Kathmandu: The United States special envoy for Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, to recall, set the ball rolling this February 29 and brought the warring Talibans to the negotiating table in Doha.
The US expected that this Doha agreement will bring an end once and for all to its overly stretched presence of almost two decades in Afghanistan.
The US knew very well that when a competing world power of the stature of the USSR (A super authority then in the cold war period) which invaded Afghanistan long time back decided not to remain in the war torn country for long and thus quit for good because the presence of the then invading Soviet forces in Afghanistan was almost like a “bleeding wound” which is what had been admitted by tentatively the last President of the USSR Mikhail Gorbacheyv.
With the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, millions of Afghani people made their way to Pakistan and took asylum there.
Notably, Gorbacheyv’s policy of Glasnost and Perestroika opened the USSR too much which naturally tempted the annexed and the subjugated citizens of the former USSR to long for their own original country.
And they have now their own original national identities.
Look the tryst of destiny that the USSR split into several pieces after vacating Afghanistan and of the fall of the Berlin wall that gave birth to many a countries in the world.
Some new countries took shape in and around Central Asia.
President Trump took the needed and the wisdom-loaded initiative and asked Khalilzad (born in Afghanistan indeed) to convince the Talibans to end the war in Afghanistan.
And thus the peace making process in Afghanistan begun in earnest which culminated in the February 29/2020 agreement between the US and the Afghan Talibans.
Needless to say, the Talibans too were apparently tired enough and they also wanted to bring to an end their long drawn conflict that was with the Afghan security forces. Because of this wisdom observed in both the sides, the Doha deal materialized which intended to end the Military presence of the US in Afghanistan as was preferred by the UN administration.
Remarkably the Pakistan government under Imran Khan was in a subtle diplomatic manner taken into confidence by the US President and his team that kept the talks going.
The US President developed a new personal equation with the new Pakistani administration.
Mind it that the Pakistani Prime Minister visited the US two times prior to the Doha accord.
These meets not only brought the US and Pakistan- the two estranged partners-comfortably closer but gave a chance for the Islamic Republic to work for the prevalence of peace and stability in and around Afghanistan.
Needless to say, a peaceful and stable Afghanistan was definitely in the interest of Pakistan itself and thus whatever Pakistan did behind the closed doors, apart from peace and stability in neighboring Afghanistan, was also a move to please the US with whom its relations had deteriorated in the past decades.
Let’s presume that the US-Pakistan ties as of today stand at the desired level which would help maintain peace and stability in the entire SAARC and the Central Asian region.
But such a stability much depends on the activities of the Indian regime which is considered as a regional hegemon in South Asia.
In fact Pakistan acted like a facilitator in between the US and the Afghani-Talibans for striking the peace deal.
Prior to Trump administration, Pakistan was not taken in good faith by the US government though this country had all along remained a trusted ally of the US and the NATO forces during the entire Cold War period.
India which was declared as the supervisor of Asia more so of the South Asian region by the former USSR (now a history only) as per a dangerous security agreement got a golden chance to enter into the Afghanistan politics.
Since then the regional hegemon-India managed to have a greater say in Afghani politics which continued for long and perhaps continues yet, so believe the regional political analysts, through the forceful penetration of the RAW (Research Analysis Wing) agents in the current Afghani administration.
RAW is a dangerous spy agency of India created by late Mrs. Indira Gandhi which has become a curse for the entire South Asian nations more so for Nepal whose politics is being controlled by Delhi.
High placed sources claim that some thirty thousand RAW agents now operate in Nepal.
So appropriately says Dr. Naeem Mahboob Malik in ‘Global Village Space’, April 15. 2020 that “Afghanistan is an ideal soil for India’s inimical objectives. India turned Afghan chaos into its favor and unleashed relentless proxy war against Pakistan.
Since the 80s, Delhi has been convinced, that a direct conflict with Pakistan would be disastrous, writes Dr. Naeem, because Pakistan had implicitly developed nuclear device. Therefore, it shifted, (Delhi) the covert war theatre to other states as a means of inflicting violence and endanger Pakistan’s territorial integrity, adds Dr. Naeem.
India’s destabilizing agents, RAW for example, have been working in different South Asian countries.
The RAW machinery very freshly tried to split Nepal’s Terai and annex the Nepali territory into the Indian Union, however, the strong Nepali nationals residing in Terai aborted Indian scheme of gulping the Nepali landmass.
(The Split-Nepal agenda was set by Mrs. Indira Gandhi, yet another frustrating lady in South Asia who was gunned down by her own body guard in 1984 October).
Presumably, since Afghanistan was badly embroiled in a war with India’s intimate state Soviet Union, therefore, this Afghan territory was the perfect soil for India’s inimical objectives and most probably India exploited the prevailing Afghan chaos for its political advantage and opened up its unremitting what could be called a proxy war against Pakistan.
The present differences in between President Ghani and the Talibans does hint that India has already entered into Afghanistan and wants to derail the peace process.
To recall, Afghanistan was made the member of the SAARC organization under the straight and express veto of the Indian Union.
SAARC Secretariat have had to greet this new country in its organization in 2005-6.
This should explain as to how deep the Indian penetration could be in the Afghani politics.
Is the incumbent President Ashraf Ghani most preferred man of the Indian regime or is it that the competing man Abdullah Abdullah is close to India?
Keep on guessing. Yet some sensible observers in Kathmandu opine that President Ghani has intimate links with Indian Prime Minister Modi. The reverse could also be true.
In sum, the fact is that the presence of the Soviet Union in Afghanistan gave abundant opportunities to India not only to extract political benefits from Afghanistan but also to tease Pakistan at regular intervals.
The ground reality had been that since Pakistan was facing far graver threats from the Soviet forces and later US-led assault also wanted to isolate Pakistan politically, therefore, the Islamic Republic was unable to counter the Indian designs effectively.
Finally, the Doha peace deal provided a chance of prospective peace and manifested the success of forty-year security calculus of Pakistan, adds Dr. Naeem in his April 15 article.
The Qatari nation too came forward to assist the US Administration which concluded in the signing of the Doha peace deal between the US and the Afghani Talibans.
In the process Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad made several trips to Doha and Islamabad.
His subtle diplomacy worked.
Qatar and Pakistan, as stated earlier, played key role as peace makers behind the scenes with such a finesse that the declared trouble-maker of the South Asian region, India under Prime
Minister Modi, knew of the peace efforts being made by these countries only when the agreement was about to be signed by the designated representatives of the US and the Taliban in Qatar.
Just imagine as to how India may have taken the entire event of this peace deal wherein the regional hegemon was taken for a ride and summarily ignored. This is what India deserved to put it mildly.
However, with two months now already of the signing of the Doha agreement, things are not moving that easy as was expected by the conflicting parties prior to signing of the said deal.
The Afghani Talibans appear not that happy because of the centralized system of governance in present day Afghanistan which, the Talibans feel, has been marring the equal distribution of the Afghani natural resources (Afghanistan is rich in precious Emerald and other valuable stones) to the Afghans (including apparently the Talibans who have signed the deal in Doha in February this year).
And look what the New York Times journo Ahmed Massoud wrote in his fresh write up.
A just political order in Afghanistan needs decentralization of power and an equitable distribution of resources among its people, writes Ahmad Massoud for the New York Times dated 14 April, 2020.
Why India was summarily ignored:
Question now is that why the US which is very close to the Indian regime in these years (more so beginning the Obama days and as of now) preferred not to sound the Indian establishment that the deal was being signed in February between the US and the Talibans in a day or two in Doha?
President Trump was in India during the time when the Doha agreement was approaching the signing event.
Is it that the US felt that leaking this “good news” to India may damage the Doha deal?
If so then what makes the US to be afraid of the Hindu fundamentalist regime in India?
Observers in Nepal conclude that India under Prime Minister Modi is taken as “bad man of South Asia” and thus the US President Donald Trump who was very much in India during the end days of February/2020 may have made up his mind not to take India into confidence on the approaching Doha peace deal with the Afghan-Talibans.
It was this time when Indian Prime Minister and his team was engaged in an Organized Violence in Delhi which took as good as some fifty innocent minority Muslim lives.
Does this mean that US President Trump is using PM Modi only outwardly?
The US though takes India superficially, which became evident as its partner in the Indo-Pacific scheme of things, however, the way the US kept its lip tight on the likely Doha peace deal gives some space that the US in essence doesn’t trust Indian establishment to the extent to which India may have in its mind.
PM Modi is just a hugger only.
While the US is at a distance with India on issues pertaining to peace in Afghanistan, then the Trump administration is unbelievably close to Pakistan which got reflected when the US special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad just the other day met with the Pakistani Army Chief on April 14/2020.
A statement issued April 14 by the US embassy in Pakistan says that the US envoy met the Army Chief together with Miller, commander of the NATO-led Resolute Support mission in Afghanistan, and discussed the United States’ “ongoing efforts for a sustainable peace in Afghanistan.
“Pakistan’s military leaders reaffirmed their support for U.S. efforts and renewed their commitment to act to advance a political settlement to the conflict,” it added. During their talks with Taliban representatives in Qatar on April 13, Khalilzad and Scott Miller discussed “current challenges” in implementing a peace deal signed in Doha on February 29 by the United States and the Taliban, according to the U.S. State Department, writes the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty dated April 14/2020.
Prior to the meet in Islamabad, the US special team had met Taliban leaders in Qatar a day ahead.
Suhail Shaheen, a spokesman for the Taliban office in Qatar’s capital, said on Twitter that Khalilzad and Scott Miller met with Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, a co-founder of Afghanistan’s Taliban and its chief negotiator, writes the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.
Shaheen said the two sides discussed the “complete implementation” of the U.S.-Taliban deal for a phased U.S. troop withdrawal. Shaheen said they also discussed a “delay in the release of prisoners.”
The fresh UN Move: China, Pakistan, Russia and the US were among the nine nations that participated in a virtual discussion very freshly organized by the UN Secretariat on regional efforts to support peace in Afghanistan.
The discussions this Thursday focused on a “comprehensive peace process in Afghanistan through intra-Afghan negotiations and on the importance of regional cooperation in support to Afghanistan”, Stephane Dujarric, spokesperson for the UN Secretary-General said, reports the Economic Times dated April 17/2020.
The countries that were participants in this discussion were China, Russia, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Iran, and the United States.
Stephane Dujarric, the spokesperson for the UN Secretary-General, further said that the UN format brought together Afghanistan, its six neighboring countries, Russia and the US “in recognition of the importance of the region to Afghanistan’s stability and sustainable development”.
This meet convened by the UN also ignored the Indian Union-the self-declared regional power for some mysterious reasons.
However, the fresh move of the UN on Afghanistan which ignored India appears to have annoyed some “inferiority complex ridden” brains in India.
Among them was Indian foreign Minister Jay Shankar who apparently talked with the US special envoy and is learnt to have tried his best to inch closer to the US envoy with a clear design apparently to enter into Afghanistan peace process so that eventually the peace agreement takes a different course other than desired by the US and the Talibans.
If India is around then Afghanistan needs no distant enemy.
If and when India enters then this country (read India) derails both peace and the peace process and instead imposes its own preferences like what happened with Nepal which was forced to sign the 12 point peace agreement.
Through this agreement, India exported dangerous political elements to Nepal and installed them all in Nepal’s political establishment.
Neither peace nor stability is in Nepal since signing of the Delhi drafted 12 point agreement in 2005, to recall.
Look what the Pakistani foreign minister M Qureshi had indirectly advised the US and the Afghanis on 2nd March/2020 in advance because he knows the foul play and dirty tricks of India and thee Indian Union as and when it wants to destabilize some neighboring country or countries.
Qureshi said he told US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who was also present at the signing of the agreement in Doha, that the US must be wary of “spoilers” who could derail the process.
“We cannot be in denial about this. There were spoilers, there are spoilers,” said Qureshi without elaborating on the nature of the alleged “spoilers”.
“In Afghanistan and outside. So you will all have to keep a close eye on those spoilers.”
Telegraph adds: As regards the weapons sale to India, it is just the business. But yet the sophisticated weapons to the regional hegemon, India that it is by all means, may encourage the fundamentalist regime under PM Modi in India to go berserk. The US should have understood the pains of the smaller South Asian countries. Will the US listen to the plea of the smaller SA nations that neighbor India-the declared regional Goliath?
Ayaz Gul writes for VOA, April 17/2020 Pakistan that a proposed new multimillion-dollar sale of American missile systems to Islamabad’s archrival, India, would destabilize an already “volatile” situation in South Asia.
To recall, the U.S. Department of State on Tuesday cleared the delivery of 10 AGM-84L Harpoon Block II air-launched missiles, 16 MK 54 lightweight torpedoes and related equipment to India.
Washington, however, says, “The proposed sale of this equipment and support will not alter the basic military balance in the South Asian region.” That’s all.