The first few weeks of Afghan President Ashraf Ghani's tenure has seen a flurry of diplomatic activity. The steps taken by him in the foreign policy domain give a clear indication of the new government's priorities.
Analysis
The first few weeks of Afghan President Ashraf Ghani’s tenure has seen a flurry of diplomatic activity. The steps taken by him in the foreign policy domain give a clear indication of the new government’s priorities. Nowhere is this more evident than in the approach taken by him towards the US.
At the time of assuming office, President Ghani’s task was complicated by the legacy left behind by his predecessor, Hamid Karzai. Mr Karzai’s last few years in office had coincided with deterioration in Afghanistan’s relations with the US. Mr Karzai had taken to denouncing the American intervention at any opportunity and blaming them for the country’s present predicament. This is something that he has continued to indulge in, even after leaving office. Mr Karzai’s behaviour and aggressive rhetoric possibly created further difficulties for the US to continue its engagement with Afghanistan, which was becoming increasingly unpopular back home.
Task cut out
President Ghani naturally found his task cut out as far as managing relations with the US was concerned. It was critical for him to attempt to mend the relations as much as possible at the beginning itself. While it is still very early to judge how well he has fared in this task, and a number of obstacles remains, the start has been encouraging.
The biggest positive development in this area was the signing of the Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA) with the US within days of President Ghani assuming office. The BSA allows the US to maintain a residual force within Afghanistan beyond 2014. Although the draft of the agreement was approved by a Loya Jirga, especially convened for this purpose, over a year ago, Mr Karzai had refused to sign it, passing the task on to his successor.
The delay in signing the BSA had raised concerns about the future of America’s military involvement in Afghanistan. The US, and even NATO, claimed that without the signing of the pact it would not be possible to maintain any foreign troops in the country. Both President Ghani and his Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah, during their electoral campaign, had stressed the importance of the prolonged presence of foreign troops in Afghanistan post-2014, and gave assurances that the signing of the BSA would be a priority.
While the pact paves the way for foreign troops to remain behind in Afghanistan, it remains to be seen how effective they will be. Given that they were unable to make a lasting dent on the insurgency at the height of the US surge between 2009 and 2011, it would be a huge ask to expect the drastically reduced residual force to accomplish this task. The US is expected to maintain just 9800 troops and the other allied NATO nations will provide the remaining 2000 or so troops. This becomes especially difficult given that the bulk of the residual force would be expected to serve in an advisory and supporting role.
Move in the right direction
However, despite such limitations, this is definitely a move in the right direction. The signing of the pact is likely to stem the anxiety surrounding the military drawdown to an extent. The fact that the US has signed off on continuing to play a role in Afghanistan post-2014 may encourage the rest of the international community to continue their engagement with and assistance to Afghanistan. Other than the US, the fact that countries like Germany, Turkey, Italy, Bulgaria, Czech Republic and the United Kingdom will also provide troops in Afghanistan beyond 2014 can be seen in this light.
More importantly, the swift nature of the decision taken by President Ghani could serve as a good precedent for what could be a new phase in Afghanistan-US relations. Already there are signs that the US may play a larger role in Afghanistan than as envisaged earlier.
For instance, US President Barack Obama has already agreed to expand the scope of the 1800-strong special operation forces by allowing them to target the Taliban insurgents as well. This enlargement of responsibility also includes the provision of providing air support to the Afghan National Security Forces. Similarly, the Afghan Government has given their sanction to the re-introduction of night raids, some of which could see the participation of the foreign forces in them. Night raids had been banned by the Karzai government despite the fact that the US forces saw them as an effective counter-insurgency mechanism. Finally, the fact that the US is contemplating increasing the number of troops itself – even if it is only by a few hundred – can be seen positively.
It is easy to dismiss all these developments as merely symbolic that will have very little impact on the ground situation. However, given the drastic changes taking place in Afghanistan presently and the disastrous consequences associated with them, even these symbolic developments can provide a platform to build upon.
(Aryaman Bhatnagar is an Associate Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi)
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