New Bid to Break Afghanistan Stalemate

• by Barbara Slavin (washington)
• Wednesday, March 23, 2011
• Inter Press Service

Authors of a new report released Wednesday by the Century Foundation, entitled 'Afghanistan: Negotiating Peace', said they consulted extensively with U.S. officials in carrying out research and making recommendations.

The report's main proposal is to have the U.N. secretary- general name a 'facilitator' to supervise peace talks among Afghans and foreign stakeholders in Afghanistan.

While no individual was specified, Jim Dobbins, a member of the task force that produced the report and a former U.S. top envoy dealing with Afghanistan, suggested three possibilities: former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, former U.N. representative to Afghanistan (and Century Fund task force co-chair) Lakhdar Brahimi, or Staffan de Mistura, the current head of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA).

In fact, de Mistura is already promoting peace talks and international buy-in to a process initiated by Afghan President Hamid Karzai. Appearing Tuesday before the Middle East Institute, a Washington think tank, he said he had convened ambassadors from the United States, Afghanistan's neighbours and other interested parties several times this year in Kabul in what he called a 'Silk Road' initiative and hoped to hold a conference in Istanbul later this year to endorse a 'stability pact' for Afghanistan.

Karzai has named a High Peace Council led by former Afghan president Burhanuddin Rabbani to reach out to ethnic and tribal leaders throughout the country as well as Taliban based in both Afghanistan and in Pakistan.

UNAMA is supporting the council by providing logistics, including eight helicopters and three planes, de Mistura said. He said the council has traveled outside Afghanistan to Turkey and Pakistan and also plans a trip to Iran.

The 15-member Century Fund task force also traveled widely, consulting various parties in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Although Iran did not respond to a request to visit Tehran, Brahimi met with then Iranian foreign minister Manuchehr Mottaki outside Iran and there were contacts with Iranian academics as well, said Jeffrey Laurenti, the Century Fund's director of foreign policy programmes.

An upcoming report by this reporter for another think tank, the Atlantic Council, recommends both multilateral and bilateral talks between the U.S. and Iran to discuss Afghanistan's political future.

Both de Mistura and the Century Fund task force said 'the time is now' to begin negotiating a political solution before the U.S. starts to reverse its military surge in Afghanistan this summer.

Despite U.S. gains in reversing the Taliban's resurgence, the war is at a 'stalemate militarily', said Tom Pickering, a former U.S. under-secretary of state and ambassador to Russia and India who co-chaired the Century Fund task force with Brahimi. Pickering said that 'it is time to bring the threads together' of various initiatives and begin a serious negotiating process.

The U.S. State Department had no immediate comment on the report. Dobbins said, however, that the Obama administration encouraged the task force and helped set up its appointments in Pakistan.

In a speech before the Asia Society in New York Feb. 18, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pledged a 'diplomatic surge' this year to complement the military offensive and efforts to accelerate Afghan economic development.

'Both we and the Afghans believe that the security and governance gains produced by the military and civilian surges have created an opportunity to get serious about a responsible reconciliation process, led by Afghans and supported by intense regional diplomacy and strong U.S. backing,' she said.

On Tuesday, Karzai announced that Afghan forces will take the lead in ensuring security in three provinces and four cities in July as the U.S. surge ends. The U.S. is expected to bring home a limited number of troops this year, down from a peak of 100,000. The transition to Afghan security control is supposed to culminate in 2014, although a U.S. military presence may continue at Afghan request.

The various diplomatic initiatives aim to produce a durable peace agreement before 2014.

The obstacles to a resolution of the conflict are numerous. The United States has insisted that the Taliban renounce all ties with al Qaeda, forswear violence and agree to participate peacefully in Afghan politics under a 2004 constitution — although Clinton made clear Feb. 18 that these are U.S. goals and no longer preconditions for negotiations. The Taliban has demanded the withdrawal of foreign forces.

Even if these differences can be breached, Afghanistan's neighbours have historically exacerbated the conflict by intervening in support of various proxies. Pakistan and India, in particular, have regarded the war in Afghanistan as a zero sum game in which gains for Pakistan-backed factions mean defeat for Indian interests.

Iran is opposed to a long-term U.S. military presence on its borders which could be a staging point for U.S. attacks on Iran. At the same time, Iran does not want a return to power of the Taliban and would like to stem drug production and trafficking that has addicted millions of Iranians.

The Century Fund report said that 'for all sides, the longer negotiations are delayed, the higher the price is likely to be for restoring peace at the end.'

© Inter Press Service (2011) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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