Dr Muhammad Khan
ON 28 November 2019, President Donald Trump made a surprise Thanksgiving visit to US troops in Afghanistan. During the visit, he also made an unexpected announcement that the US has started peace talks with the Taliban. Earlier, President Trump had announced end of peace talks with Taliban in September 2019. There are over 12,000 US troops currently serving in Afghanistan on its strongly established military bases, overlooking surrounding states and regions. In its prolonged deployment, US lost over 2400 troops besides wounding thousands. In the course of his speech with US troops at Bagram Air Base, President Trump said, “The Taliban want to make a deal. We’ll see if they want to make a deal. It’s got to be a real deal, but we’ll see. But they want to make a deal.” Though, his statement is self-contradictory, yet, the analysts consider that President Trump is looking for a peace deal before the formal presidential election campaign, starting towards the beginning of 2020, the election year in the US. In his 2016 election campaign, President Trump had promised the US masses for the pull-out of US troops from all troubled regions, Afghanistan being the most troubled one.
In the earlier US-Taliban talks, finally it was a victory of US Establishment, once the signing ceremony was sabotaged at the eleventh hour, after having completed all the formalities. The US Military Establishment never wanted to reduce its troops from Afghan soil, therefore, maintained a sustained and an incessant opposition to sign a deal at Camp David, which also included the troops pullout in phases. The analysts of US politics strongly believe that the US Military Establishment (Deep State) is the real power centre of United States, which formulates the policies and strategies of the superpower and implement those in its own way, taking White House on-board at an appropriate time. A perceptive analysis would reveal that it is the prevalence and ascendancy of Deep State over the US polices which upheld the status of super power for United States, despite a tough global antagonism and strategic re-alignment.
US Military Establishment has laid down some strategic objectives to pursue on long-term for preserving its superpower status and countering its peer competitors. Challenging and containment of the rising power of China was perceived immediately, after the end of the cold war, which was made possible through collapse of the (former) Soviet Union in the early 1990s. Resurgent Russia is yet another strategic objective of US Deep state, which warrants a counter strategy. Since Russia still holds sways in the Central Asian region, contiguous to Afghanistan. Foreseeing a convergence of interests between China and Russia in Central Asia, one of the US strategic objectives is to increase its influence in this Euro-Asian landmass. Central Asian region has huge deposits of hydrocarbon and costly minerals. For a long, US has been viewing nuclear Pakistan and its strong armed forces with a lot of concern. In the past, US maintained a steady pressure on Pakistan to either freeze or roll back its nuclear programme with a substantial decrease in its armed forces. The fourth strategic objective of US Deep State in Pakistan is to neutralise its strategic competence and military professionalism. Since its offensive posturing fell-flat in the last few years, therefore, decided to re-engage with Pakistan to use indirect strategies. Afghanistan and the instability there serve the purpose in the most befitting manners.
Yet another objective could be the surveillance of Iran for its anti-Israel sentiments and to counter any move which enable this theological state to development its nuclear arsenals. The Arab world has already been manipulated by the US through a huge military deployment, providing unprecedented war munitions, controlling their militaries and military strategies and above all by creating internal rifts among the regional sates. Since President Trump has nothing to show to the US masses for his next term election campaign, therefore, the revival of peace talks with Taliban is considered to be his compulsion. On 3 December 2019, Zalmay Khalilzad has claimed major victories against the ISIS (Khorasan chapter). As per his statement, thousands of ISIS (K) elements have either been killed or surrendered to US and Afghan forces in various areas of the country. He indeed, contradicted to a Russian report that over 12000 ISIS people are operating in various parts of Afghanistan. Senior leaders of Afghanistan like Hamid Karazai believed that US is behind the ISIS people with the sole purpose of threatening Taliban and to keep Afghan Government under control. A likely re-engagement between US and Taliban would call for a consensus between White House and Pentagon with a comprehensive strategy, taking all US strategic objectives in view. Since US Military Establishment would never allow Mr Donald Trump to cut a deal with Taliban which necessitates pulling out of all US forces from Afghanistan. Re-engagement with Taliban is a unilateral US announcement. Taliban has not officially responded as yet whether they are willing to restart the peace process. US would definitely like to persuade Taliban for accommodating US strategic objectives in the region as mentioned above. Besides, US would like to maintain a reasonable US force level on its six military (strategic) bases in Afghanistan.
— The writer is Professor of Politics and International Relations at International Islamic University, Islamabad.
