Newspaper Article 29/08/2018
Ronald Reagan once said, “Peace is not absence of conflict, it is the ability to handle the conflict by peaceful means.” Afghanistan peace process, in a similar manner, has failed to offer an olive branch to the Taliban. Recent Afghan Talibans’ assault on Ghazni city has added fuel to the fire to the Afghan conflict inside Afghanistan and US strategy circles. Most of the Afghanistan’s territory is either debated or under the control of the Taliban. However, it would be the first occasion when Taliban controlled one in the 17-year-old United States (US)-driven Afghan war. Given the nearness of Ghazni to Kabul and its association with the capital city to Kandahar in the south, the Afghan security forces, in a joint effort with US troops, may prevail in the end. Yet, the Taliban hostile has just underlined the requirement for a more dire discourse process among the warring sides in Afghanistan.
In a conflict as arduous as that in Afghanistan, even a slight beam of peace can excite colossal concerns. President Ashraf Ghani’s tranquility offer has done that recently. The contention in Afghanistan in the course of recent decades has been virulent to the point that any peace design gets caught in domestic and regional competitions. The general population of Afghanistan has not enjoyed peace since long.
Afghanistan is described by low level of modernization and improvement, there is adequate chronicled prove that Kabul government has been inadequate in practicing power in a country with godforsaken piece of land. Legislative issues and power in Afghanistan are firmly impacted by the nation’s ethnic complexities. Accordingly, the profound ethno-semantic divisions and the decentralized nature of the Afghan society give helpful fault lines that can be misused. Indeed, even after the ouster of the Taliban in 2001, a major issue has been the disappointment of the Afghan government organizations to convey effective governance and socio-political improvement to numerous parts of Afghanistan.
Additionally, there are scores of geopolitical complexities with grievous ramifications. The US, in the present setting, has just served to legitimize the actions of guerillas and jihadists crosswise over Afghanistan. A large portion of the gatherings are slanted to raise battles in the expectation of convincing their adversaries to come to more appropriate terms. In this manner, Mr. Ghani’s request to the different groups required to consider finishing the war in Afghanistan, rather than winning it, doesn’t appear to cut ice under current conditions.
Another imperative measurement is the yearly generation of somewhere in the range of 29,000 tons of opium in Afghanistan. The opium exchange creates benefits for the Taliban, warlords, and criminals; in this way, there are personal stakes in delaying peace process in Afghanistan. Drugs exchange is assessed to fund around 60 percent of the Taliban’s aggregate yearly spending plan. An ongoing American air battle devastating more than 70 of the Taliban’s opiates research centers is said to have fetched the Taliban US$42 million. The airstrikes might not have wiped out Afghanistan’s gigantic drugs exchange, but rather it will unquestionably “have a 4 immediate tactical impact.” However, sedate cash is not the Taliban’s sole subsidizing source; they additionally activate accounts from expanded sources including blackmails, “protecting tax” from Afghan telecom organizations, and clandestine help from states manageable to their system. As far back as US President Donald Trump’s August 2017 declaration of “New Afghan Policy”— fixated on forcing Pakistan to make more serious move against fear mongers—the US has guaranteed putting more military weight on the Taliban to bring it to the negotiating table with the Kabul government. Inside this structure, the Trump organization reported the suspension of some US$2 billion in help to Pakistan. The US administration propagates that the said aid will be suspended until Islamabad makes definitive move against the Taliban and the Haqqani group. It seems as the support of US military nearness in Afghanistan by a couple of thousand troops is not adequate to end the progressing rebellion.
Even after broad US military training, the Afghan security powers keep on being tormented by genuine operational issues that have empowered the Taliban to challenge the greater part of Afghan locale. The Taliban-drove rebellion remains a deadly power, drawing sustenance from an assortment of sources in Afghanistan, continually endeavouring to blend with against government components and criminal systems. It presently controls more area than at some other time after 2001.
The Afghan clash is multi-dimensional, including Afghan, territorial and worldwide actors. Because of its innate unpredictability, no single on-screen character holds the way to settling the emergency. Accordingly, any peace procedure in Afghanistan will be time taking and troublesome, and there will be a lot of space for suspicion that the procedure will flounder. The fact remains that no side is going to win the war and the only alternative to continuing bloodshed and instability is to make way for the peace process.
Note: Article originally published in Daily Times on August 21, 2018.
Disclaimer: Views expressed are of the writer and are not necessarily reflective of IPRI policy.
