THE TALIBAN DEMONSTRATES ITS OWN CONTEMPT FOR OBAMA: DAVOOD MORADIAN
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324637504578565352740739148.html
Taliban Guns Send a Message About Obama’s Peace Process
Last week, the U.S. cheered the opening of a Taliban office in Qatar. On Monday, their fighters attacked in Kabul.
While much of the world is focused on the indignities being heaped on the United States by Russia, China and Ecuador in the fugitive Edward Snowden affair, the Taliban on Monday demonstrated their own contempt for the Obama administration.
Last week, U.S. officials celebrated what they regarded as a diplomatic breakthrough. They had persuaded the Taliban to open a political office in Doha, Qatar—and now America hopes it has the peace-negotiating partners the Obama administration covets as the U.S. plans its escape from Afghanistan. On Monday, the Taliban attacked the presidential compound in Kabul. The daylight gunbattle left at least eight Taliban and three guards dead.
The Afghan government—and the majority of Afghans—were not happy about the Doha news. The Taliban had immediately begun flying its flag and posting signs declaring the office as an outpost of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. President Karzai announced that he would not join peace negotiations with killers who had been so legitimized by the U.S., and he suspended talks with the U.S. about a long-term security arrangement.
The Taliban didn’t take long to prove his point. Or to expose Washington as a receding and tired presence in Afghanistan, desperate to leave.
But despair and confusion cannot bring enduring peace, or even an honorable exit. Now, with the U.S. endorsement of the Taliban office in Doha, the credibility and authority of the Afghan state has been undermined. The Doha debacle also represents the dismantling of an unwritten compact that Afghans thought they had with America: In return for Washington’s support for Afghanistan’s independence, sovereignty and constitutional order, the U.S. would enjoy all privileges of a strategic partnership in a dangerous part of the world, including cooperation on counterterrorism.
America’s eagerness to flee Afghanistan has left its civil society feeling betrayed. Natural allies of the U.S.—including the Afghan independent media, women’s rights activists, the private sector, Afghan youth and the Taliban’s political opponents—have been cut adrift. The U.S. gave the Taliban a prime propaganda victory in Doha and came away with nothing in exchange. The moment was more akin to appeasement than a peace process. Washington has brought about the worst of both worlds: its adversary’s sense of triumph and its friends’ sense of betrayal.
Last May, the U.S. and Afghanistan signed a Strategic Partnership Agreement that was meant to cement mutual respect and shared interests. There was a truly national consensus in Afghanistan in support of the agreement, endorsed by the parliament and a specially convened Loya Jirga (assembly). This year, the U.S. was hoping to secure a Bilateral Security Agreement defining the long-term military partnership between the two countries, including residual U.S. Special Operations Forces and air bases. The security agreement has now been endangered by the Obama administration’s engagement with the Taliban.
Washington’s zeal for the Taliban has revived some old questions and stirred news ones. Why has the U.S. refused to designate the Taliban as a terrorist organization since 1994? What was gained by allowing the Taliban to fly its Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan flag in Doha? That symbolic move, in addition to insulting Afghan sovereignty, also sent a degrading message to the millions who have been the victims of Taliban brutality. The Taliban are despised by the vast majority of the Afghan people, according to all known opinion surveys. Why would the U.S. wish to impose Pakistan’s jihadist proxy upon the Afghan people?
Westerners engaged in peace efforts are often hampered by a deficient understanding of Afghanistan. A vivid example was an incident in 2010 when British intelligence mistook a simple shopkeeper for a senior Taliban interlocutor. Such ignorance is taken full advantage of by skilled players who have mastered the game of manipulating Westerners.
Peace is not a process to be determined and completed by the sort of deadlines and benchmarks that the Obama administration seems to prefer. Knowledge, skill, vision and perseverance are required. For the U.S., it is easy to understand how economic stress, war-weariness and mounting tensions in the Middle East make it harder to remain engaged with Afghanistan. Quick solutions are tempting. But as Iraq’s sorrowful story has shown the world, a rush for the exits can have terrible human, economic and political costs.
President Karzai’s administration is exhausted. It does not have the necessary political and institutional energy to spend on the peace process in the 10 months remaining before the election of a new president. A year from now, Afghanistan will have a new president with a stronger mandate and abundant energy to give to a peace process.
That should be the focus for Afghanistan and its allies until the April election: ensuring that a credible election brings a legitimate leader to power. Then, when peace negotiations begin in earnest, the protection of Afghan sovereignty and constitutional integrity is essential. A peace that is “Made in Pakistan,” promoted by London, sold by Washington and financed by Qatar is doomed to fail.
The U.S. has made enormous sacrifices and investments in helping Afghans to build a peaceful and dignified life. Afghanistan is transforming at all levels, despite continuing challenges, with Afghans now ready to take charge of their own destiny. A “cheap peace” should not be allowed to negate these precious achievements. It will stain America’s reputation, and undermine regional stability for another generation.
Mr. Moradian is the director-general of the Afghan Institute for Strategic Studies. He is the former chief of programs in President Karzai’s office and chief policy adviser to Afghanistan’s ministry of foreign affairs.
A version of this article appeared June 26, 2013, on page A17 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Taliban Guns Send a Message About Obama’s Peace Process.
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