Editorials in Pakistan dailies have taken stock of President Trump’s decision to call off talks with the Taliban for peace in Afghanistan. While one view was no deal is better than a bad deal, another view was that the American nightmare may not end without a peace deal with the Taliban.
The Express Tribune.
Originally intended to rid Afghanistan of militancy and terrorism, United States’ longest military nightmare may not end without a peace deal with the Taliban.Recently, the militant group claimed responsibility for an attack in Kabul that killed at least 10 Afghan civilians, a US service member, and a Romanian soldier. A surge in violence has been constant in the backdrop of the ongoing negotiations and it continues even as the US and Taliban negotiators almost struck a draft framework agreement.
The final round of talks had to be followed by a ‘secret’ meeting between the Taliban head honchos and US President Donald Trump, who once seemed anxious to fulfill his campaign promise by securing the Afghan exit deal before kicking off his reelection bid.Now both Washington and Kabul seem to be using the surge in violence as an excuse to delay negotiations and want the Taliban to lay down arms. Even as both Trump and Ashraf Ghani would like to tell the world that the talks ended due to the recent attacks or surge in violence, the truth is that the final rounds of talks — and even the rare invitation to meet the president at Camp David, occurred during a period of intensified violence in Afghanistan.
Hence, boycotting the meeting or cancelling the negotiations makes little sense at a time when the two sides were close to announcing a final peace deal. After all, the attacks, as tragic as they are, were never meant to stop before a formal agreement. The recent Trump turnabout shows the president might just have been waiting for an ‘appropriate moment’ to walk away from the talks. Once desperate to leave Afghanistan, Trump also happens to be under pressure from conservatives at home and it seems Trump’s personal and political agenda may now be conflicting with those who can tilt the balance in Washington D.C.For now, all indications lead to one conclusion: America’s longest and most costly military engagement may not be over anytime soon, not until Washington decides to admit it wasted 18 years fighting a war that was never theirs to win.
Daily Times, Lahore
America’s decision to cancel talks with Afghan Taliban is shrouded in mystery, setting off a lot of speculation. On the face of it, US President Donald Trump has said this decision is a reaction to the recent attack on US forces in Afghanistan. In the same breath, he tried to play it down tweeting that one American and 11 others were killed in the incident. This tweet has generated more than the usual share of the controversy he stirs. The avowed purpose of these talks was to pull American troops out of Afghanistan and bring an end to this long war. This also happened to be an election promise of Trump’s. Efforts to achieve this goal picked up in 2017.The US also appointed Zalmay Khalilzad as its special representative for Afghan reconciliation. Khalilzad has seemingly made two mistakes that have the potential to scuttle the whole process.
First, he frequented capitals of all neighbours of Afghanistan including China, India and of course Pakistan in search of bringing Taliban to the table. But he deliberately missed out Iran, one of the most important players in Afghanistan.Second, with the help of Pakistan, he was able to start direct talks with Taliban but he picked Doha as the destination for most of the sessions. Only one session was held in UAE. He perhaps had forgotten that Pakistan and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia had recognised the government of Taliban in what surely was the darkest era for Afghanistan. However hard Pakistan may have tried, this process was destined to be doomed until and unless the KSA was involved in it.
During over 10 reported and many unreported sessions of talks, Khalilzad could not convince the Taliban that the government in Kabul was also a party to any decision on Afghanistan’s future.Taliban insisted that the US is the only partner for any future decisions because they believe that the Afghan government is nothing but a US stooge. They miscalculated the fact that time was running out fast as the US wanted all this wind things up before its elections.This failure is however not bad news for Afghans who now may have less woes in their lives than full Taliban rule. https://dailytimes.com.pk/462538/no-deal-is-better-than-a-bad-deal/
The Nation, Lahore
The announcement of the United States (US) President Donald Trump cancelling his secret meeting with the key Taliban leaders and then with President of Afghanistan, Ashraf Ghani surprised people all over the world. But the real political earthquake was his decision to call off the peace negotiations reasoning that the violence of the Taliban was unacceptable. If the US sticks to its decision, then it will have far-reaching consequences in the days to come. Given that President Trump has called off the peace deal, the political scene of Afghanistan and the region can change drastically. Moreover, the political scene at home will also alter for Trump in the upcoming elections.
Now that the US is no more holding any talks with the Taliban, the Taliban will become more ruthless in displaying violence against the Afghan state and foreign troops. There is nothing to be surprised about if the Taliban rely on more violent tactics. They know the efficacy of violence in the guerrilla war they are fighting against the Afghan government and the foreign troops. The US and its allies in Kabul will respond to the fresh offensive with equal force. The new battles will deteriorate the already precarious law and order situation further. Afghan people will suffer even more in the hands of the fighting forces of the Afghan government, foreign troops and the Taliban.
Nonetheless, it is also true that Trump alone is not responsible for the failure of the peace deal. The Taliban leaders should have asked their fighting forces to calm when the deal was nearing completion. Taliban’s excessive dependence on violence has done two harms. First, the US has walked away from the talks, and second, the US will not leave Afghanistan anytime soon. Anyways, this is not the first time that President Trump has called off talks of such importance. Earlier, he had called off a deal with North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un. But later on, he met him again to renegotiate North Korea’s nuclear program. Also, on the sidewalks of the G7 meeting in France, the meeting of France’s President Macron and Iran’s top diplomat, Javad Zarif, to renegotiate a nuclear deal with the US suggests that there is still some hope left for solving the Afghan conundrum.
It is high time for the Afghan Taliban to rethink their strategy. Violence has been the only bargaining chip they had all these years. However, excessive reliance on violence as suggested many a time before can only be counterproductive. Trump walking away from peace negotiations is something that the leadership of the Taliban should learn a lesson from.https://nation.com.pk/09-Sep-2019/trump-ing-the-peace-deal
A final breakdown?: edit in The News, Sept 9, 2019
The door on diplomacy that the US had opened, attempting a dialogue with the Taliban after failing to defeat them following the US’s 2001 invasion of Afghanistan, appears to have been slammed shut. It is difficult to say for now if it is to be reopened in the near future or if the idea of talks has been abandoned altogether by the White House. Just ahead of a secret meeting planned for Sunday at Camp David at Maryland with Taliban and Afghan leaders, President Trump announced through a series of tweets that he had “called off” the peace negotiations with the Taliban and “cancelled” the secret meeting with the Taliban’s top leaders after the Taliban claimed responsibility for an attack on Thursday near the US embassy on Kabul that killed 12 persons including an American soldier. Trump also suggested what many others had pointed to in the past, that if the Taliban and Afghan government could not agree on a ceasefire during important peace talks, it was hard to imagine that they would be able to discuss any meaningful agreement. The decision announced from the White House ends attempts over the past six years to reach a negotiated settlement aimed at ending 18 years of bitter warfare in Afghanistan.
The Afghan government had consistently expressed concerns over talks with the Taliban which excluded its representatives. The Taliban currently control more of Afghanistan than has been the case at any time since 2001. They are therefore in a powerful position and many Afghan citizens have expressed concerns over a possible return to the strict Taliban rule.
It is worth noting that various attempts to reach agreements with the Taliban have floundered, both before 2001 and after. The US has attempted to obtain a deal with them but promises made were quickly broken. This has been part of a pattern which has followed since then. In 2015, the Afghan government and the Taliban were finally placed around the same table, when talks broke down after it was discovered that Mullah Omar, the leader of the Taliban, had been dead for two years but this information had been kept secret by the group. The past is then not very encouraging. And now, after many years we are back to the place from where it all started. Essentially no one has had any workable idea on how to restore peace to Afghanistan and to the region. For Pakistan, whose senior military leaders met the US Central Commander in Afghanistan a short while ago, an end to the peace talks will be equally devastating. However, many Afghanistan analysts have termed Trump’s decision a temporary move, a sort of strategy to signal to the Taliban that they need to be more flexible; the US needs the deal too and needs to seal it from a position of strength. Others feel that a new way forward may be needed. Whatever the next few days and weeks bring, one thing is for sure: Afghanistan needs peace, for itself, its people and the countries it sits next to.
https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/524086-a-final-breakdown