Afghanistan - More Dead End Proposals Seek Time To Allow U.S. Face Saving Exit

 

moon  of alabama

The Doha agreement between the U.S. and the Taliban includes a promise by the Taliban to not attack U.S. troops or major cities. In exchange the U.S. promised to leave Afghanistan by May 1. The problem for the U.S. is that leaving Afghanistan will inevitable lead to a new Taliban regime, likely within a few months. It would make the U.S. look weak. That is something that Washington inherently dislikes.

In early March the Biden administration launched a new Afghanistan peace initiative. It proposed to create a new interim government with participation of the Taliban and under a new constitution. The idea is to uphold some picture of normalcy that can hold for a few months while the U.S. skips out. We said that the idea was unlikely to fly:

President Ghani is furious about Blinken's letter. Other interest groups in the Afghan government also reject it. They think it is a bluff. Unless the U.S. stops the money flow to Kabul and pulls out its troops there is no need for Ghani and other to proceed.

The Taliban will also reject the proposals. They want the U.S. to leave and they feel sure that, after that, they can win the civil war and reinstall their Islamic Emirate. Their backers in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are likewise convinced that there is no need to change course.

The new U.S. proposal is a dead end.

Today President Ashraf Ghani made a counterproposal which has a similar chance to be realized:

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani will propose a new presidential election within six months, under a peace plan he will put forward as a counter-offer to a U.S. proposal that he rejects, two senior government officials told Reuters.

Ghani will unveil his proposal at an international gathering in Turkey next month, signalling his refusal to accept Washington's plan for his elected government to be replaced by an interim administration, the officials said.
...
"The counterproposal which we are going to present at the Istanbul meeting would be to call for early presidential elections if the Taliban agree on a ceasefire," one senior government official said on condition of anonymity.

Another Afghan government official said: "The president would never agree to step aside and any future government should be formed through democratic process, not a political deal."

A third senior official also said Ghani's proposal would include possible early elections, although he did not specify the exact time frame for the vote. The third official said Ghani had already shared his road map with Khalilzad.
...The Afghan officials said that as part of Ghani's counter-proposal, his government would ask the U.N. to closely observe the new election to ensure it is accepted by all sides.

There is no way that a credible election could happen in Afghanistan within the next few years. If the U.S. wants to get out of Afghanistan while leaving behind some functioning government its must move Ghani out of the way. As The U.S. holds the purse without which Ghani can't do anything that should not be too hard to do.

Meanwhile the Taliban have offered their own plan which would allow for the U.S. to have some time to save face:

The Taliban has confirmed that they have shared a 90-day reduction in violence (RIV) plan with the US, but said there has been no overall agreement on the plan so far.

Taliban spokesman Mohammad Naeem told TOLOnews that the reduction in violence will not mean a ceasefire, but it will result in a decrease in all operations by the group in Afghanistan.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in his letter to President Ashraf Ghani referred to this plan and has reiterated that it will stop the Taliban from announcing its so-called spring offensive.

But Taliban spokesman Mohammad Naeem said the plan was proposed by the Taliban in December and an agreement has not yet been reached.

“We proposed a draft in December, which involved all operations being reduced, but so far a final agreement has not been reached,” Naeem said on Monday.

When the Soviet Union had troops in Afghanistan it trained the Afghan army to a reasonable standard. It also provided weapons that were easy to use and needed little maintenance. After the Soviets left Afghanistan that army held out against the U.S. supported Mujahedins for another three years. It only faltered when the Soviet Union cut off its financial and material assistance.

The U.S. never managed to train the Afghan army and police to any reasonable standard. It also provided weapons and systems that can not be maintained without external assistance. Without U.S. backing on the ground and in the air that army will likely fold within days:

Over the past two decades, the United States has invested more than $88 billion to build, train and equip Afghan troops and police – and yet the Taliban is clearly a superior fighting force.
...
John Sopko, the brutally honest inspector general for reconstruction in Afghanistan, has been sounding the alarm for years about how corruption, waste, and fraud was effectively neutering the U.S. government’s effort to breathe life into the Afghan security forces.

“The Afghan military – and particularly the Afghan police – has been a hopeless nightmare and a disaster,” Sopko warned Congress in January 2020.
...
“Based on all the work we’ve done, it seems obvious that the biggest mistake we’ve made was to try to build an Afghan Army in our own image and likeness,” Sopko said. “In other words, an Army that uses the systems and the equipment and the weapons that our army does. And yet, this is a country where a huge portion of the population are illiterate, where there’s very little electricity, and very little internet.”
...
“Currently, the Afghan government has limited capability to move food, ammunition, medical supplies, and so on, to units in the field,” Sopko said. “As SIGAR [the Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction] has highlighted recently, the Afghans also lack any capability to maintain their equipment. Without development of these core functions, the ANDSF will never be able to sustain itself.”
...
Despite two decades and billions of dollars of support, Afghan security forces cannot survive without outside assistance. The Taliban can. That advantage will be decisive whenever U.S. troops leave the country.

The money and time was wasted because the U.S. never had the strategic foresight to plan for leaving Afghanistan. But leave it must.

Just a few days ago there was a warning that a renewal of a U.S. fight against the Taliban would likely create high U.S. casualties with little chances of success.

Lotfullah Najafizada @LNajafizada - 8:13 UTC · Mar 20, 2021

Exclusive TOLOnews footage shows the downing of the army helicopter immediately after take off from Behsud where the helicopters were lifting police casualties. Sources tell us that an anti-aircraft missile was used in the attack by AliPoor’s militias. video

Alipoor is a warlord and leader of ethnic Hazaras, a mainly Shiite community. His militia are currently in conflict with the government but also mistrust the Taliban. But if Alipoor's militia have access to man portable air defense missiles (MANPADs) and know how to use them, the Taliban will also have those capabilities. The U.S. military is highly dependent on air transport and air support. A renewed fight would be too costly.

There is nothing left for the U.S. but to leave.

Posted by b on March 23, 2021 at 18:18 UTC | Permalink

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2021/03/afghanistan-more-dead-end-proposals-seek-time-to-allow-us-face-saving-exit.html#more