the US CENTCOM Commander suggested at that time in his assessment to the US leadership).[17]

                                                            *          *          *

Despite these fractures within the political elites, by 2019 a consensus emerged among government and opposition leaders, as well as civil society and women’s groups, on a number of common principles for making peace with the Taliban:

• The Taliban could join the government through a power-sharing arrangement.
•  The constitutional order should not be disrupted until agreement was reached with the Taliban on amendments to the constitution.
• Guarantees should be secured regarding the continuation of elections (to ensure political participation) and respect for human rights, freedom of speech, and the rights of women to work and receive education.
• The achievements of the past two decades should be preserved.
• The Taliban should cut ties with other terrorist groups and foreign rogue state and nonstate actors, and the Taliban fighters should reintegrate into society.

There were, however, three main areas of disagreement on which the political elites were divided. First, some political leaders opposed holding an election before a peace deal was reached. This group included Karzai, who believed that peace should be made the top priority, that conditions were not suitable for an election, and that Ghani should continue as president until an agreement with the Taliban had been reached. Ghani’s view was that an election must take place in the near future, because without a popular mandate he would have no legitimacy to continue and move the peace process forward.

Second, before and even after the 2019 election, political leaders who were highly critical of Ghani were lobbying for the establishment of an Interim Peace Government (IPG) to lead negotiations with the Taliban and accelerate the process of reaching a political settlement. They did not think about the practical consequences of this idea. In the first place, the Taliban were not ready to participate in such a government. Second, there was no mechanism by which such a government could legitimately replace the existing government. Third, it was unclear who would lead an interim government. Accordance to the constitution, should the president resign, he would be replaced by his first vice president; Amrullah Saleh held that position (after the 2019 election), and neither the political leaders nor the Taliban wanted him to lead the government. But some political leaders focused on how quickly Ghani could be removed from power regardless of what that move might bring.

Third, Ghani regarded peacemaking and peacebuilding as lengthy processes and thus believed he needed more time. In November 2018, at the Geneva conference on Afghanistan, he presented a five-phase Peace Plan, which would need at least five years to be implemented.[18] The timeline of this plan raised concerns among political circles and some members of the international community, including the United States. They perceived the plan as an attempt by the president to complete his second term in office before transferring power.

President Ghani believed that peace agreements should be owned by citizens, not by political elites. Until the last day of the Republic, he was not willing to transfer power to a body formed by a political deal with no mandate from the people delivered via an election or Loya Jirga.

 

The Taliban’s Refusal to Compromise

While the Afghan government lacked unity and the Republic’s different political factions were focused on their own goals, the Taliban were apparently united in seeing negotiations as a means of securing victory on their own terms by buying time for the withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan, not as an opportunity for compromise to achieve durable peace.

After the Taliban reorganized in the wake of their toppling from power and launched an insurgency, they were pushed by supporters—such as ISI, like-minded extremist groups, and regional countries who saw the US presence in Afghanistan as a threat to their interests—to unwaveringly conduct a jihad until all foreign forces were forced to leave Afghanistan. During the initial stage of engagement with the United States the key interim outcomes the Taliban sought were opening an office, being removed from the sanctions list, exchanging prisoners, not being labeled as a terrorist group, and being able to negotiate with the Americans before talking to the Afghan government. The Taliban wanted to secure freedom of movement while continuing their jihad to expel foreign forces.

The Taliban argued that there was no guarantee that foreign forces would leave Afghanistan if the Taliban negotiated with the Afghan government rather than the United States. This argument was politically savvy, justifying to the public why the Taliban was not talking with the Afghan government and bringing the Taliban to the center of the political game while sidelining the Afghan government.

The Taliban and their Pakistani supporters used the term “intra-Afghan negotiations” to describe the talks that would follow a US-Taliban deal. The United States simply agreed to use this term in the Doha Agreement, without analyzing its consequences, which were, as noted above, to severely undermine the legitimacy of the Afghan government and to elevate the status of the Taliban to a de facto government.

Each side, but the Taliban especially, wanted peace on its own terms, without considering the will of the people, leaving very limited space for a compromise where negotiators from both sides could make progress. After talks with the Afghan government finally began, it became obvious that the Taliban were not ready to make any compromise and saw the Doha Agreement as a guarantee of their return to power. For example, in March 2021, the US envoy Khalilzad shared a draft power-sharing proposal with both sides. The Taliban rejected it without even reviewing it. In contrast, the Afghan government, the HCNR, and the negotiating team did thoroughly review the proposal and—with some amendments—were ready to negotiate the proposed draft. The negotiating team also proposed that the two sides put their ideas on paper for power sharing and then discuss them. But the Taliban were not ready to talk about power-sharing arrangements.

Meanwhile, in March 2021, the US secretary of state told Ghani and Abdullah that he had asked Turkey to organize and host a high-level conference involving both the Afghan government and the Taliban in hopes of reaching a peace agreement Turkey offered to host the meeting and it was decided that the meeting should be cochaired by Turkey, the United Nations, and the government of Qatar. Despite robust diplomatic efforts, however, the Taliban refused to participate in the Istanbul Conference, and so yet another chance for a political settlement was lost.

 

 

 

Sidelining the Afghan Government

From 2010, when the United States established contact with the Taliban, there was continuous fear within the Afghan government that it might be sidelined from talks. This fear was shared by the Afghan political elites, civil society, and women. President Karzai was highly suspicious and distrustful of the US approach; President Ghani was also suspicious, but he trusted the United States until the last day before he left Afghanistan. Ghani did not speak publicly about US pressure on the Afghan government to agree with the US approach of negotiating directly with the Taliban, in the absence of the Afghan government, or about US pressure to implement the preconditions of the Doha Agreement. In retrospect, this silence was unwise, because it did not help to deter the United States from sidelining Ghani’s government.

Afghan concerns significantly increased after direct talks began between the United States and the Taliban in October 2018. The Afghan government expected that an Afghan negotiation team in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) would participate in the second round of the talks; US officials had invited the Afghan team. According to UAE officials, however, the US team had not discussed this with the Taliban, and thus the Taliban refused to meet with the Republic team, who returned home humiliated. The US envoy claimed that “we tried our best [to persuade the Taliban to let the Republic team participate], but they claimed, since the team was not inclusive, the Taliban rejected to sit with them.”[19] This, however, was an excuse for sidelining the government, and the United States continued direct talks with the Taliban until they signed the Doha Agreement.

The United States could have paused the talks with the Taliban until the Taliban agreed to direct talks with both the Afghan government and the United States at the same time. At this stage, the whole burden of the fight was being shouldered by the Afghan security forces; the presence of US forces had been significantly reduced, US casualties were down to nearly zero, and the cost of war to the United States had fallen from its peak in 2011–12 of around $100 billion per year to around $38 billion in 2018-19.[20] There was thus no pressing reason or public pressure—aside from political considerations of the US political leadership—for the United States to withdraw in haste and without the Afghan government and the Taliban reaching a political settlement.

The Afghan government rightly pushed to avoid being sidelined but failed because of the rush for withdrawal. The Taliban used the US impatience and indifference as an excuse not to engage with the Afghan government negotiating team until the Taliban reached an agreement with the United States. Sidelining the Afghan government was a major reason why Afghanistan failed to achieve a durable peace.

Shifting US Policies toward Afghanistan

This chapter has devoted considerable attention to the US role in Afghanistan and the failure to reach a political settlement. Such attention is warranted, of course, both because the United States was the main sponsor and backer of the post-2001 state in Afghanistan, and because it first obstructed windows of opportunity to work with the Republic to negotiate peace with Taliban and then ignored the Republic while it negotiated by itself a deal with the Taliban that resulted in the withdrawal of US forces and the collapse of the Republic.

There is no need here to repeat each of the points made above and throughout this chapter about the obstacles the United States placed sometimes inadvertently, sometimes deliberately in the path of a political settlement. Suffice it here to note that the US shifted from focusing on counterterrorism to contemplating a political solution, and that in 2014 the United States initially signaled, and then in 2018 made abundantly clear, that it wanted to end its long war in Afghanistan while leaving the country as a stable state that would not again become a source of terrorist attacks against US interests. The Trump administration wished to attain this objective by reaching and implementing a peace agreement with the Taliban. This agreement would include a tenable political settlement between the Taliban and the Afghan government. Unfortunately, Washington did not adequately address the practical question of how to achieve this goal. Initial signs of a policy shift appeared after the United States began to put aside its South Asia Strategy in 2018, and then toward the end of 2020 and beginning of 2021, US policy shifted again, and in practice, if not by design, the United States sought to extricate its troops without the appropriate conditions on the ground—such as an Afghan political settlement—to preserve US security equities in the region. Taken as a whole, US policies toward Afghanistan were short-term, shaped by misunderstandings of the changing ambitions and capabilities of the Taliban and Pakistan, and reactive to the gradually deteriorating security situation rather than proactively preventing negative trends from developing.

Regional and International Competition and Rivalries

Afghanistan’s location and history have made it an axis around which its neighbors interact and a playground for regional actors and global powers.[21] The United States, Russia, China, Iran, Turkey, India, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Central Asian and Gulf countries all compete with one another for geopolitical or geoeconomic influence, leading to the formation of complex linkages between regional security and economic interests.[22]

In the first half dozen years after 9/11, the positions of the United States, NATO, the European Union, Russia, Iran, and India regarding the Taliban were consistent. They were all opposed to any engagement with the Taliban, which they regarded as a terrorist group, and did not support the removal of sanctions against its leaders. However, this unity dissolved as global dynamics evolved.

From 2013 on, as tensions with the United States grew, Iran and Russia, former foes of the Taliban, began to become their partial friends. After the Doha Agreement was signed, China shifted from providing only covert, minimal, and indirect support to the Taliban to becoming an overt Taliban sympathizer. Beijing carefully invested in its relationship with the Taliban, anticipating they would have an increasing role in the government. These efforts reflected a joint plan by China and Pakistan to hedge against growing US-India ties.  These shifting and competing positions and rivalries made it impossible to reach a regional consensus in support of the peace process. The Taliban took this as a sign that they were right to continue their military push rather than try to reach a negotiated political settlement.

 

The Impact of ISKP on Regional and Global Policies toward Afghanistan

In 2015, Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP) emerged as a branch of the Islamic State, an extreme radical group based in tribal areas in Pakistan. Established by a splinter group of Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), its appearance was a surprise, and many observers did not believe it posed a significant risk to Afghanistan or to the region.

The emergence of ISKP in 2015 was accompanied by propaganda and conspiracy theories (some propagated by Russia) that ISKP was supported by the United States and the United Kingdom through Saudi Arabia and Turkey. This perception among Afghans was strengthened when some members of the Afghan parliament, without any evidence, accused the United States and NATO of providing ISKP with airlifts to other locations and resupply.[23] Beginning in 2017, US forces intensified their campaign against ISKP, and by the end of 2019 and beginning of 2020, ISKP was defeated, largely by a local uprising supported by the Afghan government with US air support. ISKP has regrouped since the collapse of the Republic.)

However, beginning in 2015, Russia, Iran, China, and the Central Asian states started to believe the conspiracy theory that the West was supporting ISKP. Russia, China, and Iran concluded for themselves that ISKP was a much more serious security threat to them than the Taliban and that they should therefore support the Taliban in its fight against ISKP and other radical groups from Central Asia and China, such as the IMU, East Turkistan Islamic Movement, etc.

This regional policy shift, influenced by propaganda and irresponsible statements by self-interested Afghan politicians, enabled the Taliban to access more resources and enhance their political status, which further weakened any incentive the Taliban may have had to compromise at the negotiation table.

Pakistan’s Policies toward Afghanistan

Like the United States, Pakistan had substantial influence over the conditions of war and peace in Afghanistan during the life of the Republic. That influence long predated the ouster of the Taliban in 2001 and seems certain to continue after their return to power in 2021. Pakistan’s foreign policy toward Afghanistan has always reflected the mistrust and hostility between the two countries that has existed since Pakistan became independent in 1947.[24] First and foremost, Pakistan sees Afghanistan through the lens of Pakistan’s enmity toward India.[25]

Pakistan wants a weak Afghanistan, subject to minimal Indian influence, and ruled by a friendly government over which Pakistan has influence and which can bring the lawless tribal areas along the Durand Line under control. Pakistan wants to avoid being squeezed between India and a stable and strong Afghanistan that is friendlier to India than to Pakistan. This explains why Pakistan did not support US and NATO forces in Afghanistan, whose presence exacerbated Pakistan’s worries regarding the security of its nuclear assets especially after US SEALs raided an al-Qaeda compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, and killed Osama bin Laden in 2011. Pakistan’s highest national security priority is strengthening its defense capabilities against India; everything else is subordinate to that imperative.

For its part, India’s regional strategy seeks, among other goals, to influence Afghanistan and to help India maintain dominance over Pakistan in South Asia.[26] The result of the dueling policies of India and Pakistan is continued violence and instability in Afghanistan.

Following the departure of Soviet forces in 1989, Pakistan’s ISI sought to prevent any Afghan government from imposing order and building stability throughout the country.[27] In a 2014 speech to a militant group, the former ISI chief Hamid Gul said, “history will remember that with the help of US and Saudi we defeated the Soviet Union, and now with US money we will defeat the US and force them to leave Afghanistan.”[28] I believe that the extremist groups supported by Pakistan as a means to advance their national security interests will ultimately become a significant challenge to Pakistan's own security. The Pakistani military believed that it was not in Pakistan’s interest to participate in US efforts to hold peace talks with the Taliban. Pakistan feared that the United States’ goal was to establish a permanent presence in Afghanistan, which Pakistan thought would strengthen its rivals, Afghanistan and India. ’Pakistan also discouraged the Taliban from negotiating directly with the Afghan government and encouraged them to talk with various Afghan factions to keep the Afghan government weak and fractured.

In high-level meetings between Afghan and Pakistani leaders in 2010 and April 2011, Pakistan’s prime minister, Yusuf Raza Gilani, outlined Pakistan’s demands for a strategic agreement.[29] Pakistan wanted Afghanistan to not sign the Strategic Partnership Agreement with the United States and to stop Indian influence growing in the east and southwest of Afghanistan, where India had diplomatic missions. With India already providing training to a large number of Afghan cadets, Pakistan suggested it was ready to offer training to the Afghan Army as a first step toward building trust. In return for supporting peace efforts in Afghanistan, Pakistan also wanted Pakistani investors to be given preference for investment in Afghanistan’s mineral resources or at least to be able to invest jointly with China.

Pakistan often made excuses for not cooperating in peace efforts. For example, on July 7, 2015, Pakistan hosted a meeting between the Afghan government’s High Peace Council delegation and Taliban representatives in the city of Murree.[30] The United States and China attended this meeting as observers. It was a tense meeting that ended with a decision to meet again after Ramadan. The next meeting never happened because of internal differences among the Taliban and because information was leaked to intelligence services confirming that Mullah Omar had died two years earlier from an illness, which was used as an excuse not to proceed. Throughout these years, it seemed likely that elements within the Pakistani establishment were creating disruptive incidents every time there was a positive step, pushing the peace process backward.

The relationship between Afghanistan and Pakistan will only contribute to stability when Pakistan changes its policy of “strategic depth,” which seeks to influence Afghanistan by acting through proxies and extremist groups. But Pakistan is still wedded to that policy, even though it has complexified the problem of violent extremism not only for Afghanistan but also for Pakistan itself, and today they suffer because of the backlash of their own policy, which resulted in the spread of violence by Tahrek Taliban Pakistan (TTP).

The Collapse of the Afghan Republic

There were many reasons for the rapid collapse of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, but the five most important in terms of accelerating that breakdown are the following.

• The hasty, complete, and unconditional withdrawal of US forces despite the absence of a political settlement weakened the self-confidence of the ANDSF and emboldened the Taliban fighters. President Joe Biden’s April 2021 announcement of a full troop withdrawal by September 2021 had no conditions requiring reaching a political settlement. Despite a too-rushed diplomatic surge in which US officials proposed ideas for a transitional government and fast-tracked peace talks in Istanbul that spring, the Taliban refused to go to Istanbul or discuss a proposal for political settlement. If such a surge in support of a political settlement had been pursued in 2011 or 2018, it might have made progress,

• The stage for the sudden US withdrawal had, of course, been set by the Doha Agreement, negotiated under the Trump administration. The agreement contained no specific or time-bound commitments from the Taliban to seek a political settlement or ceasefire. The US withdrawal was conditioned only on the Taliban’s implementation of counterterrorism commitments, not on specific steps toward a political resolution of the conflict. Sidelining the Afghan government eroded public trust in the government and motivated Afghan communities to shift sides or stop supporting the government.

• The continuation of insecurity and proxies (of the Taliban and some neighboring countries) operating in the border regions of Afghanistan together with persistent divisions within the political elites and a heavy dependency on foreign support, caused a deficit of legitimacy for the government and had a profound and negative psychological impact on ANDSF. Meanwhile, high-level corruption within the Afghan government persisted, and top leaders were unable to build consensus among political and military leaders on how to manage the looming crises. This situation was exacerbated by mixed messages from the United States: despite the evident desire of both Republican and Democratic administrations in Washington to exit Afghanistan, these mixed messages encouraged some Afghan leaders to hope that the United States might not fully withdraw its troops until a political settlement was agreed during intra-Afghan negotiations. Such hopes led some leaders to fail to recognize the seriousness and immediacy of the threat to the Republic’s existence.

• Both the United States and the Afghan government suffered from an imbalance between politics and the use of the military. Ideally, the military will provide the security space for politics to succeed and politics will guide the military to operate effectively and purposefully. But the military and politics were seldom in harmony. In the early years of the Republic, attention was focused tightly on a military solution in the absence of a political roadmap. Toward the Republic’s end, efforts were focused on finding a political solution, but military shortcomings precipitated the collapse of the Republic before political leaders could negotiate peace.
• The competing interests of regional players and the double-game played by Pakistan and some others. These powerful actors all recognized the Republic and the Afghan government as a legitimate political system, but at the same time (and for varying reasons) they actively supported armed resistance to that government as a de facto reality.

 

Lessons to Be Learned

The failures of peace efforts in Afghanistan offer no fewer than ten key lessons for policymakers, practitioners, and students of peace, not only in the United States and Afghanistan but also in any post or in conflict country directly or indirectly involved in negotiating and implementing durable peace settlements.

 

• During peace talks, it is vital to identify and capitalize on small windows of opportunity as they present themselves. When both the Afghan government and the Taliban agreed to negotiate the constitution and power-sharing, it would have been beneficial for both sides to show greater flexibility, but each insisted on its own position. Whereas the Taliban wanted to discuss the constitution first and use the constitution of 1964 as the base for the review, the Afghan government prioritized power sharing. Potentially constructive suggestions from the government team—namely, that the constitution and power sharing could be discussed in two separate committees due to the pressure of time, and that the sides agree on the formation of a commission to review the current and past constitutions—were not seized. In the final stage, the Taliban declined to reach a compromise, even with the possibility of securing concessions; all they wanted from the Republic was that it would hand over power to them. In 2020 and 2021, the Republic faced limited options and lost ground on the battlefield, making it difficult to dissuade the Taliban from pursuing their military objectives and to reach a mutually beneficial agreement on power sharing.

 

• Local ownership and leadership of the peace process are important for success. The Afghan government relied too heavily on the United States who controlled the main issues, which led to the government making late or bad decisions. Peace cannot be sustained if it is driven solely by the interests of outside powers or warring sides. It must consider the needs and aspirations of the people where the conflict is being fought. Key decisions in relation to war and peace in Afghanistan were made, not in the country, but in Washington and Islamabad, the capitals of the two main supporters of the warring sides.
• All key parties to a conflict should be part of any peace process to prevent repeated cycles of violence. The exclusion of the Taliban from the Bonn process and the exclusion of the Afghan government from the Doha talks were strategic policy failures. In 2001, when there was broad regional and international consensus on a stable Afghanistan, including the Taliban in the political process might have prevented a repeated cycle of conflict. Later, the Doha talks could have succeeded if: the Afghan government was included in the negotiations that led to the Doha Agreement; the US and the Afghan government had taken measures to prevent the disintegration of Afghan security forces; Afghan political leaders had acted with unity; and the Taliban had shown flexibility.
• Partnership relies on full consultation during decision making. The Doha Agreement imposed a decision on the Afghan government, and in doing so, undermined full cooperation between the United States and the Afghan government in addition to its impact on cooperation between the United States and the Taliban during its implementation. The poorly structured agreement imposed severe concessions on a party that was excluded from the process of negotiating the agreement, without providing any Taliban commitments in return setting the stage for failure. This resulted in tensions, mistrust, confusion, and delays. For example, the United States could have consulted with President Ghani and CEO Dr. Abdullah before making the decision on unconditional withdrawal.  Instead, the US invitation for them to come to Washington after the decision was announced left no room for flexibility at the last stage before the collapse.  The Doha Agreement brought the Taliban forward as a central player and pushed the Afghan government to the side. The Republic entered intra-Afghan negotiations from a weak position.
• Unless all sides in a peace process are prepared to make compromises, the process is unlikely to lead to peace. In Afghanistan, each side wanted peace on its own terms, and although the Afghan government and the United States were prepared to accede to some Taliban demands, the Taliban refused to show any significant flexibility and compromise.
• A credible facilitator or mediator of a peace process can be vital to its success. The lack of a facilitator or mediator impeded the progress of intra-Afghan negotiations. A facilitator was not agreed upon until too late in the process; no side wanted a facilitator until talks faced deadlocks, by which time the United States had announced unconditional withdrawal. In a complex conflict involving multiple national and international parties, an experienced, well-supported facilitator can bring the different actors to the table. A trusted mediator can help parties to find a middle ground and avoid being distracted by false accusations and blame games.
• The coordination of international and regional efforts in support of a peace process is crucial and should be agreed upon before talks start. In a complex situation such as Afghanistan, a coordinator should be selected before the talks begin. Unfortunately, this did not happen in Afghanistan. The involvement of a credible organization such as the United Nations could have helped to mobilize broader support for negotiations, deter spoilers, generate more trust and confidence among the parties to the conflict, and prevent countries competing with one another to be part of or lead a coordination mechanism. Such competition was rife in the case of Afghanistan. For instance, Saudi Arabia and the UAE did not want Qatar to take the lead role in hosting peace talks; and Pakistan, Iran, China, Russia, and Uzbekistan each wanted to host intra-Afghan talks.
• Many believe that international military intervention is not a good idea; however, the chances of success for peace are often highest at the early stages of an international intervention, so early opportunities to make peace should be seized. Therefore, peace could have been achieved by putting in place the combination of appropriate pragmatic political and military policies for ending the war, not for the continuation of the war. This could be done by paying attention to reconciliation and political process at the same level of military efforts. The US-led intervention in 2001 was the first intervention in the history of Afghanistan that was welcomed by its people, who saw the United States as rescuing the country from deep crises and continuous conflict.[31] Until 2005, people were very hopeful that the war would end permanently and Afghanistan would become a stable country.[32] At that stage, however, the United States was focused on its counterterrorism priorities and paid scant attention to reconciliation and reaching a political settlement. Over time, as the level of violence increased, mistakes were made in the war on terror, corruption worsened, and poor governance continued, the Afghan government and the United States lost the trust of the Afghan people, which made a political settlement yet harder to achieve.
• Peace has many enemies; spoilers must be carefully managed. Hopes for reaching a peaceful political settlement in Afghanistan had to contend with spoilers both outside the country and within. Afghanistan is a weak country surrounded by stronger neighbors; it has been at peace when its neighbors perceive a common interest in a peaceful Afghanistan but at war when one or more of its neighbors believe their interests will be served by violent conflict.[33] After an early phase of comparative unity among regional actors regarding the Republic, the region became fractured and needed better management of those actors who were playing the role of spoilers behind the scene. The most notable of these was Pakistan, yet the double-game it was playing in the war on terror was ignored by the United States and other countries. When intra-Afghan negotiations started in 2020, the Taliban sought to exacerbate existing divides by using targeted assassinations and other forms of violence. The spoilers’ motivations varied, but all feared that an emerging peace would in some way threaten their political or economic power. The spoilers included criminals who profited from insecurity and chaos; terrorist networks that sought to demoralize the population; and even parties to the negotiation who wanted to shift the odds to their favor and believed violence would strengthen their hand at the negotiating table.[34]

The chances of limiting the actions and impact of spoilers is higher when the level of violence within a country as a whole is relatively low. This underlines the wisdom of reaching out to one’s opponent to reconcile with them in the initial stages when violence is at a relatively low level, rather than waiting until violence is out of control. The repeated collapse of successive regimes in Afghanistan testifies to the consequence of failing to heed this lesson.

• Abrupt changes in policies and positions can make peace much harder to achieve. Both the US and Afghan governments changed their policies and positions regarding peace. They were unable to agree on a common platform, timeframe, and roadmap for withdrawal and political settlement to prevent the crises that unfolded in 2021. From 2018 on, the United States made several contradictory announcements about troop levels, there was disagreement on timelines, and the peace plan presented by the Afghan president in Geneva differed significantly from the timeframe and withdrawal and peace agreement signed between the United States and the Taliban. This lack of coordination and these changes in policies contributed to confusion among the Taliban, regional countries, Afghan political leaders, the ANDSF, and ordinary Afghans. This confusion on the part of the Republic also contributed to a lack of adequate preparedness for alternative scenarios in the case of failure of negotiation.

 

The Continuing Struggle for Durable Peace

Although Afghanistan, with the help of the United States and its allies, made significant political, social, and economic progress after the intervention of 2001, that progress was fragile and could not be sustained in the absence of a political settlement, denied it the time and the national stability and resources it needed to take root. The Afghan peace process was a victim of the divergent policies and positions of the United States and the Afghan government; of a range of miscalculations, strategic errors, and false assumptions by the Afghan government and the United States; and of a lack of commitment on the part of the Taliban, the US and to some extend the Afghan government to durable peace and a political settlement. During negotiations between the Taliban and the United States in 2020 before the signing of the Doha Agreement, the Taliban envoy reportedly said that “if the US pledged to withdraw, the Taliban would stop attacking US and allied NATO forces, but the Taliban’s war to overthrow Ghani’s government would continue.”[35] Peace was also the victim of Pakistan’s double game, combined with conflicting policies of regional countries toward Afghanistan.

Today, the Taliban are repeating their past mistakes: seeking a victor’s peace and failing to establish an inclusive system of governance. Nevertheless, it may still be possible to reach a political settlement involving the Taliban, opposition groups, and the Afghan people if the Taliban implement the commitments they signed up to in the Doha Agreement and respect the rights of all citizens, including women. A simple but realistic step forward for the Taliban could be to develop a political roadmap. Its detail would be agreed upon through dialogue conducted among Afghans representing different sectors of the wider Afghan society and opposition groups, facilitated by the United Nations, and supported by regional countries and global powers. Such a dialogue must take place soon, however. After three to four years of Taliban rule, it will be late for dialogue to be productive amid hardening Taliban policies, and Afghanistan will descend into a deeper crisis, making peace and normalcy even more difficult to achieve.

There is no military solution to the conflict in Afghanistan that will deliver an enduring peace. Afghans should agree on a political system that is widely supported and functional if their country is to avoid repeated regime changes. Asserting and respecting the rights of citizens and constitutional order are fundamental to achieving the goal of a stable Afghanistan.

The international community, especially the United States, should not repeat the mistakes of the 1990s and turn its back on Afghanistan. Afghanistan will be stabilized when regional countries Pakistan, Iran, China, Russia, the Central Asia states, and India constructively engage with an Afghan government that has internal legitimacy conferred by the people’s vote and support. If there is no legitimate government and no constructive engagement by neighboring states and the international community the consequences will be extremely dangerous and will contribute to the expansion of ungoverned space used by terrorist groups to destabilize the region and beyond.

I personally apologize to the people of Afghanistan that the negotiating team of which I was a member did not succeed in bringing peace. The negotiating team did what we could; we were not prepared to make a deal against the wishes of the Afghan people and that would undermine their basic rights. Signing a surrender would have given legitimacy to the Taliban’s numerous acts of violence. I am sure Afghanistan will survive, and we must continue our struggle to achieve durable peace for our people.

 

Notes