US-Taliban agreement : augmenting peace

December 29, 2020

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200229082852-us-taliban-agreement-handshake-exlarge-169 — Image source: https://cnn.it/3nYOd4N

This article has been written by Ashutosh Singh, from Amity Law School, Amity University Kolkata. The article is a study into the past and future of the historic US-Taliban agreement and its impact.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Almost two decades have elapsed since the 9/11 attack on US soil and the US retaliatory invasion of Afghanistan to topple the Taliban regime and root out Al-Qaeda (Islamic militant organization). It has now become the longest war in American history. After about a year plus of talks between US and Taliban negotiators, on February 29, 2020, the two sides accomplished an agreement laying the groundwork for the withdrawal of US armed forces from Afghanistan. In a nutshell, experts say that the peace agreement is a face-saving deal for the US to make its exit from Afghanistan. It is something that has been in the process for 18 months now with the support of the present US president Trump who had promised to bring the US soldiers deployed in Afghanistan back home.

Why did the 9/11 attack take place on the US soil?

No event in recent times has produced as many explanations as 9/11 attacks on the US soil. The terrorist group Al-Qaeda, within the space of an hour, inflicted more direct damage on the US than what the Soviet Union had done during the cold war. This was considered as an upheaval by more people than any other event in history. This entire attack was carried out by only 19 men who were armed with just small knives, to destroy the World Trade Centre, demolish a wing of the Pentagon and this killed 3,000 people.

Some say that the attack on the US on 9 September 2001(9/11) was the direct result of the massive failure of US agencies, starting from White House and airport security, to recognize vulnerabilities and repair them because the various agencies involved were trapped in a cognitive conflict cycle of thinking. Three weeks after the 9/11 attack, a video of Bin Laden surfaced on Al-Jazeera(a Qatari state-owned broadcaster), the same time as the US began launching airstrikes against Taliban positions. In the tapes, Osama Bin Laden said that what America was tasting then was insignificant compared to what they had to go through for scores of years. The Islamic world had been tasting plenty of humiliation for years together. He threatened that neither America nor the people living in it would dream of security before the infidel armies left the land of Muhammad. In other words, the emphasis was on ‘humiliation’ of the Islamic World and the adverse effect of US policies in the middle east.

The spread of communications technology augmented the humiliation felt by some Muslims because of the communications revolution. Then in 1996, the creation of Al-Jazeera corresponded with Bin-Laden’s first demands for a holy war against the US. Since the Arabic satellite channel and jihadist websites have increased in number intending to sensitise Muslims to their oppression in Kashmir, Palestine, the Balkans and so on. It is also said that Bin Laden, a Saudi fugitive was purportedly acting in retaliation for the US involvement in the Persian Gulf War and its support of Israel and continuous and prolonged military presence in the Middle East. These grievances have powered the spread of Al-Qaeda’s ideology and supported the rage of the 9/11 hijackers.

Some, however, believed that Osama was a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA-civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States) creation, and the attacks by Al-Qaeda on the World Trade Centre and pentagon were ‘Blowback’. Indian Novelist Arundhati Roy wrote that Osama Bin Laden was one of the jihadis who moved to Afghanistan in 1979 when the CIA commenced its operations over there. According to the theory, the real disgrace here is not that the CIA during the 1980s helped to create Bin Laden rather is in believing that the US was a paper tiger and weak. This belief was shaped by America retreating from Lebanon following the marine barracks bombing, the American pullout from Vietnam in the 1970s and also by the withdrawal of US forces from Somalia in 1993.

This theory of Bin Laden being a CIA creation for its aims is believed to be obvious but it has no supporting evidence. The top priority for the US in the 1970s and 1980s was fighting the Cold War with the Soviet Union and enduring its downfall. And as per the theory, the CIA used Bin Laden as a 20th-century ally before becoming its number one target after 9/11. The real disgrace here is not that the CIA during the 1980s helped to create Bin Laden but that the agency had no clue of his impact till 1996 when it set up a special unit to track the Saudi outcast.

Post 9/11 happenings

Post 9/11 attack, President George W. Bush launched an immediate hunt for Osama Bin Laden who was an Afghan Arab and was hiding somewhere in Afghanistan or neighbouring Pakistan. The US also launched a war on terror to oust the Taliban government in Afghanistan and to bring Bin Laden to justice. The American-led international effort to oust the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and destroy Osama bin Laden’s terrorist network in Afghanistan was called Operation Enduring Freedom.

Within two months of the operation, the US forces had successfully removed the Taliban from active power. The war, however, continued, as the coalition forces and the US together attempted to defeat a Taliban insurgency campaign based in neighbouring Pakistan. Bin Laden was later tracked down and killed by the US forces at a hideout in Abbottabad, Pakistan under Barack Obama, the US president after George W Bush. President Barack Obama announced the beginning of the large-scale withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan in June 2011.

Freedom of Information Act

Freedom of Information Act’s requests and denials: After the assassination of Osama Bin Laden one would have thought that the details of the assassination and thereafter its confirmation would have been shared with the world at large so that the people under threat by Al-Qaeda had a few moments of relief. The US officials described the Abbottabad raid in Pakistan in great detail but there exists no physical evidence establishing proof of death which has been offered to the public, journalists and independent third parties although this information was sought through the Freedom of Information Act. Numerous organizations filed FOIA requests, certain news agencies requested for at least a partial release of photographs, videos or DNA test results under FOIA but they were all denied. Judge James E. Boasbergand on April 26, 2012, held that the Department of Defence did not need to divulge or release any evidence to the public.

Background: US Taliban Negotiations

In a speech in August 2017, President Trump laid out a revised strategy for Afghanistan. He referred to it as a political settlement which is a result of an effective military effort. However, he did not explain what these US goals or conditions might be as part of this presumed political process. The Trump Administration within a year of this speech by President Trump decided to enter into direct negotiations with the Taliban. The Afghan government or its representatives were excluded from this discussion.

Since the war with Taliban resulted with little to no progress on the battlefield, the Trump administration overturned the long-standing US position in place of an Afghan-led reconciliation process. This resulted in the first high-level direct US Taliban talks which occurred in Doha, Qatar, in 2018. The Afghan-born former US Ambassador to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad was the special representative for Afghanistan reconciliation and he added momentum to this effort. Zalmay Khalilzad held a series of near-continuous meetings with the Taliban officials in Doha for almost a year, and this time in consultations also with the Afghan, Pakistani, and other regional governments.

Soon, in March 2019, Khalilzad announced that the draft of an agreement was finalized. Khalilzad stated that the Taliban and other Afghans, including the Afghan government, would begin intra-Afghan negotiations for a political settlement. For sometime in September 2019, President Trump called off talks after a Taliban attack killed a US soldier. The negotiations resumed about three months later.

On February 14, 2020, US and Taliban negotiators reached a very specific and definite agreement to reduce violence across Afghanistan including attacks against Afghan forces. It was decided by the US military commanders that once the truce is held, the United States and Taliban would sign a formal agreement. Americans tend to see Al-Qaeda and Taliban as inseparable. While the Al-Qaeda and Taliban have been cosily coordinated in the past, there is a visible change that as Al-Qaeda is slowly declining Taliban is rising. But despite the CIA making targeted hits at Al-Qaeda and attempting to eradicate them, Al-Qaeda’s command structure remains intact and this poses a real serious threat that an Al-Qaeda revival remains a very real possibility.

So there must be a stable government in Afghanistan if we want to prevent Al-Qaeda from re-emerging. The American public has also grown accustomed with the stories of American soldier’s casualties and the mammoth expenditures involved in fighting the longest war in history which sometimes looks like an unwinnable unending war. All this and more prompted America to find a peaceful resolution with the Taliban directly and not the Afghan government initially.

US-Taliban Agreement

After a weeklong assessment by the US military commanders, a reduction in violence was observed and hence special representative Khalilzad signed a formal agreement with the Taliban deputy political leader Mullah Abdulla Ghani Bardar, in Doha on February 29, 2020. The signing of the treaty was in front of several international observers including secretary state of Pompeo. Simultaneously on the same day, Secretary of defence Mark Esper met with Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani in Kabul to issue a joint US-Afghan declaration reasserting the US support for the Afghan government and the Afghan government’s enduring inclination to negotiate with the Taliban without preconditions. The Agreement which had four parts to it contained the following:

Ceasefire on all sides: Negotiators on all sides agreed to a temporary reduction in violence and agreed to a lasting ceasefire among Taliban, Afghan forces and the US will be part of intra-Afghan negotiations.
Withdrawal of foreign forces: The United States agreed to reduce the number of troops from roughly 13,000 to 8,600 within 135 days. It was also laid down in the agreement that if the Taliban followed through on the commitments made by them then all, the US and other foreign troops will also leave Afghanistan within a span of fourteen months. Meaning that there will be a proportionate decrease in the allied force levels also.
Intra-Afghan Negotiation: Another important part of this agreement was that the Taliban agreed to start talks in March 2020 with the Afgan government. The Taliban had shown no interest in direct talks with the government throughout the negotiation process, calling it an American puppet. But the Taliban has more recently indicated that talks with the Afghan government are possible. The deputy Taliban leader Sirajuddin Haqqani, in fact, has opined that if the Taliban could reach an agreement with a foreign enemy, then they must be able to resolve intra-Afghan disagreements through talks.
Counterterrorism assurances: The main reason behind the US invasion of Afghanistan after September 11, 2001, attacks was principally to eradicate the threat of terrorism. The invasion aimed to halt terrorist activities in the country mostly by Al-Qaeda and the self-proclaimed Islamic State by the Taliban. The agreement says that Afghanistan soil will not be used by any of its members or other individuals or any terrorist group to threaten the security of the US and its allies.

US officials have also stressed the protection of women’s rights. Before 2001, the Taliban was very strict with women’s rights and had shut all-girls’ schools and prevented women from working, and the list of abuses among other things is long. This issue could be discussed during the intra-Afghan talks.

Another US commitment included in the agreement is removing US sanctions on members of the Taliban. The removal of sanctions is, however conditional upon the start of intra-Afghan negotiations on working to enable a prisoner exchange between the Taliban and the Afghan government. In exchange, the Taliban has admitted that it will not allow any of its members or members of Al-Qaeda or any other group to use Afghan soil to threaten the US or its allies. This also includes preventing recruiting training and fundraising of any terrorist outfit on Afghan soil.

US officials declared that there are parts of this historic agreement that aren’t going to be made public since those parts don’t contain any additional commitments by the United States but they were confidential procedures for implementation of the agreement. The US has also pledged to table the agreement before the United Nations Security Council for its endorsement and recognition.

Is the US-Taliban agreement legally binding on them

The UN Charter sets goals in its Preamble, for conditions where justice and peace can be maintained by way of a treaty, and international law can be maintained. International peace and justice can be carried by many ways such as tribunals, international courts, bilateral/multilateral treaties ratified by the Security Council, the imposition of sanctions, and whenever there is a threat to international peace, even use of force.

Let us first understand what a treaty is. Treaty can be said to be a binding formal agreement/contract or legal agreement/contract or other written document which institutes an obligation between two or more subjects of international law. A variety of instruments, such as conventions, agreements, protocols, covenants, charters, and acts are largely described under the term ‘treaty’ and its key distinguishing feature is that it is binding. The obligations of a treaty are governed by the principle of Pacta Sunt Servanda of International law, meaning agreements must be kept. It is one of the oldest principles of international law without which it would be difficult to make the treaties either binding or enforceable.

Treaties can be bilateral or multilateral. In the case of bilateral treaties, a country’s signature is enough to manifest treaties, apart from a country’s signature it usually needs to be formally ratified by the government unless it has unequivocally waived this right. The treaty becomes formally binding only when ratifications have been exchanged. So, what is binding then? A country keeps its obligations with respect to a treaty, mostly to preserve its legitimacy as when it violates its obligations, it cannot point a finger at other countries or parties that violate any treaty. The reputation is at the stake of the violator as other countries may not enter into any treaty with it because its credibility becomes questionable thereafter. Countries which earlier backed the violator may not stand with it in the future. The other possibility of making a country to keep its end of the commitment in any treaty is the sanctions that can be imposed along with private and public shaming. The diplomats of the violators can face stigma and may be expelled. Worst case scenario, the matters escalate and end in a war. The same fate could befall the US-Taliban agreement as it has still not been ratified by an international body and the talks are still on and incomplete because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Conclusion

It looks like the US-Taliban deal will continue to have a number of talks in the future among the US, Taliban, and the Afghanistan government before it stops see-sawing and comes to settle down in some position. It is difficult to say which position it will end. Moreover, the Pandemic(Covid-19) is a setback on constructive implementation of the agreement on both sides. Also if sources are to be believed then both sides have already violated the peace deal. The future of the region is in question because the Taliban has already declared that after the withdrawal of the US and its allied forces, the armed group of Taliban will fight to restore the Islamic government that existed in Kabul before the 2001 invasion by the US.

The position of women in Afghanistan today is the result of the US and coalition involvement, which could have never emerged to such an extent without the courageous stands by Afghan women activists and recognition of women’s rights. Many people believe that the Afghan government and the Taliban will never come to a conclusion on women’s rights in Afghanistan. The US has concluded the agreement without giving a clear picture of women’s rights. Just to leave the destiny of the Afghan women in the hands of the intra-Afghan dialogue is a gross violation and dissertation of international responsibility to support universal human rights.

The Taliban over the years have been many things like drug dealers, violent women abusers, and terrorists but not short-sighted. After US forces withdrew from Afghanistan, the Taliban would emerge as the biggest player in the country’s internal power struggle and politics because it would be controlling 50% of the Afghan territory. According to the Hindu, a daily newspaper, the US deal with the Taliban will leave the Afghan people at the mercy of violent tribal Islamists. This situation if it happens would be the worst-case scenario not only for the Afghan government but also for all its regional allies including India whose stakes automatically will depend on the strength of the regime in Kabul.