Bumpy Road Ahead as Trump Rejoices Over US-Taliban Deal
K. Venkateshwar Rao
3 MARCH 2020
3 MARCH 2020
The recent US-Taliban
deal might have given President Donald Trump a reason to rejoice, but Afghan
President Ashraf Ghani’s rejection of the Taliban prisoner release clause in
the US deal and Afghan women’s disappointment at the return of the Taliban to
power cast a large shadow over the deal.
Afghan
President Ghani: US is ‘Only a Facilitator’
Ghani remarked: “is
not in the authority of the United States to decide, they are only a
facilitator” a day after the deal was signed in Qatar, Doha. US Secretary of
State Mike Pompeo observed that “talks between the Afghan government and
Taliban groups will be “rocky and bumpy, but for the first time the
conversation will be among the Afghan people.”
All these indicate
that a topsy-turvy road is ahead for the deal. The Taliban wants the release of
their 5,000 prisoners before they start negotiations, while the Afghan
government wants to use those detainees as a bargaining chip to persuade the
Taliban for a full ceasefire.
As per the agreement,
Washington will reduce the number of its troops in Afghanistan to 8,600 from
13,000 within 135 days of signing. Provided the Taliban stick to their security
guarantees and ceasefire, the US will also work with allies to proportionally
reduce the number of coalition forces in Afghanistan over that time. More than
2,400 US troops have been killed during the conflict since the US invasion in
2001.
Afghan
Women: Caught Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea
Women across
strife-torn Afghanistan fear that the deal could deteriorate their already
tenuous situation in the country. Women are nervous about losing their hard-won
freedom in the pursuit of peace. They want peace, but not if the Taliban
returns. A Taliban comeback will affect women’s right to freedom, work, and
independence.
In Kabul, social
activist Zahra Husseini told AFP, “I don’t trust the Taliban, they suppressed women when they
were ruling.” Zahra termed the deal signing ceremony as a dark day, “I had this
bad feeling that it would result in Taliban return to power rather than in
peace.”
It is worth mentioning
that the Taliban ruled for around five years with an iron fist starting in 1996
until the US invasion in 2001. During their rule, women were prevented from
seeking education or work, and women were virtual prisoners living under a
strict version of Islamic Sharia law.
The Taliban’s fall
transformed women’s lives, particularly in urban areas, like Kabul, more so
than in traditional rural Afghanistan. Women are anxious to see an end to the
violence but are fearful of paying a heavy price.
Trump’s
Hopes vs. the Likely Outcome
Trump’s desperation to
get out of Afghanistan before the 2020 Presidential elections might adversely
impact peace and prosperity in Afghanistan. The US-Taliban deal might be as
controversial as Trump’s Israel-Palestine deal and prove to be merely an
exercise to consolidate Trump’s vote bank in the US presidential election at
the expense of real foresight and strategy.
Trump is hopeful that
the Middle-East proposal and the Taliban deal will present a rosy picture of
his skills as a statesman, however, regardless of the objective of the deal, it
comes with huge risks. The intra-Afghan negotiations will be much more
challenging than anticipated, especially more than the Western perspective
understands. There has to be reconciliation between democratic modern
Afghanistan that has been created since 2001 and the Taliban’s vision of an
“Islamic Emirate”.
No doubt the priority
for ordinary Afghans is an end to violence. The coming warmer spring
weather — which is usually the fighting period — will show the world
whether peace and tranquility will prevail in Afghanistan or not. Bumpy Road Ahead as Trump Rejoices Over US-Taliban Deal
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