The prevailing strategically-critical situation of Afghanistan is a result of the nonexistence of synchronisation of the intra-Afghan peace process and the withdrawal of the US and NATO forces from the country. The incomprehensible haste in the withdrawal of US forces, putting aside the lessons learnt from sudden abandonment of Afghanistan in 90s, has brought in similar consequences; civil war leading to an influx of a fresh wave of refugees.
The rapidly deteriorating law and order situation in Afghanistan ushered in a blame game as well. The Afghan government first accused Pakistan, without putting forward any evidence, of providing support to Afghan Taliban—now the Kabul regime is accusing the US for the current predicament as well along with Pakistan. It would be entirely inapt and factually incorrect to put the blame of present imbroglio in Afghanistan on Pakistan due to the fact that after Afghanistan, Pakistan is the only country that has suffered the most during the last two decades from the impact of the Afghan cauldron. Pakistan is also being blamed for Afghan unrest by international media lobbies despite the fact that Islamabad has the most to lose if Afghanistan remains unstable.
The Afghan conflict reflects an internal power struggle like in the past during the civil war post-USSR withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989. Since 1979, one or more groups have been fighting among themselves for the quest of dominance. The undeniable irony of fate is that they fought among themselves when they were not fighting invaders.
The ineffectiveness of the Afghan peace process can be attributed to multiple reasons. The bulk of two decades of war was spent in fighting, ignoring Pakistan’s repeated advice for an all-inclusive political settlement; Afghan owned, Afghan led.
Matters were further compounded by widespread corruption. The Kabul regime embezzled much of the $100 billion of aid to the Afghan army and most of it was shifted to Dubai using Kabul Bank and direct flights with millions of dollars in cash. Soldiers were fighting the Taliban with no supplies and resources, while the Kabul elite was enjoying the luxuries in their Dubai villas. War has served as an enormously profitable enterprise for them and all this is well documented. Reportedly, Pamir Airways was used to smuggle cash in food trays to Dubai and one vice president, as per a leaked diplomatic cable, took $53 million in cash to Dubai; this shows the enormity of the theft at the cost of peace.
India has emerged as the biggest spoiler of peace efforts in Afghanistan. A stable Afghanistan will serve Pakistan’s core geoeconomic interests like railroad connectivity with CARs. This connectivity will extend CPEC to Central Asia and Pakistan will finally be able to exploit the full potential of the strategic Gwadar port.
The US gave Ashraf Ghani two years i.e 2019-20 to reach a peace deal with the Taliban. Nevertheless, since he was in a position of strength due to the presence of NATO forces, he continued to drag his feet and gambled on the premise that like always, the US will not actually leave. To his utter surprise, the remains of the US/NATO left on the ordained date.
One may continue to throw blame on the US, Pakistan, Iran, Soviets, or elsewhere, but this rhetoric doesn’t change the fact that the mess in Afghanistan is Afghan-led and Afghan-owned. Among other things, for example, no one forced Ghani to delay the prisoner exchange for six months. By now, the talks would have concluded and the deal would have taken some mutually acceptable shape. He gambled and the Afghans lost a close chance of peace.
Pakistan due to its religious, ethnic and social linkages with Afghanistan, is rightly concerned about the recently increased level of violence and chaos for obvious reasons. Nevertheless, Pakistan has no favourites, as very candidly expressed by its political as well as military leadership, repeatedly. It is totally and exclusively up to the Afghans to decide what path they want to tread. Peace in Afghanistan is a collective responsibility and hence the international community must continue to extend full support to Afghans, while remaining fully cognisant of spoilers of peace in Afghanistan.