By
Mushtaq Ul Haq Ahmad Sikander, New Age Islam
9 August
2021
Taliban
and the Future of Afghanistan
Main
Points:
1. U.S tried
every tactic to annihilate the Taliban but after more than a decade of
relentless war against them, Taliban has survived.
2. The main
theme that has been emphasized by all authors is the inevitability of
negotiations for ending the war in Afghanistan and impediments in carrying out
the negotiations.
3. Afghans need
to introspect and first of all initiate an Intra Afghan Dialogue and
Negotiation process that will lead to reconciliation among various factions.
----
The
Afghan Dilemma: Taliban and the United States
Edited
by Abdulaziz Alhies
Qatar,The
Forum for Arab and International Relations, 2014,
Pp
159. ISBN: 9789927103094
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Afghanistan
has been described as the graveyard of Empires by various historians. The
resilience and resistance depicted by Afghans in face of occupation by various
powers has been tremendous. The first human casualty of 9/11 attacks was
Afghanistan, its natives and the regime led by Taliban. Since last one decade
U.S troops have been occupying Afghanistan, the dislodged Taliban are out power
but not shunted out as stakeholders of Afghan future. U.S tried every tactic to
annihilate the Taliban but after more than a decade of relentless war against
them, Taliban has survived. Now U.S has been coerced to accept Taliban as a
party to the conflict and chalk out a future course taking them onboard.
The present
book under review is a collection of nine papers written by various scholars
and policy makers who are also keen observers of Afghan Affairs and politics.
The relationship between Taliban and United States is the theme to which all
the authors have tried to respond. In his Introduction to the collection,
editor Abdulaziz Alhies depicts the need about Taliban to be more pragmatic,
“Taliban needs to change its triumphalist thinking and to stop viewing the
impending withdrawal of NATO and ISAF forces as a vindication of its
isolationist discourse and regressive policies, towards other Afghan groups in
particular and the political world at large” (P-13). Further he describes the
competition between Qatar and Saudi Arabia to play part in negotiations with
Taliban.
John Feffer
in his paper titled, “US Policy toward the Taliban after the 2012 Elections”
emphasizes the need for changing war strategy to peace strategy. The need to
have real negotiations instead of staging them that end up in photo sessions
with no real change on ground. He further depicts the need to have intra afghan
dialogue because Afghan society is not a monolith, but cautions the U.S and
other powers not to meddle with internal Afghan problems.
Hashmattollah
Moslih paper, “War and Peace in Afghanistan: A Tajik view” is one of the best
papers of the book that describes the niceties of the Afghan politics. Moslih
laments the wrong portrayal of Afghanistan due to lack of knowledge about its
internal dynamics, “Governments, for political reasons, have tried to portray a
culturally homogenous and politically united image of the country; the truth is
far from it. Afghanistan is neither culturally homogeneous nor politically
united, in fact, it is a mosaic of cultures, ethnicities and tribes, and above
all, it is a country of minorities. There is no single ethnic or tribal
majority. Lack of appreciation of this fact, by various governments and
political parties, means that for much of its modern history, Afghanistan has
been in political turmoil. Successive governments have tried to engineer a
false reality of Afghanistan. Failure is the result. In short, the war in
Afghanistan centers on identity. Different ethnic and religious groups, tribes
and political denominations, have tried to build an Afghanistan in their image,
which has often been at the expense of others” (P-77). He is dissatisfied with
surmises about future of Tajiks and Afghanistan, “The evidence suggests that
while the Taliban are being cleansed from Al Qaida, the Afghan government is
purging itself from the top Northern Alliance leaders and commanders that once
constituted the backbone of the resistance against the Pakistani backed
Taliban. If this trend continues, a Washington friendly, Pakistani backed,
Pushtun controlled Afghanistan will be born on top of the ashes of all the
Northern Alliance mujahidin who fought for equality and justice for all
ethnicities and tribes under the banner of Islam. If this occurs, Islam will be
reduced to the length of men’s beards and extended to length of women’s chador”
(P-92).
“Challenges
in the Afghan Peace Process: Insights from the Irish Experience” is the title
of Michael Semple’s paper, that draws a comparison between Afghan and Irish
conflict. Qatar as mediator for Afghan conflict and partition of Afghanistan
for its resources is taken up in another paper. The unmanned drones as killer
machines have been used extensively in Afghanistan. The use of drones that have
been defining war in Afghanistan is the title of Livia Nassius and Mark Levine’s
paper “Targeted Killings and the Temptation of Drone Technology: A Strategic
and Political Debacle”. Drone has been the new face of modern war.
Hussain
Haqqani as a Pakistani diplomat is not optimistic of better U.S-Pakistan
relations in future as is evident from his paper, “Breaking up is not hard to
do: Why the US-Pakistan Alliance isn’t worth the Trouble”. He depicts the
military and economic relations between U.S and Pakistan, its prospects and
pitfalls. He further describes the uneasy relationship of Afghans and Pakistan
and the role of U.S in the same.
The main
theme that has been emphasized by all authors is the inevitability of
negotiations for ending the war in Afghanistan and impediments in carrying out
the negotiations. United States since long has ignored the real stakeholders in
Afghan affairs and failed to hold negotiations with each major section and
ethnicity of the Afghan society. This incumbency has resulted in fractured and
breakdown of negotiations and peace process. Now with the role of U.S
diminishing in the Afghan affairs, the Afghans need to introspect and first of
all initiate an Intra Afghan Dialogue and Negotiation process that will lead to
reconciliation among various factions. Similarly the negotiations for power and
governance should result in equal representation of all stakeholders, otherwise
the result can be horrific civil war as witnessed previously from 1990-1996
when USSR left Afghanistan.
The book is
an important contribution about the present state of Afghan affairs and helps
one understand the need, dilemma, dichotomy and even shortcomings of
negotiations as a tool of conflict resolution.
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M.H.A.
Sikander is Writer-Activist based in Srinagar, Kashmir
New Age Islam, Islam Online, Islamic Website, African Muslim News, Arab World News, South Asia News, Indian Muslim News, World Muslim News, Women in Islam, Islamic Feminism, Arab Women, Women In Arab, Islamophobia in America, Muslim Women in West, Islam Women and Feminism