Price of Delay

There seems to be no immediate prospect of reviving the stalled Doha process that was launched in June with the aim of finding a negotiated end to the twelve-year-old Afghan war. This has added uncertainty to an already fraught situation and raised doubts about the stability of post-2014 Afghanistan. By now a peace process should have been in place to provide the crucial underpinning for a smooth transition in December 2014, when Nato’s combat mission ends in Afghanistan. But this has yet to happen.

The trajectory of developments before and after the June 18 diplomatic fiasco in Qatar is well known. The opening of a Taliban office in Doha was intended to kick off an Afghan peace process. Instead it sparked a diplomatic row. President Karzai announced a boycott of the Doha process in protest over the Taliban’s use of the ‘Islamic Emirates’ sign and flag, accusing Qatar of violating understandings and the US of duplicity. He also suspended talks with Washington on the Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA) aimed at a post-2014 US military presence in Afghanistan.

As a result Washington held back on direct talks it earlier envisaged with the Taliban. And the Taliban announced the (temporary) closure of the office. Although the diplomatic setback was widely ascribed to misunderstandings created by Qatar’s inability to manage what was to be a carefully choreographed affair, it handed Karzai the justification to halt the process. Having objected to a Taliban office on various grounds in the past two years, this time Karzai used the sign/flag issue to block further movement. The public display of rage and retributive actions suggested Karzai was less interested in resolving the issue than stalling the process.

For their part, the Taliban felt they had been hoodwinked into issuing a statement Washington had made a prerequisite for their office. Read out at the inauguration, this statement contained the undertaking that Afghanistan’s soil would not be used against other countries. Declaring this and then finding that the Doha process had been stopped in its tracks, Taliban leaders demurred over accepting terms spelt out to restart the process, deeming them as ‘humiliating’.

Meanwhile relations soured between Washington and Kabul and between Kabul and Islamabad. Kabul fired a volley of inflammatory statements accusing the US and Pakistan of ‘conspiring’ to cut a deal with the Taliban and sideline Karzai. The most egregious of these came last week from Karzai’s chief of staff, Abdel Karim Khurram, who characterised the Doha office as a “plot aimed at splitting or breaking up Afghanistan”. America’s envoy in Kabul, James Cunningham, responded by describing as “nonsense” the “allegation that the United States seeks to divide Afghanistan by giving a share to the Taliban.”

More importantly Washington seemed unable to overcome Karzai’s resistance to the Doha process. Karzai insisted that talks only take place between his High Peace Council and the Taliban and that too on terms that expected the Taliban to surrender rather than negotiate. Had the Doha process not been disrupted, it would have first led to talks between American and Taliban representatives, and then after some time, among Afghans themselves. It was left deliberately vague if this would have included nominees of an enlarged and more representative HPC.

These ‘size of the table’ issues could possibly have been resolved had Karzai not adopted the stance he did. The breakdown at Doha entailed a loss of face for Taliban leaders, weakening the position of those favouring negotiations vis a visvis-à-vis hardliners who see little value in talks with 2014 approaching.

The Doha episode produced understandable exasperation in Washington. So did Karzai’s petulant stance as reported during a video conversation between President Obama and Karzai on June 25. This urged the US to its default position of trying to get Karzai back in line. But Washington’s efforts shifted to raising the stakes with Kabul to secure the BSA rather than expending diplomatic capital to revive Doha. The security deal appeared to take priority over peace efforts, even though US officials insisted their talks offer to the Taliban remained on the table, subject to agreement on rules for the office.

That the BSA is now the Obama administration’s immediate concern is evident from the brinkmanship underway between Washington and Kabul. This was illustrated by a July 8 report in the New York Times, which stated that Obama was giving “serious consideration” to a “zero option” that would leave no US residual force in Afghanistan after 2014. A White House spokesman confirmed the option was under consideration. Ambassador James Dobbins told a Senate hearing: “Without an agreement on our presence in Afghanistan we would not remain”. But he did not believe that would be “the likely outcome of negotiations” with Kabul. Significantly he added that he did not expect peace talks to progress quickly.

Deployed as a bargaining tactic, the ‘zero-option’ evoked scepticism in Kabul. Government spokesmen dubbed this “a pressure tactic” and cast doubt on whether this was a serious possibility. Nevertheless, US diplomatic energies remain focused on reviving talks on the BSA – that are still suspended – to secure Karzai’s agreement. With Karzai linking his objection to the Doha process to the BSA, Washington’s strategy seems to be to first clinch the security deal, and then address the Taliban talks issue.

This raises an important question. What if Karzai plays this down to the wire and drags out the BSA negotiations so that chances fade for a revival of Doha as time wears on? Drawn into dealing with the linkage between these two issues and wanting Karzai to yield on BSA, does Washington not risk becoming hostage to machinations that might reduce the time and space for peace negotiations?

Whatever answer is found to these questions there is no mistaking the price of delay in getting a peace process going. Prolonged delay can unravel even the tentative understandings that paved the way for the Taliban office. And they can doom prospects for future negotiations. The closer the 2014 deadline gets the less incentive the Taliban have to negotiate, preferring to wait it out till US and Nato combat forces depart.

Some may see the month of Ramazan as affording breathing space to the various parties to review their respective positions. But Ramazan may be a lost opportunity rather than a useful pause. If peace efforts had got underway, the holy month could have been used to declare a Ramazan ceasefire, initially perhaps in some areas. A halt or reduction in mutual violence would have helped create conditions to build confidence and momentum and speed up peace talks. But the lack of serious diplomacy in this period means that the fighting season remains in full swing with both sides in the Afghan conflict engaged in violence – hardly a conducive backdrop to making peace.

Delay in commencing the peace process also has a crucial bearing on conditions in which the Afghan presidential election will be held in April 2014, now barely nine months away. Even if Karzai’s efforts to skew the process in favour of his choice are discounted, the election’s three tests of being free, fair and inclusive can best be met if the process is synchronised with progress in political reconciliation. In the absence of such movement, the danger looms of the election turning into a controversial affair. This could spark turmoil rather than stichstitch up a genuine, peaceful transition of power – essential for the safe completion of the 2014 military drawdown.

The most serious consequence of delay in launching sustained peace negotiations is the heightened risk of a chaotic outcome after 2014. This raises sharp security anxieties for Pakistan. While working to promote the best case scenario – political accommodation among Afghans – Islamabad also has to prepare for the worst. It should continue to press for expediting the peace process that can bring an end to fighting before 2014. But Islamabad also needs a political and security plan to protect itself from the fallout of any post-2014 descent into chaos in Afghanistan.

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