New Delhi: If one wants to know how an over-greedy person in power looks like, they need to look no further from US President Donald Trump. On one hand, he is ambitious to win the Nobel Peace Prize and on the other, wants to get elected to the office of the President for the second time.
To achieve these goals, he is putting the world nations through hell. As a result, there is a dearth of peace in crucial geographic locations like the Middle East, Afghanistan and Venezuela.
With the elections approaching in nine months, Trump is obsessed with safeguarding his interests, leaving his trusted aids to their fate. The businessman in Trump is calculating the profits and losses.
The recent example of such an approach is the US-Taliban peace deal. The agreement was signed in Doha, Qatar between the US special representative Jalme Khalilzad and Taliban commander Mullah Baradar.
Representatives from Pakistan, China, Turkey and Indonesia have participated in this accord. With this agreement, the US consented to withdraw its military troops from Afghanistan within the next 14 months. Also, this deal is expected to pave the way for talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban. If these talks are successful, the US may be able to get out of Operation Resolute Support, that was launched in December 2014.
Read:| US, Taliban sign peace deal in Doha
The Operation Enduring Freedom started in 2001, came to an end in 2014 but the conflict with the Taliban continued. From 2014, the Afghan army instead of the US military has been fighting the Taliban. The US has been extending support for the same.
If the peace talks come to a positive conclusion, the 18-year old bloody war will come to an end. The US secretary of state Mike Pompeo responded carefully to questions about the deal. He said that the US and its allies would succeed only when the threat of terrorism is eliminated from the Afghan land. Given the current state of affairs, Pompeo’s dream seems like a mirage.
On the other hand, the Taliban’s political chief Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai claimed that this was indeed a victory for them. Journals like The Guardian stated that the Taliban are calling this peace agreement a strategic deal.
Every word of this peace agreement reeks of the US’s desperation to get out of Afghanistan as soon as possible. As a part of total withdrawal of troops over the next 14 months, five bases must be completely evacuated in the first 135 days and 8,600 American and similar coalition troops must be withdrawn.
The agreement also includes revoking the UN and US sanctions. In the first part of the agreement, the precise dates and time were set out about what the US should do. The second part shows no measure of what the Taliban is expected to do.
The agreement mandates the Taliban to refrain from other insurgent groups like al-Qaeda. The Taliban have abandoned their kingdom to support al-Qaeda.
Why then would they leave it all for the sake of Trump?
The fifth point in second part contains a danger sign. The Taliban is prohibited from giving visa, passport or travel permits to those to threaten the security of the US and its allies. This means that the US is indirectly acknowledging the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.
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The Taliban declared themselves Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan to which the US had to resist with all its might. The US said that it will be back in Afghan if the clauses in the agreement were not followed by the Taliban and gave a 14-month deadline.
If the US presidential elections are completed within this period, the leadership will be free of political pressure and might have a change of mind.
Former National Security Advisor John Bolton has raised concerns over this deal. The current political uncertainty in Afghanistan might also become an obstacle to the peace deal. Though the election commission declared Ashraf Ghani a winner with 50.64 per cent vote share, his opponent Abdullah who won a vote share of 39.52 percentage, disagreed with the result.
The US persuaded Ghani to the President and appointed Abdullah as chief executive when a similar issue arose in the previous elections. But this time, the US is busy making agreements with the Taliban.
Countries like Russia are urging the leaders to keep their political rivalry aside until the talks with the Taliban are not finalized.
Ghani continues to be the President of Afghanistan but the problem is likely to resurface if there is no political consensus on these peace talks.
India’s energy security and trade, along with investments in Afghanistan are jeopardized due to this deal. Also, there is a chance of security lapse. India has always been a close ally of the Afghan government and maintained distance from the Taliban. India has also sent its former ambassadors, Amar Sinha and TCA Raghavan, during the talks between the Afghan government and Taliban leaders held in Moscow.
It was only after these negotiations that the process of restoring peace in Afghan gained momentum. Indian ambassador P Kumaran attended the agreement ceremony in the rank of a mere observer. Pakistan, on the other hand, has increased its clout with the Taliban and the US. The US had already banned the Baloch Liberation Army.
In December 2019, the Trump government renewed training of the Pakistan military in the US. All these pose strategic problems to India.
Indian Minister of External Affairs, Jaishankar said that everyone knew what happened in Doha. He said that the US should be careful as to not forego what it achieved there.
There are further implications in the TAPI (Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India) gas pipeline project which was started in 2018. The project, which provides a continuous supply of gas from Turkmenistan to India, is likely to have implications in payments and security. From this project, a distribution fee of USD 400 million might be available to Afghanistan. The course of the pipeline runs in Taliban dominant areas like Heart and Kandahar.
Read:| Trump speaks to Taliban leader over peace pact
Pakistan can even provoke the Taliban and put India in trouble. There is a widespread concern as to how the Taliban will use the funds from this project. Besides, there is a threat of ISI-incited elements reaching the Kashmir border from Afghanistan.
Despite the US’s monitoring, 90 per cent of the world’s opium is being grown in Afghanistan. It is doubtful if those who had a taste of this income would give up opium cultivation for a mere peace deal. This increasing narcoterrorism will pose problems to Kashmir and Punjab. The major source of revenue for terrorist groups in Kashmir is drug trafficking.
The Pakistan- incited Taliban is not too happy with India’s proximity to the Afghanistan government. India has completed more than 36 key projects like parliament buildings, schools, dams and roads. Several other projects are in different stages of completion. This is why the Taliban made multiple attacks on Indian embassies and projects. Many Indians working on these key projects have been abducted.
Though the Taliban might remain silent until the US troops retreat, they will target India once the US is out of the scene. At present, the terms of the Taliban’s implementation of the treaty have no mention of human rights, women’s dignity, good governance or democracy.
In a nutshell, Trump had completely left the safety of Afghanistan and its people to the gutter and went his way. Just the way it happened in Syria!
With the current political instability in the ruling government, combined with the US joining hands with the Taliban; the clouds of crisis are lurking around the corner. After 18 months of negotiations and dramatic developments, neither the US nor its allies achieved anything significant.
Before March 10th, the Afghan government has to free 5,000 Taliban militants from the prison while 1,000 citizens must be freed from Taliban captivity. The released prisoners must cooperate with the implementation of issues in the agreement. After discussions with the Afghan government, the remaining Taliban prisoners must be released within the next three months. This is one of the aspects of the agreement.
Strangely, all these Taliban militants are imprisoned by the Afghanistan government but it was not involved anywhere during these discussions.
These were the discussions held between the US and the Taliban alone. This has led to questions about the release of these prisoners. President Ashraf Ghani in a recent meeting concluded that they will not release any prisoners unless internal talks with the Afghan government leaders are not initiated.
Read:| Taliban attack Afghan army bases, throwing peace talks into doubt
