MULTILATERAL BARGAIN

The longest military campaign of the United States took seventeen full years – since 2011, the US have led an international coalition to combat terrorism in Afghanistan, which has been neither a successful nor a fun campaign. Throughout these years, Washington has regularly received reports on casualties and losses in this region.

After invading the territory of Afghanistan in October 2001 as a response to the al-Qaida terrorist attack on September 11, 2001, the US did not expect that the war would have continued for so long, killing 2400 American soldiers and incurring $3 trillion in total military costs.

In 2014, the coalition officially ended the war in Afghanistan having 3408 people as casualties. In 2015, it began a new mission to support and train the Afghan armed forces. Instead of the 130,000-strong military contingent, the coalition left no more than 15–20 thousand troops in the country.

However, since the withdrawal of the coalition forces, the territory, fully or partially controlled by the Taliban, which is the main opponent of the Afghan government, has gradually expanded covering 50-65% of the country. Meanwhile, the number of armed supporters of the Taliban has been growing, although thousands of Taliban members are reported killed or captured annually. Ten years ago, the number of Taliban militants was 15 thousand people, which has increased four-fold reaching 60 thousand and more. On the contrary, the contingent of government troops is dwindling.

Explosions, murders, hostage taking, arson and other acts of sabotage take dozens of lives every day. In January-September, 2018, more than 8,000 people were killed or injured in Afghanistan. According to AFP, the armed conflict in Afghanistan is the most bloodthirsty in terms of the total number of casualties among the military and civilians.

The Afghan government held parliamentary elections in a very difficult period. In fact, the event took place where it could provide a more or less secure cast of votes.

Fight for dividends

According to the electoral commission, on October 20 and 21, more than 3 million voters could cast their votes in 5,000 tightly guarded polling stations. 2,000 stations never opened due to a high risk of attack from the Taliban and Islamic State militants.

Elections to the Wolesi Jirga, the lower house of parliament, are held every five years. The previous elections were held in 2010 followed by a three year pause due to public unrest. The situation has not improved since. Besides, in the beginning of 2018, the Taliban warned that they would do everything possible to disrupt the voting process. But since the presidential elections are scheduled for April 2019, the country needs a fully functioning highest legislative body to prepare for them.

Elections did take place, despite strong opposition from the Taliban. In two polling days, Taliban committed more than 440 attacks killing and injuring more than 600 people.

But it was not only terrorist attacks that impeded the elections, in which 2.7 thousand candidates struggled for 249 seats in the parliament. Upon completion, more than 5,000 complaints were filed with the election commission for numerous cases of fraud and technical problems.

Although the preliminary results will be known on November 10 and in December, many doubt that those who lost will recognise them.

In fact, there is still no culture of political struggle in Afghanistan. Remarkably, it is not political or public parties and movements competing for legislative or executive power but field commanders, who believe that they deserve a piece of pie from the government for their loyalty. “Many former and current leaders of the armed groups cannot even think of acknowledging the results of the elections when they lose,” Deutsche Welle quotes one of the voters in Kabul. Moreover, many of these leaders are accused of committing crimes against humanity during the civil war of the 1990s.

Therefore, instead of demanding free and fair elections in Afghanistan, the US and the West are ready to accept results that will be “acceptable” for Afghans. As one of the American diplomats frankly told reporters, the only politically viable result would be the one in which “all warlords and their sons win.”

Death of generals

After the withdrawal of the main contingent of troops, the US was compelled to support regional military commanders, many of whom are loyal to government authorities in Kabul as long as it is profitable for them. But without their support, neither the Americans, nor President Ashraf Ghani can ensure control over the state territory.

Incidentally, the same American tactical move (support of field generals) is used by Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iran, several European countries and in recent years China.

In this context, the murder of General Abdul Razak, the head of the Kandahar police and the authoritative politician in the Pashtun Province of Helmand, and General Abdul Jabbar Qahraman, just before the elections on October 19 will have serious consequences for the whole country. On that day, both Afghan generals met with General Austin Miller, commander of the US and NATO forces in Afghanistan. During the attack, the commander of the US military in Kandahar and the governor of the province were wounded.

General Razak was one of the most influential military leaders of Afghanistan. In fact, he was the leader of the whole of Southern Afghanistan. During the presidential elections in 2014, he played an instrumental role in the victory of Ashraf Ghani in the presidential election. Recently, however, he has sharply criticised Ghani's policies and supported the opposition, in particular the current Prime Minister Abdullah Abdullah. When President Ghani tried to remove him from office, the US stood up for Razak, who did not want to part with an influential regional figure, thanks to whom, for seven years now, Kandahar had been able to repel the Taliban. After Razak's death, it is believed that no one would prevent the Taliban from regaining control of the province.

Forced negotiations

The never-ending chaos in governance provoked by disagreements between President Ashraf Ghani and Prime Minister Abdullah Abdullah, the weakness of the Afghan security forces, as well as the ineffectiveness of expensive antiterrorist operations (Pentagon plans to spend $45 billion in 2018) have compelled the US to looking for alternative ways out of the protracted crisis.

At first, the US attempted to force the Afghan government to engage in dialogue with the Taliban. In February 2018, Ashraf Ghani invited them to begin negotiations without any preconditions, and even expressed his readiness to recognise the legitimacy of the Taliban movement and open their representation in Kabul.

However, the Taliban just ignores the official government in Kabul as a legal leader of the country reluctant to hold any talks with it. They believe that time is working for them, since a political crisis is brewing in the country due to the parliamentary elections and the upcoming presidential elections. In addition, the Taliban hopes to force the US to leave Afghanistan, which is also confirmed by the growing number of statements coming from political circles in Washington. Thus, in March, Taliban refused an invitation to take part in the conference on Afghanistan held in Tashkent.

As before, the Taliban agrees only to exchange of prisoners or short-term cease-fires, as was the case in June 2018, when President Ghani declared a three-day truce. For the first time in many years, one could not see and hear explosions and shots for three whole days. The proposal to extend the truce was rejected.

All these events forced the US to negotiate with the Taliban. The first meeting held in July in Doha was led by the US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia Alice Wells.

In September, an American diplomat of Afghan origin, a former US ambassador to Afghanistan, Zalmai Khalilzad, was appointed special envoy for reconciliation in Afghanistan. A week before the parliamentary elections in Afghanistan, he met with representatives of the Taliban in Doha. The meeting was far from successful given that the Taliban terrorised the Afghan population during the elections.

Preliminary results of elections will be announced after November 10. Undoubtedly, there is a multilateral bargain on the recognition of the results of the elections. However, it is already known that they have not brought closer peace in Afghanistan.