[The Afghan officials, like others
interviewed for this story, spoke on the condition of anonymity because they
were not authorized to discuss the matter with journalists. The Afghan officials
acknowledged that current levels of violence and the political stalemate in
Doha are unacceptable, but disagreed with the Biden administration’s attempted
reset.]
The approach — nicknamed “moonshot”
by some U.S. officials referring to its lofty ambitions — is an attempt to
reach a peace deal within weeks by applying unprecedented pressure to
negotiating teams on both sides of the conflict, the Taliban and the Kabul
government.
Since the two sides met in Qatar’s
capital, Doha, to begin historic peace talks last year, little progress has
been made at the negotiating table. Meetings stalled for months while
violence in Afghanistan began to soar, with the Taliban expanding its territorial influence and control.
The Trump administration’s focus
was on the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan. The Biden team is
applying greater pressure on the diplomatic front. U.S.-Afghanistan policy is
under review, and the U.S. special envoy, Zalmay Khalilzad, embarked on a
regional tour last month to spearhead the new approach.
But Afghan officials fear the tight
timeline and the threat of withdrawing all U.S. troops without a political
settlement risks repeating the mistakes of the 1990s, when Afghanistan
descended into civil war on the heels of the Soviet withdrawal. The sweeping
battles for control helped give rise to the Taliban movement, which
was driven from power by the U.S.-led invasion after the Sept. 11, 2001,
attacks.
The Afghan officials, like others
interviewed for this story, spoke on the condition of anonymity because they
were not authorized to discuss the matter with journalists. The Afghan officials
acknowledged that current levels of violence and the political stalemate in
Doha are unacceptable, but disagreed with the Biden administration’s attempted
reset.
[U.S.
appears poised to delay troop withdrawal from Afghanistan]
“The consequences for us are the
collapse of the state, sudden destruction and a very long and intense civil
war,” said one Afghan official with knowledge of the talks, referring to the
increased U.S. pressure.
“The fact that it has happened in
the past once shows it could happen again,” he said.
A second official said “pushing the
peace now with this new initiative very rapidly” risks undermining the
country’s military. He said he fears “bringing back the old mujahideen at the
expense of the Afghan security forces,” referring to the militant factions and
irregular fighters who fought the Soviet forces, then turned on each other
during the civil war.
The accelerated push is occurring
amid growing indications that the United States is
considering postponing the withdrawal of U.S. troops — a move aimed at
pressuring the Taliban to reduce violence and comply with the terms of the deal
it signed with the United States last year. But Biden administration officials
have also said a final decision on the future of U.S. troops in Afghanistan has
not yet been made.
During a regional tour involving
meetings in Kabul; Doha; and Islamabad, Pakistan, Khalilzad delivered a draft peace plan to the Afghan government and
Taliban leadership. Along with the draft proposal, Afghan President Ashraf
Ghani received a letter from Secretary of State Antony
Blinken pressing him to accelerate peace talks and reach an agreement with the
militants.
“The United States has not ruled
out any option,” the letter warned. “I am making this clear to you so that you
understand the urgency of my tone.”
On Saturday, the U.N. Security
Council condemned the “alarming” rise in violence in Afghanistan. The statement
came after a car bomb exploded in the western Herat province, killing at least
eight people late Friday.
A spokesman for Ghani’s office
rejected the suggestion that the president is under greater pressure now from
Washington to reach a peace deal. “If there is any pressure that we feel, it is
the pressure from the Afghan people who have been terrorized” since the Soviet
invasion in 1979, said Fatima Murchal, Ghani’s deputy spokesperson.
Taliban representatives in Doha
also dismissed the implication that the change in approach would have an effect
on long-stalled talks.
“Pressure from the United States
never works,” said Mohammad Naeem, the spokesman for the Taliban’s political
office. “We know this because they have already tried all forms of pressure for
20 years.”
Naeem said the group does not
expect the United States to walk away from the 2020 deal, but if it does,
“there will be problems, and they will be responsible for that.”
[Biden
orders temporary limits on drone strikes outside war zones]
U.S. officials say the potential
risks of inaction outweigh an opportunity to accelerate the process.
The new approach of “moving at a
faster pace toward a political agreement,” said one U.S. official, is “the best
option for moving forward.”
“Given where we are, the
alternative is more dangerous,” he said.
But for many officials in Kabul,
the letter and the draft peace proposal — first made public by Afghanistan’s
ToloNews network — came as a shock.
“It’s not what we have been
promised,” said the Afghan official with knowledge of the talks, who described
the tone of the leaked letter as “upsetting” and contrary to the more
consultative approach Kabul was expecting from the Biden administration.
The Afghan government had called on
the Biden administration to conduct a “full review” of the peace process and to apply more
pressure on the Taliban before committing to the withdrawal of U.S. forces.
“They were hoping for a miracle,”
said Fatima Gailani, referring to the members of Ghani’s government. Gailani,
one of the lead negotiators, said Afghan leaders should not have been surprised
by the U.S. pressure campaign, given President Biden’s past comments on his
desire to end the war in Afghanistan.
Now, she said, the leaked document
“brought reality out into the open” and could act as a wake-up call to unify
Afghanistan’s political parties.
Rustam Shah Mohmand, a former
Pakistani ambassador to Afghanistan, also supports the new approach from the
United States, but warned that some of the specifics outlined in the U.S. draft
peace deal — such as detailing the structure of the interim government — were a
potential “distraction” that “could make matters more complicated.”
Reactions in Kabul already appear
to be exposing widening political fault lines, rather than signaling moves
toward consensus. Ghani’s main rival, Abdullah Abdullah, the chairman of the
High Council for National Reconciliation, welcomed the new U.S. proposal.
“It is a positive starting point to
boost the peace process and the peace talks,” said Abdullah spokesman Mujib
Rahman Rahimi. Abdullah and other political rivals of Ghani’s administration
have the most to gain from the establishment of an interim government, one of
the draft’s key elements.
“We do not consider the proposal a
setback or a step to destabilize the country. Rather, it is a step forward,”
Rahimi said.
Afghanistan is mired in one of the
deadliest conflicts in the world. Last year, violence killed more than 3,000
civilians and wounded nearly 5,800, according to a United Nations annual report. Those numbers represented a drop in overall
civilian casualties compared with the year prior, but U.N. data showed that, as
the year wore on, deaths began reaching record levels.
“Ask anyone, and they will tell you
a story about losing a son or a husband or a father,” said Ihsanullah Sediq, a
peace activist in Ghazni province, one of the country’s most volatile. Sediq,
also a member of a conservative, religious Afghan political party, said, “From
a humanitarian view, it’s not acceptable for this war to continue.”
“The only way to find an end to
this war is to create a new political environment, whatever you want to call
it,” he said. “And it must come with international pressure. Because without
it, the leaders in Kabul will not tolerate each other for even just a single
week.”
Aziz Tassal in Kabul and Haq Nawaz
Khan in Peshawar, Pakistan, contributed to this report.
