Implications of HIG’s Peace Plan

Delegates from one of the main factions of the Afghan insurgency, Hezb-e-Islami (Gulbuddin), recently proposed a 15 point peace plan to senior Afghan officials in Kabul.  Although this overture will not in and of itself solve Afghanistan’s security problem, it is certainly a positive development and step forward. 

A spokesman for the delegation, Mohammad Daoud Abedi, said the Taliban, which makes up the bulk of the insurgency, would be willing to go along with the plan if a date was set for the withdrawal of foreign forces from the country. Publicly, a Taliban spokesman denied that.

The plan, titled the National Rescue Agreement, a copy of which was given to The New York Times, sets that date as July 2010, with the withdrawal to be completed within six months.

Those dates are ahead of the schedule outlined by President Obama, who set a target of July 2011 to start drawing down American troops. But the representatives said the dates were a starting position and could change.

“This is a start, this is not the word of the Koran that we cannot change it,” Mr. Abedi said.

“They have said if the U.S. announces a withdrawal date, they are ready to support our plan,” said Mr. Abedi, an Afghan-American businessman. “I promise that personally, this is my own connection and I personally promise that. I have said that to the U.S. all along.”

Politicians familiar with Mr. Hekmatyar warned that any agreement would be a long way off. Yet the document clearly had Mr. Hekmatyar’s fingers all over it, said Daoud Sultanzoi, a member of Parliament who met with Mr. Hekmatyar’s delegation on Tuesday.

“The gist of the whole is very important,” he said. “He senses a fatigue in American and European public opinion and he is seizing on that,” he said.

Several inferences can be made from these formal, publicized talks. 

First, the HIG spokesman explicitly contends that the Taliban is also willing to adhere to the plan should US forces agree to a concrete withdrawal date.  While a Taliban spokesman publicly denied the claim, a growing body of evidence suggests that HIG’s stance is indeed correct.  The UN (most prominently, the outgoing Afghan Envoy), the Karzai government, some US officials, and my own sources in Afghanistan with insider knowledge and contacts with both the Taliban and the Afghan government have all confirmed this. 

In fact, there is nothing all that controversial about such a claim — the Taliban have long argued that they are willing to cease fighting if and only if foreign forces withdraw. 

The second inference, then, is that the conventional wisdom that the insurgents would never negotiate a settlement at this point in time since they believe they are winning, is likely flawed.  As I have previously suggested, the US perspective and the Taliban perspective about what constitutes “success” and “winning” are probably fundamentally different.  In other words, the US may be unintentionally falling into the analytical trap of mirror-imaging the problem set, leading to a misleading determination of what is rational for the Taliban.  But in actuality, the US itself will be more inclined to negotiate — not less — when it also believes the momentum has fully shifted in its favor. 

So why should it be fundamentally different for the Taliban? Right now, when they believe they are winning  and can negotiate from a position of perceived strength, is actually the best time to signal their willingness to lay down their arms. 

The best counter-argument to this, however, is that the Taliban can simply wait it out.  If the US starts to withdraw beginning in July 2011, it could theoretically get increasingly easier for the Taliban to establish firmer control and expand its presence.  But the Taliban is also smart enough to realize that even a complete withdrawal does not  mean the US will surrender Afghanistan to the Taliban and wish the Karzai government all the best.  They also may realize that as the US begins to withdraw, the glue that holds the various factions of the insurgency — the fact that the US is seen as an occupying force — will lose strength and all hopes of a unified insurgency will begin to crumble.   As such, establishing uncontested control may actually get harder, not easier. 

Whatever the motivations are, I think it is fairly safe to say that the Taliban leadership and, of course, HIG are interested in talks — or at least talks about talks.  And that’s a good start.  Now, about those Haqqanis…

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