Summary
As the United States and its NATO allies continue their military drawdown from Afghanistan, there is a great deal of concern about what will become of the country -- and its eastern neighbor, Pakistan -- after the withdrawal. The fate of Afghanistan is intrinsically linked to that of Pakistan, the destabilization of which has been one of the biggest casualties of the longest war in U.S. history. Washington hopes that stability in Pakistan would help protect Kabul from jihadist recidivism. Washington and Islamabad both hope that a power-sharing agreement between Kabul and the Afghan Taliban would help prevent the cross-border insurgency from worsening. However, the war has greatly damaged Pakistan, and there are serious constraints on Islamabad's ability to help the United States manage the situation.
Analysis
Security in Afghanistan and Pakistan after the NATO withdrawal will top the agenda when Pakistan's recently elected prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, meets with U.S. President Barack Obama in Washington on Oct. 23. As Stratfor has forecast, talks with the Afghan jihadist movement are not going well, and it is becoming increasingly improbable that a settlement will be reached before the drawdown's expected completion in 2014.
The talks were always going to be precarious, but several developments have complicated them further. For example, a political transition in Kabul is nearing, with a new president due to take office a few months before the withdrawal concludes. Moreover, the Obama administration has reached a tentative bilateral security agreement with the Karzai government, and Islamabad has decided to pursue talks with its own Taliban rebels. Finally, the ongoing U.S.-Iranian diplomatic engagement could lead to an understanding between Washington and Tehran on post-NATO Afghanistan, among other issues.
The Afghan Taliban's efforts to gain international recognition as a political entity suffered a major setback in June with the abrupt closure of its newly opened office in Qatar. After the closure, it became all the more important for the group to take advantage of the upcoming leadership transition in Kabul. In his recent Eid al-Adha communique, Taliban chief Mullah Mohammad Omar criticized the bilateral security agreement between Washington and Kabul. A U.S. understanding with Iran would further undermine the Taliban position.
These developments suggest that reaching a settlement with the Taliban has become less urgent for United States -- or at least Washington does not see a deal as a necessary for the withdrawal. The United States appears to have gained more confidence that the Afghan state, despite its weaknesses, will withstand Taliban attempts to exploit a power vacuum created by the departure of Western forces.
Already, Afghan forces have been assuming greater security responsibilities and demonstrating an ability to manage the insurgency. Though the Taliban periodically pull off spectacular attacks, such operations cannot bring down the Afghan state. The negotiations have highlighted further that the jihadists are not exactly operating from a position of strength. They do not see themselves taking power by force and thus need to negotiate in order to achieve their goals.
This does not mean that the United States is no longer seeking a settlement with the Taliban, but rather that Washington realizes that talks are unlikely to achieve major progress before the drawdown. The White House believes that the post-drawdown security arrangements involving Afghan security forces and support from residual NATO forces will suffice to deal with insurgents. In other words, the U.S. view is that any deterioration in the situation in Afghanistan will remain more or less tolerable.
Pakistani Imperatives
The U.S. position conflicts with Pakistani imperatives. Islamabad worries that while the NATO drawdown may not allow the Taliban enough space to topple the Afghan state, the looming power vacuum will be more than sufficient for Pakistani rebels to escalate their own attacks. Islamabad has been hoping that the talks with the Afghan Taliban will make it easier to manage their Pakistani counterparts. But the lack of progress in the Afghan negotiations has prompted the Sharif government to try to open separate talks with the Pakistani Taliban. The prospects for these talks, however, are far bleaker than the ones next door.
To a degree, the Pakistani Taliban have had the upper hand on the battlefield and have been able to exploit popular sentiment and strategic incoherence among policy-makers. This is why the jihadists have rejected the government's preconditions for talks while pushing their own terms. The Pakistani Taliban are asking that the government halt its operations, convince the United States to end its unmanned aerial vehicle strikes in tribal areas and implement the Taliban's austere interpretation of Sharia. Islamabad cannot accept any of these conditions.
Thawing Ties Between the U.S. and Pakistan
Further complicating the regional security situation is Pakistan's severe economic downturn -- the worst in the country since its inception. This has forced Sharif to focus primarily on stemming the economic hemorrhaging -- especially Pakistan's power and energy crises, which must be dealt with before any major economic progress can be achieved. However, despite Pakistan's security and economic woes, the country has made considerable political progress toward democracy.
The Obama administration hopes to build on this democratization as a way to push Pakistan toward stability. Though Washington does not believe that Kabul will fall victim to a reenergized Taliban insurgency, over the medium and long runs, a stabilized Pakistan will be needed to remove all doubt. A situation where both South Asian states are on the defensive against a complex cross-border jihadist insurgency after the NATO drawdown could prove disastrous.
Indeed, to bring the domestic insurgency under control, the Pakistanis need Kabul to accommodate large parts of the Afghan Taliban. The reverse is equally true. A Pakistan bogged down with its own insurgents cannot be much help to the Afghan peace process. Therefore, the only way forward for Pakistan is to continue to push for reconciliation between Kabul and the Afghan Taliban while still fighting its own jihadists, who are still very much in the al Qaeda orbit.
Pakistan's Constraints
This creates a contradictory situation for Islamabad and is why many Pakistani stakeholders favor holding talks with the country's own jihadists as well. However, the Sharif government has faced heavy criticism for pursuing such talks, especially as the insurgents have increased attacks since the government announced its intention to do so.
Those opposed to the talks say that they should only be held once additional military action has weakened the jihadists, forcing them to the negotiating table on the government's terms. They argue that negotiations in Afghanistan are more necessary because Kabul is weak and the Taliban have agreed to work with the existing system anyway. In contrast, the Pakistani state is on much more solid footing, while the Pakistani Taliban are not prepared to accept the government's broad terms for talks.
Over the long run, any solution to the cross-border jihadist problem will involve talks with the Pakistani Taliban, but this is unlikely for the foreseeable future. Therefore, as Islamabad seeks to re-assert control over its own territory, it cannot do much to ensure that the Afghan state is able to stand on its own. For Washington, Pakistan's limits in helping stabilize Afghanistan will force the United States to remain deeply involved in regional security for years to come.
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