Initial Version – I wrote this post in the week when I had four papers due. I planned to rework it but my energy level just didn’t allow me to do so (believe me it is true!)
Taliban revealed that they had talked with the U.S. but refused to negotiate with the Afghan government. It is apparent that the U.S. is a bargaining chip for the Taliban to maintain its bases in Afghanistan.
I wonder if successful negotiations between the U.S. and the Taliban will facilitate democratic transition in Afghanistan……when the role of the Afghan government is totally degraded and ignored by the Taliban……..it is worth seeing how this tug-of-war between the U.S. and the Taliban will evolve.
Re-written version:
First, I did not discuss the potential impact of the US- Taliban talks on Afghan (democratic) future. It is obviously that the US’s priority is now not to facilitate a democratic transition in Afghanistan, but to establish stability and maintain its strategic bases in the region. However, while talks with the Taliban may help achieve these objectives in the short-run, in the long-run the democratic future of Afghanistan may suffer. This is because the Afghan government may encounter greater difficulty to implement democratization as it is now de-legitimatized by the US-Taliban talks. Also, the problem of mutual trust between the US and the Taliban questions the potential benefits of their talks. The possibility of creating a zero-sum game may induce military competition between the two sides, and therefore worsen not only the situation in Afghanistan, but also the relations between the US and the Afghan government, which will now have legitimate reasons to challenge the US in the international realm and to maintain its authoritarian regime.
Second, the role of Pakistan in the US-Afghanistan relations is also an important issue which I did not explore in the previous version. Pakistan used to be the US’s ally in countering terrorism, but as trust between the two sides fades because of the Pakistani government uncooperative actions(for example, Pakistan spent the counter-terrorism fund given by the US on military aggrandizement), the mediatory role for Pakistan in Afghanistan also fades. The landmark of the decline of the US-Pakistani alliance is characterized by the discovery and death of Osama bin Laden in May 2011, when he was discovered and killed by the US forces in Pakistan. As the US sidelines Pakistan (state-actor) but elevates the political significance of the Taliban (non-state actor and insurgent), one may wonder if insurgent groups in Pakistan or other regions would see Taliban as a role-model, and hence believe that if they are powerful enough, they will have the bargaining- power to directly negotiate with other states, particularly with the major powers. This reasoning of course suggests that more intense military competition among insurgent groups would be resulted and the stability in these regions would deteriorate.
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I missed this blog when you first wrote it but it is really interesting. The Taliban already boast to be the only legitimate government of Afghanistan, and in their eyes cooperation with US is obvious since US created the resistance group against the Soviets. Another reason that US has agreed to cooperate with Taliban is that they are the ones who have strong ties to the lords of the region who also have had problems with Karzai.
Thanks for your comment Mohammad! I have been trying to learn more about why the US cooperates with the Taliban for reasons other than maintaining strategic bases.