THE FOREVER WAR: AN ANALTYICAL CRITIQUE OF U.S. POLICY IN AFGHANISTAN

AN HONORS THESIS

SUBMITTED ON THE 6TH DAY OF MAY 2020

TO THE DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE

IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS

OF THE HONORS PROGRAM

OF NEWCOMB-TULANE COLLEGE

TULANE UNIVERSITY

FOR THE DEGREE OF

BACHELOR OF ARTS

WITH HONORS IN THE DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE

BY

______Kendall Gardner

APPROVED: Dr. Mark Gasiorowski Director of Thesis

Dr. Mark Vail Second Reader

Dr. Yigit Akin Third Reader

Abstract

This thesis examines U.S. policy in Afghanistan through an analytical critique.

The Afghan conflict has shaped modern U.S. foreign policy, and it is often at the center of heated public discourse. Popular perceptions of the conflict place the blame for instability squarely on Afghan shoulders, invoking tropes of Afghanistan’s “culture” of division and violence. This thesis will counter that narrative by providing an account of the Afghan conflict that emphasizes the role of international actors, specifically the role of the United States. In 2001, Afghanistan was effectively a failed state, and with the overthrow of the Taliban, the United States took on the inordinate responsibility of re- building this failed state after decades of war. This thesis asserts that the United States was unable to fulfill its mission objectives in Afghanistan because of several key factors, including a lack of long-term strategy, a security-based perspective of state-building, a failure to engage regional actors, and a fundamental misunderstanding of Afghanistan’s national identity and regional structures. This thesis asserts that American decision- making has shaped the current contours of the Afghan conflict, and it concludes by applying the outlined critiques of U.S. policy to the recently signed peace deal between the United States and the Taliban.

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Acknowledgments

First and foremost, I would like to thank the support of my Thesis Committee, Dr.

Mark Gasiorowski, Dr. Mark Vail, and Dr. Yigit Akin, without which this work would not have been possible. The encouragement, advice, and editing of my Thesis Director,

Professor Gasiorowski, in particular has been instrumental in my construction of this thesis. I would also like to thank the Altman Program in International Studies in

Business (co-directors Dr. Casey Love and Dr. Myke Yest) for its support of my academic and personal development during my time at Tulane. I would like to thank my family and friends, specifically my mother and my roommates, who have listened to many detailed discussions of Afghan politics. Finally, I would like to thank the Office of

Afghanistan Affairs at the U.S. Department of State for not only giving me a front row seat to the contents of this thesis, but also for allowing me to participate as a mere intern in these events.

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Table of Contents

1. Introduction – pg. 1

2. Chapter One: Afghanistan Before September 11th, 1973-2001 – pg. 7

3. Chapter Two: The Bonn Agreement and its Fallout, 2001-2006 – pg. 34

4. Chapter Three: The Taliban Resurgence, 2006-2014 – pg. 56

5. Chapter Four: The NATO Withdrawal and the Government of National Unity,

2014-2018 – pg. 76

6. Chapter Five: The Current State of the Afghan Conflict, 2018-Present – pg. 92

7. Conclusion – pg. 117

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List of Key Abbreviations

ANA – Afghan National Army

ANP – Afghan National Police

ANSF – Afghan National Security Forces

BSA – Bilateral Security Agreement

COIN – Counterinsurgency

DDR – Disarmament, Demobilization, Reintegration

FATA – Federally Administered Tribal Areas

GNU – Government of National Unity

ISAF – International Security Assistance Force

ISIS-K – Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant – Khorasan Province

OEF – Operation Enduring Freedom

OFS – Operation Freedom’s Sentinel

PDPA – People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan

PRT – Provincial Reconstruction Team

SIGAR – Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction

SRAR – Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconstruction

UNAMA – United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan

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List of Figures

Figure 1. Political Map of Afghanistan’s Administrative Divisions, 2009 – pg. 8

Figure 2. Map of Pashtun Tribal Distribution – pg. 10

Figure 3. Ethnolinguistic Map of Afghanistan and Pakistan, 2013 – pg. 11

Figure 4. Map of Northern Alliance & U.S. Advances, 2001 – pg. 38

Figure 5. Map of the former Federally Administered Tribal Area (FATA) of Pakistan in relation to Afghanistan, 2019 – pg. 58

Figure 6. Regions of Taliban Control & Support, September 2015 – pg. 82

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Introduction

It is no secret that the foundations of American foreign policy permanently shifted on

September 11, 2001. With the Global War on Terror, a new era of asymmetric conflict and

“never-ending wars” began for the United States, with a specific focus on the Near East and

Southwest Asia. The war in Afghanistan is America’s longest military engagement, and with that distinction comes an ever-mounting political tension over the future of the U.S.-Afghan relationship. Given the Trump administration’s dedication to withdraw all troops from

Afghanistan by the 2020 election and the recently signed peace framework between the United

States and the Taliban, it is necessary to analyze the conflict and policy outcomes with a critical lens. In this thesis I will explore the impact of U.S. policy on the Afghan conflict, starting with the 2001 Bonn Agreement and ending at the present day. A popular narrative in the United

States is that Afghanistan has a proclivity to conflict, caused by tribal divisions, lack of development, and other “internal” characteristics. In this thesis I will argue against this narrative, instead supporting the view that U.S. policy exacerbated the internal problems facing

Afghanistan at every critical juncture. American policy decisions stoked the coals of insurgency in Afghanistan and eventually led to a “forever war” of intractable conflict.

On September 21, 2018, President Trump appointed Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad as the Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation (SRAR), in a renewed effort to negotiate an end to the 18-year war.1 The process would include several rounds of U.S.-Taliban negotiations in Doha, on a four-pronged framework which was to be agreed upon by September

1, 2019. The process highlighted the importance of ending the war in Afghanistan for the Trump

1 “Zalmay Khalilzad: Special Representative for Afghan Reconciliation,” U.S. Department of State online, accessed October 4, 2019, https://www.state.gov/biographies/zalmay-khalilzad/. 1 administration, which has dedicated itself to bringing all American troops home from

Afghanistan. Khalilzad’s negotiations saw unprecedented progress, and his team came closer than any previous peace attempt to achieving an American peace agreement with the Taliban.

However, in early September of 2019, the negotiations collapsed after a bungled attempt by

President Trump to invite Taliban leaders and President Ashraf Ghani to Camp David, days before the anniversary of 9/11. In the span of three days, the administration went from almost signing a deal with both parties to recalling Ambassador Khalilzad and ending nine months of progress towards peace.2 The peace process was put on an indefinite hold. However, this trajectory reversed once again in February of 2020, when Khalilzad signed a deal with the

Taliban that ensured two parts of the four-pronged framework. Concurrently with the Khalilzad negotiations, Afghanistan found itself embroiled in a domestic political dispute, with two candidates claiming victory from the October 2019 presidential elections. In the context of

American politics, the outcome of the current peace deal will certainly be a point of hot contestation as President Trump seeks re-election in November of 2020.

This issue is clearly important from the perspective of U.S. policy, but the humanitarian costs and impact on the people of Afghanistan are dramatically more significant, making an analysis of the conflict ever more critical. The Afghan conflict has been raging in different forms for the past 40 years, with the Taliban insurgency itself emerging in the 1990s. According to the Costs of War project at Brown University, there have been 147,124 direct war-related deaths in Afghanistan during 2003-2018.3 This number does not include indirect deaths, such as those caused by long-term destruction and lacking access to food, water, and health resources; it

2 Peter Baker et al, “How Trump’s Plan to Secretly Meet with the Taliban Came Together, and Fell Apart,” New York Times, Sept. 8, 2019. 3 Neta Crawford, “Human Cost of the Post-9/11 Wars: Lethality and the Need for Transparency,” Costs of War Project, Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University, November 2018. 2 also is likely an undercount because of limits in reporting. This is a staggering number, and the conflict was already devastating before the U.S. invasion of 2001. The Afghan people desperately need a reprieve from violence. An analysis of the previously attempted policies can provide insight about the best means to end the horrific violence in Afghanistan.

In this thesis, I will analyze U.S. policy in Afghanistan within the historical context of the conflict’s origins. Specifically, I will point to key historical moments in which the conflict was exacerbated, and I will detail the conditions and institutions that have blocked previous hopes for peace. As a key overarching theme, I will focus on how American decision-making in

Afghanistan has never followed a long-term strategy, setting many initiatives up for failure. U.S. policymakers continuously sought shortcut solutions for problems that required long-term commitments. Additionally, I will explain how this short-term American strategic view revolved around military objectives and security interests. The emphasis on military solutions stunted the growth of Afghan state capacity, leading the country’s institutions to be mightily ill-equipped as they attempted to rebuild a failed state. I will discuss how these strategic issues first appeared in the aftermath of the Bonn process, and eventually, how these issues contributed to the Taliban’s resurgence and the Afghan political crisis.

A second key theme of this thesis will be the fundamental misunderstanding of

Afghanistan’s national character and regional structures. Throughout the conflict, U.S. policy was based on a flawed understanding of Afghan tribalism, Afghan nationalism, and Afghan history. These misunderstandings led American policymakers to advocate for a disastrous centralized government in the country, one that resulted in increased Taliban influence.

Additionally, these misunderstandings trickled into the development of Afghan democratic institutions, which did not provide the requisite legitimacy to the Afghan state. I will analyze

3 this theme primarily through the government structure and electoral institutions advocated at the

Bonn Conference and the years before 2006. Finally, I will present the misunderstanding of

Afghan national identity as an undergirding force of U.S. policy failures. I will introduce this theme by first exploring the birth of Afghanistan’s national character as a bulwark against imperial forces. Then I will explore how this identity complicated the Soviet invasion of 1979, and the subsequent proxy conflict between the Soviet Union and United States in Afghanistan throughout the 1980s. I will connect this history to the current identity of the Taliban as an anti- imperial insurgency, particularly in the context of the international involvement in building

Afghan institutions at the Bonn Conference of 2001. I will approach the Taliban resurgence of

2006 as a reaction to international intervention, and I will explain how poor U.S. policy served to strengthen the Taliban movement by failing to address an Afghan identity forged in the resistance of international forces.

Finally, I will discuss the theme of regional actors heavily in this thesis, with a focus on

U.S. policy towards Pakistan. A crucial component of the Afghan conflict is the role of Pakistan in supporting or derailing efforts towards peace. Pakistan has provided a haven for terrorist organizations and supported the Taliban insurgency, among other destabilizing actions, and these various interferences in Afghan affairs have marked the Afghan-Pakistani relationship. A chronology and analysis of the conflict would be incomplete without an inclusion of this key dynamic, specifically when discussing Pakistan’s role in the Taliban’s resurgence in 2006.

Therefore, this thesis will explore the integration of Pakistan in U.S. peace efforts, and I will argue that a regional approach is vital to achieving Afghan peace.

I will structure this thesis chronologically, with a focus on the above themes, but with the inclusion of other relevant points throughout each critical phase of the conflict. I will begin with

4 a background chapter, highlighting the important events between 1973 and 2001 that provide needed context for subsequent events. This chapter will encompass the 1973 coup against the

Afghan monarchy, the rise of the Afghan Communists, the Soviet invasion and withdrawal during 1979-1989, the following civil war, the Taliban takeover in 1996, and the events leading up to the U.S. invasion of 2001. This chapter will present these events in light of their connection to the current Afghan conflict. The following chapter will cover the beginning of the

Global War on Terror in 2001-2008, with an emphasis on the initial U.S. invasion of

Afghanistan, the Bonn agreement, and the failures to set the Afghan state on a course toward lasting peace. The 2001-2008 period is especially critical to understanding the subsequent state collapse and Taliban resurgence.

In Chapter 3, I will discuss the Taliban’s resurgence from 2006 to 2014. This chapter will explore how the Taliban regrouped after the initial success of the American intervention of

2001. It will focus on the counterinsurgency strategy of the Obama administration, and how

U.S. policies exacerbated the conflict during a crucial phase of state restructuring. This chapter will also cover the beginning of the formal peace process, with a discussion of the conditions surrounding initial peace talks between the United States and the Taliban. Chapter 4 will begin with the massive U.S. troop drawdown of 2014, and it will discuss the impact of international conflict fatigue on the war. This chapter will also discuss the election of Afghan President

Ashraf Ghani in 2014, ending the 13-year tenure of President Hamid Karzai, and the election of

U.S. President Donald Trump, shifting U.S. policy towards the conflict.

Finally, Chapter Five will highlight how the Taliban was able to gain enormous territorial leverage going into the 2019 negotiations. This chapter will focus on the present state of the conflict, beginning in early 2018. It will highlight the efforts of Ambassador Khalilzad to bring

5 an end to the conflict, his negotiating framework, and key disagreements on the path to inclusive peace. It will also cover the massive failure of the Afghan presidential election of October 2019, and the U.S.-Taliban peace deal signed in February of 2020. In the Conclusion, I will bring together the central themes highlighted throughout the thesis and apply them to the current situation in Afghanistan. I will use this analysis to present policy-relevant conclusions and implications for future international and U.S. policy on Afghanistan.

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Chapter One: Afghanistan Before September 11th (1973-2001)

This chapter will present the essential background information needed to understand contemporary Afghan politics and the various conflicts that have underpinned the current turmoil in the country. I will define the foreground of this thesis as all events occurring after September

11, 2001, which marked the beginning of the current iteration of this 40-year long war. To understand U.S. policy after 2001, we must begin at the start of Afghanistan’s series of long and tumultuous conflicts – the overthrow of the Afghan monarchy in 1973. However, before studying the coup, an overview of Afghan social, political, and economic structure as of 1973 is in order. 1

I. Social, Political, and Economic Structure – 1973

Prior to 1973, Afghanistan was ruled by a series of dynastic monarchs, with brief periods of British colonial government in the 19th and early 20th centuries. It is vital to understand the unique situation of Afghanistan in the colonial period when compared to its central and south

Asian neighbors. Rather than experiencing direct rule, like that of the British Raj in India,

Afghanistan maintained a continuous dynasty of Afghan rulers. Although the British invaded

Afghanistan in 1839 and 1878 to install regimes favorable to their interests, the country was never a fully integrated colony of the British empire.2 This distinction is crucial to understanding a variety of Afghan traits as of 1973, including but not limited to the relative lack of infrastructure (as an occupying power never had the need to conquer the country’s perilous

1 The primary sources used for this chapter are Thomas Barfield, Afghanistan: A Cultural and Political History, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010; and Bruce Reidel, What We Won: America’s Secret War in Afghanistan, 1979-89, Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2014. 2 Anthony Hyman, “Nationalism in Afghanistan,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 34, no. 2 (2002), 302. 7 geography), the dominance of tribalism in politics, the reliance on foreign rents to create legitimacy for Afghan rulers, and the persistence of traditional Afghan culture.3

Throughout Afghan history, the political landscape has been populated by a wide variety of tribal groups, which the central government in Kabul (See Figure 1) has struggled to incorporate into the state. The government’s relationships with these groups have fluctuated, particularly in times of war, but typically tribal groups were allowed relative autonomy when they paid taxes. Occasionally these tribes served as militias, rebelling against one ruling faction or another. Afghans tend to identify with their tribal heritage, and these tribes are part of larger socio-ethnic groups, which are critical to understanding the current Afghan political dynamic.

Figure 1. Political Map of Afghanistan’s Administrative Divisions, 2009 (Source: University of Texas)

3 See Abdur Rahman’s rejection of foreign infrastructure investment and reliance on British subsidies, Barfield, Afghanistan,152-153; and see Barfield, Afghanistan, 205 for description of Afghanistan’s status as a rentier state as of 1973. See Neamatollah Nojumi, The Rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan, New York: Palgrave, 2002, 2-3 for further discussion of Afghanistan’s unique status as a non-colony in the region. 8

The ethnic groups in Afghanistan are divided along geographic and linguistic lines. 4

Although a true census has never been taken in Afghanistan, there are informed estimates of the country’s demography. The four ethnic groups that compose the majority of the Afghan population are the Pashtuns (42 percent), Tajiks and Aimaks (30 percent), Hazaras (9 percent), and Uzbeks (9 percent).5 The Pashtuns speak Pashto and traditionally hail from southern and eastern Afghanistan. The Pashtuns have played the dominant role in Afghan political life since the mid-eighteenth century. The two most important Pashtun tribes are the Durrani and the

Ghilzai. The Durrani are located in the south and southwest of the country and comprised the

Afghan ruling elite until the coup of 1973. It is vital to understand the Durrani elite’s monopoly on power to understand the shift that has occurred in modern Afghanistan. Before 1973, Afghan power dynamics were consumed by infighting amongst the Durrani lineages, while the dynamic between the Durrani and other Pashtun tribes, such as the Ghilzais, was one of rebellion and suppression. The Ghilzais hail from the east and are the largest Pashtun group in Afghanistan, although historically they have been subjugated by the Durrani elite. After the 1973 coup, the

Ghilzais became the dominant Pashtun group in Afghan political life until the ascension of

Hamid Karzai, a Durrani Pashtun, in 2001.6 The map (see Figure 2) below shows the distribution of Pashtun tribes.

4Afghan tribal politics are extraordinarily complex and cannot be covered conclusively in this thesis. Furthermore, Afghan ethnic groups and tribal dynamics are understudied and frequently misunderstood through an imperial lens. For more on these topics, see Carol J. Riphenburg, “Ethnicity and Civil Society in Contemporary Afghanistan,” Middle East Journal 59, no. 1 (2005): 31-51; and Christian Bleuer, “The Study and Understudy of Afghanistan’s Ethnic Groups: What we Know – and Don’t Know,” The Afghanistan Analysts Network, September 10, 2014, https://www.afghanistan-analysts.org/the-study-and-understudy-of-afghanistans-ethnic-groups/ 5 Reidel, What We Won, 41. 6 Barfield, Afghanistan, 226. 9

Figure 2. Geographic Distribution of Pashtun Tribes (Source: University of West Florida)

The other three ethnic groups comprise less of the population and have less internal cohesion. The Tajiks speak Dari and traditionally live in the northeast of the country but have also constituted the bulk of the population in Kabul. The Hazaras are an ethnic minority found in the central range of the Hindu Kush, known as Hazarajat, and Bamiyan Province (See Figure 3).

Unlike the Pashtuns and Tajiks, they are Shia Muslims and are thought to be descendants of

Mongol invaders, although they speak Dari. The Hazaras have been continuously victimized and systemically excluded from positions of power throughout Afghan history, most infamously during the rule of the Taliban. Finally, the Uzbeks and Turkmen are Sunni, Turkic-speaking groups, located in northern Afghanistan. The social hierarchy of Afghanistan is one of Pashtun rule, with Tajik bureaucratic support, followed by the Uzbeks and Turkmen as a middle class,

10 with the Hazaras subjugated at the bottom.7 The map below (See Figure 3) depicts the ethno- linguistic distribution of the above-described groups and other groups of note throughout

Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan.

Figure 3. An Ethnolinguistic Map of Afghanistan and Pakistan, 2013 (Source: Brown University)

State building in a country with such diverse tribal and ethnic groups proved immensely challenging and took centuries of effort by Afghan monarchs. The British invasions and interference in the Afghan state served in many ways to create an Afghan national identity in a

7 Above description of Afghan ethnic groups found in Barfield, Afghanistan, 24-27; and Nojumi, The Rise of the Taliban, 63-65. 11 society that was still inherently divided among tribal lines.8 Many Durrani rulers used the threat of foreign invasion as a tool to encourage the tribes to fight on behalf of Afghanistan or to legitimize their rule.9 Afghan national identity became linked to resisting imperial forces, often in the name of expelling religious infidels, and this theme has remained a force in Afghan politics to the present day.

The height of Afghan state power before the 20th century was the reign of Abdur

Rahman, or the Iron Amir, who ruled from 1880 to 1901 and achieved a level of power never seen before or after his reign. His autocratic regime is credited with laying the foundation of the current Afghan nation-state, but he did so only by violently subordinating various Afghan social and political groups.10 However, even after Rahman’s centralized regime, Afghanistan’s regions maintained a sense of independence because of the self-sufficient nature of rural Afghan communities, and the role of the central government in the lives of most Afghans was marginal at best.11 Abdur Rahman also signed the Durand Line Agreement (see Figure 3) with the British, which created an imperially imposed border between Afghanistan and the British Raj (modern- day India and Pakistan) that exists to this day. The Afghan government has never accepted the legitimacy of the Durand Line, as it splits the Pashtun population between Afghanistan and

Pakistan. Many prominent Afghan politicians have called for the incorporation of this region into the Afghan state, and others have supported the creation of Pashtunistan, an independent state for the Afghan and Pakistani Pashtuns on either side of the Line.12 Both of these stances

8 Hyman, “Nationalism in Afghanistan,” 303. 9 For more on the formation of an Afghan national identity in the context of imperialism, see Shah Mahmoud Hanifi, “The Intellectual Impact of Colonialism and the Urgency of Decolonizing Knowledge in Afghanistan”, the Middle East Institute, April 18, 2012, https://www.mei.edu/publications/intellectual-impact-colonialism-and-urgency- decolonizing-knowledge-afghanistan. 10 Barfield, Afghanistan, 160. 11 Nojumi, The Rise of the Taliban, 6. 12 Reidel, What We Won, 11-12. 12 have strained the Afghan-Pakistani relationship, leading to some of Pakistan’s intervention in

Afghan affairs throughout the 20th and 21st century.

Finally, it is important to understand the economic and social underpinnings of Afghan society prior to 1973. Throughout the 20th century, economic and technological conditions in

Afghanistan remained far behind those in most of its neighbors and in the world at large, specifically because of an insufficient transport system and a lack of economic integration.13

With no colonial government promoting infrastructure development to coordinate extractive industries, Afghanistan remained largely unconnected. Afghan leaders resisted the introduction of new technology, and the economy continued to be small-scale and subsistence based.

Meanwhile, the urban development of Afghanistan was concentrated almost entirely in Kabul.

Future urban centers like Herat, Kandahar, Jalalabad, and Mazar remained largely inaccessible from the capital until the 1960s, when the Soviets built the ring road, the first paved road linking all of Afghanistan’s major cities. Afghanistan’s brief period of 20th century development began in the 1950s and was entirely based on foreign aid from the United States and the Soviet Union.14

The ring road contains the famous Salang Pass through the Hindu Kush Mountains north of Kabul. The Salang Pass was the world’s highest motorable pass at the time of its construction. The ring road project was never fully completed, but it did have a substantial impact on Afghan life. For the first time, trade could flow between the major urban centers in

Afghanistan. However, the ring road was never connected to the Afghan countryside, creating a new and intensified split between urban Afghanistan and its rural periphery.15 This geographic divide contributed to a growing animosity between urban “modernists” and rural

13 Nojumi, The Rise of the Taliban, 1. 14 Barfield, Afghanistan, 161, 205, 215-217; and Reidel, What We Won, 13. 15 Barfield, Afghanistan, 218. 13

“conservatives.” As education rates and the middle class continued to grow in Kabul, the urban population rapidly became open to first liberal, and then revolutionary, ideologies. Meanwhile, the rural population held onto religious beliefs and cultural patterns, rebelling against any changes to their way of life.

II. The 1973 Coup and Rise of the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan

With these key social, political, and economic factors in mind, the 1973 coup marked the beginning of a violent period of transition unlike anything seen during the previous centuries.

This transition began with the overthrow of the monarchy in favor of the first Afghan republic.

Mohammad Daud Khan, a former prime minister, launched a nationalist coup against King Zahir

Shah in 1973, with the backing of the Soviet Union. Although Daud was a nationalist and not a communist, a faction of the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) backed his government. The PDPA was a communist political party that was divided into two factions – the

Parchimis, led by Babrak Karmal, and Khalqis, led by Nur Muhammad Taraki. The Parchimis were the more moderate faction, and notably, was comprised of mostly non-Pashtuns. They supported Daud’s takeover despite his clear lack of communist sympathies because they aimed to drive long-term economic transition, which they saw as only possible through cooperation with an existing elite. Their hope was that these economic changes would create an Afghan society ripe for communist revolution. The Khalqis, on the other hand, favored an immediate revolution to bring Soviet-style Communism to Afghanistan and held a large concentration of

Pashtuns.16 The Khalqis never recognized Daud’s government.17

16 Nojumi, The Rise of the Taliban, 65. 17 For more on the Khalq Faction and the growth of Soviet influence in Afghanistan, see AAN Team, “Thematic Dossier XVIII: The PDPA and the Soviet Intervention,” The Afghan Analysts Network, April 27, 2018.

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The Soviets, seeking a friendly government on their southern border, provided enormous support to Daud. Although Afghanistan now was a republic, Daud’s governance was still entrenched in the small, Durrani elite that had always controlled Afghan politics. Daud himself belonged to the Muhammadzai line, a branch of the Durrani tribe, and he claimed legitimacy from this descent. The coup that brought Daud to power was essentially bloodless, and the changes that occurred during this transition period were minimal, except for strides made in education and women’s rights. Even during his time as prime minister in the 1950s, Daud had radical views on social policy. He famously ordered all women in the royal family to appear in public without the veil – a shocking move for the time period. Additionally, Daud’s government strongly promoted education; by 1979 more than one million Afghans were enrolled in school, including many women.18 However, Daud did not attempt large-scale reforms outside of urban centers and allowed rural areas to remain largely outside of control by the central government.19

Daud pursued an aggressive foreign policy against Pakistan on the issue of Pashtunistan.

As prime minister, he had sent a combined army and tribal force cross the Durand Line causing a crisis that led to his resignation in 1963. After the coup, he renewed his efforts to protest the

Durand Line by giving Pakistani Pashtun rebels sanctuary in northern Afghanistan. These policies led Pakistan to begin backing reactionary Islamist parties, based in Peshawar, Pakistan, to plot terrorist attacks in Kabul against the Daud regime.20 This is an important event to note, as

https://www.afghanistan-analysts.org/publication/aan-thematic-dossier/thematic-dossier-xviii-the-pdpa-and-the- soviet-intervention/; and M. Hassan Kakar, Afghanistan: The Soviet Invasion and the Afghan Response, 1979-1982, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995. 18 Reidel, What We Won, 13. 19Barfield, Afghanistan, 224-225. 20 Reidel, What We Won, 15. 15

Pakistan would continue to back Peshawar-based Islamist parties in the future to disrupt Afghan politics and support Pakistan’s goals.

Finally, Daud started to position himself against his former allies in the PDPA by outlawing the Parchim and Khalq factions in 1976 and removing all Parchimis from government positions. These strategies insulated his regime from revolutionary rural threats and the newly organized Islamist parties in Pakistan, but they alienated him from the radical leftist base that had facilitated his ascent to power.

III. The Saur Revolution and the Soviet Invasion

Daud Khan’s leniency toward rural conservatism and his lack of zeal for reform eventually led to his downfall. In 1978, the Khalqis led a pro-Soviet coup against the government, dubbed the “Saur Revolution,” in which Daud, his entire family, and many other members of the Afghan old guard were assassinated. The Soviets feared a U.S.- and Iran-backed conspiracy to turn Daud against them. Therefore, they supported a reunification of the Khalq and Parchim factions to overthrow Daud, after a prominent Communist was assassinated in

1978. The PDPA declared a revolutionary government, aligned with the Soviet Union, and committed to communist ideology. The new government targeted minority groups, such as the

Nuristanis and the Hazaras, and positioned itself as anticlerical, breaking with the Afghan

Islamic tradition. Additionally, the new government was almost entirely composed of Pashtun

Ghilzais from the Khalq faction, marking a key transition of tribal power that has continued to influence Afghan politics up through the current era. The historically aggrieved Ghilzais, rather

16 than the Durranis, held a monopoly on power from the Saur Revolution until the 2001 Bonn

Agreement.21

In the aftermath of the Saur Revolution, the new government struggled to establish a true

Communist regime and faced pushback from tribal areas, emphasizing the previous cleavages between the radical, urban population in Kabul and an Islamic fundamentalist movement that began to grow in peripheral areas. The PDPA’s internal divisions only contributed to these governing struggles. The Parchimis and Khalqis had a power sharing agreement after the Saur

Revolution, but their relationship quickly deteriorated. The Khalqis purged the Parchimis from leadership positions, exiled their most prominent members abroad, and arrested or executed their rank and file, using notions of ethnic supremacy.22

After eradicating the Parchimis, the Khalqis began to turn on each other, with their high- level leadership divided between two men, Hafizullah Amin and the “Great Leader,” Taraki. In

1979, Amin murdered Taraki after discovering that he was planning a Soviet-backed coup. This split the Khalqis into pro-Amin and pro-Taraki camps, which slaughtered each other en masse in the months before the Soviet invasion. During this time of intense internal division, pressures against the government were reaching new heights in the tribal regions of Afghanistan. Even before Taraki’s murder, the CIA was monitoring a brewing insurrection in the tribal regions based on the “widespread belief among the ethnic groups that Taraki’s government is

Communist, atheist, and pro-Soviet.”23 The report goes on to detail that the different tribes were not yet united in their opposition. However, this opposition only grew after Amin’s ascent to

21 Barfield, Afghanistan, 226. 22 Neamatollah Nojumi, The Rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan, New York: Palgrave, 2002, 65. 23 Office of Geographic and Cartographic Research in coordination with the Office of Political Analysis, “Afghanistan: Ethnic Diversity and Dissidence,” The Central Intelligence Agency, 1979, Declassified in 2006. 17 power, and the new government was threatened with the prospect of full-blown civil war. The resistance fought against the PDPA’s radical attempts to transform the rural economy and social order by seizing land for the state, reducing the role of local powerbrokers, and declaring legal equality between men and women.24 For most of Afghan history, rural communities had been given relative independence, and each previous attempt to “modernize” the tribal areas ended in disaster. For the PDPA, this pattern would continue. Despite all the PDPA’s internal divisions, it was its aggravation of the tribal regions that led to its downfall.

In this context, the PDPA government signed the Afghan-Soviet Friendship Treaty of

1978, which allowed the Soviet Union to provide military assistance to it in the event of an existential threat. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 was based on this agreement.

After Taraki’s murder, the Soviets worried that Amin was attempting to defect to the Western bloc. In addition, the Afghan army began experiencing mutinies. The Soviets decided that an invasion was justified and necessary to preserve the Afghan socialist state. The Soviets feared that the disintegration of institutions like the military would leave the country with a power vacuum that the United States might try to fill – an outcome that was unacceptable in the Cold

War context.

In December 1979, the Soviets invaded Afghanistan to prop up the communist regime.

They installed a puppet government by murdering Amin and supporting Karmal, a Tajik and the former Parchimi leader, as the new head of state.25 The Soviets pushed Karmal to reverse many of the Khalqi’s unpopular policies in favor of more-moderate reforms. Karmal revived the

Pashtunistan issue, slowed the implementation of land reforms, and changed the Afghan flag

24 Reidel, What We Won, 17; and Nojumi, The Rise of the Taliban, 50. 25 Nojumi, The Rise of the Taliban, 66. 18 back to its traditional colors to quell insurrection.26 However, resistance to the government remained strong throughout the country, as Karmal was correctly still viewed as an instrument of a foreign power. The popular resistance to Karmal is historically significant, as Afghans built their national identity on thwarting foreign occupation, and the leadership of a “puppet” government was unacceptable. Later in this thesis, this narrative will be applied by the Taliban to Presidents Karzai and Ghani, and the popular reaction to the Soviet-backed leadership in

Kabul is key to understanding this frame of reference.

Additionally, Afghanistan again found itself as a strategic hotspot for an international rivalry. Rather than being the crux of the “Great Game” between the British and the Russians,

Afghanistan was now in the crossfire of the Cold War. Up until this point, the Americans had not believed that the Soviet Union would invade Afghanistan, due to the high political and economic costs. With the invasion, the United States was confronted with the reality of the

Soviet occupation. Washington therefore began to pursue a hardline stance, interpreting the invasion as a Soviet move to take over the Persian Gulf. The United States imposed economic sanctions against the Soviet Union, increased military spending, and warned that the American military would repel a takeover of the Persian Gulf by any means necessary.27 This would be the beginning of a long history of American involvement in Afghan affairs.

IV. Formation of the Mujahideen and the War Against the Soviets

Afghans mobilized en masse against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. A national resistance formed in the shape of a jihad force, fighting to protect the Afghan way of life.

26 Reidel, What We Won, 27. 27 Salim Yaqub, “The Cold War and the Middle East,” The Oxford Handbook of the Cold War, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. 19

Afghan national identity was never stronger than during wars with outside forces, and the ties between this Afghan national identity and Islam started to grow immensely during this time.

This climate provided an opening for conservative rural factions to consolidate in the name of Islam and Afghan tradition. The disaffected rural communities mobilized into resistance groups that formalized their opposition by creating links with Islamist parties based in

Pakistan that had previously had a negligible impact on Afghan politics.28 Pakistan encouraged the Islamic resistance in Afghanistan largely because of the aggressive stance of post-1973

Afghanistan towards the Pashtunistan issue. However, Pakistan also became involved because of intense pressure from the United States and a large Afghan refugee population in Pakistan, among other concerns.29 Pakistan strengthened the Islamist parties by using them as a conduit for all U.S. aid and arms to the Afghan resistance.30 This policy politicized Afghan resistance factions by forcing them to align with Islamist parties in Pakistan to receive weapons and money.

It was this process that created the mujahideen, a diverse collection of Islamist guerrillas that emerged after the occupation and soon constituted the main source of opposition to Soviet forces in a religiously motivated struggle against the Communist regime. However, it is important to recognize that many groups fighting in Afghanistan under the banner of Islamism had no interest in ideology and rather fought with the mujahideen for opportunistic reasons, primarily for access to U.S. and Saudi aid channeled through Pakistan.31 Many regional commanders aligned themselves with several mujahideen parties simultaneously and switched

28 Nojumi, The Rise of the Taliban, 83. 29Peter Pentz, “The Mujahidin Middleman: Pakistan’s Role in the Afghan Crisis and the International Rule of Non- Intervention,” Penn State International Law Review 6, no 3 (1988), 382. 30 Ibid., 385. 31 Ijaz Ahmad Khan, “Understanding Pakistan’s Pro-Taliban Policy,” Pakistan Horizon 60, no 2 (2007), 152. 20 their allegiances based on which was most convenient at the time.32 Finally, the ethnic bases of these parties, though sometimes critical, were also frequently blurred.33 Afghan politics is often oversimplified to a story of ethnic division or radical ideology, but the reality is always more complex and involves substantial opportunism and reliance on personal relationships.

During this time, many of the most important figures in contemporary Afghanistan began to emerge, usually as guerrilla commanders in different Afghan regions or as leaders of Islamist parties based in Peshawar. The two most important party leaders were Gulbadin Hekmatyar and

Burhanadin Rabbani. Hekmatyar was the most radical of the party leaders, and the favorite of the Pakistani intelligence services, the ISI. A Ghilzai Pashtun, he led the Hizb-i-Islami party, which attracted mostly Pashtun followers and received the most foreign aid from Pakistan and the United States throughout the resistance.34 Two of his key commanders inside Afghanistan were Jalaludin Haqqani in the Pashtun east and Abdul Haq, another Ghilzai Pashtun.35

Burhanadin Rabbani, a Tajik, began as a member of Hizbi-i-Islami but broke away to found the

Jamiat-i-Islami party, arguably because of ethnic and linguistic differences.36 Jamiat-i-Islami attracted non-Pashtuns in the north and west and included the legendary commander, Ahmad

Shah Massoud, an ethnic Tajik who led forces in the Panjsher Valley.37 Another top commander fought on the side of the Soviets, but after their withdrawal, he sustained his forces to fight in the mujahideen civil war. His name was Abdul Rashid Dostum, an Uzbek from Jowzjan province.38

These commanders and party leaders frequently forged unlikely alliances and switched sides,

32 Nojumi, The Rise of the Taliban, 84. 33 Ibid., 61. 34 Reidel, What We Won, 46-48. 35 Nojumi, The Rise of the Taliban, 94. 36 Ibid., 85. 37 Reidel, What We Won, 46-48. 38 Ibid., 5-7. 21 and most have remained key figures in Afghan political life precisely for these reasons.39

Afghan political leaders have learned to use opportunity and self-interest above ethnic ties or ideology; the failure of international actors to understand this dynamic is part of the reason that the Afghan conflict rages to this day.

The United States made a fateful decision to contain the Soviet presence in Afghanistan by training and funding the mujahideen, in coordination with Saudi Arabia, in amounts that reached a billion dollars per year in the mid-1980s.40 The Soviets had planned on a relatively quick invasion. It was centered on taking major cities and transportation routes with the PDPA’s military, backed by Soviet air attacks. This strategy proved unsuccessful as the mujahideen grew more powerful. The Soviets attempted to reorganize the Afghan PDPA government by replacing

Karmal with Najibullah, the extremist head of the Afghan secret police, in 1986. The year 1986 is generally viewed as a turning point in the conflict, as the mujahideen began to win most of their confrontations with the Soviet army after obtaining U.S.-made anti-aircraft Stinger missiles.

Soviet motivation to fight plummeted, as the conflict’s diplomatic, military, and financial costs continued to rise, producing a stalemate.41

The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan lasted for a decade and was largely unsuccessful.

Although the Soviets achieved victory in urban locations, they could not quell the insurrection in rural Afghanistan. In fact, the invasion of Afghanistan is often cited as a primary reason for the

USSR’s collapse. In 1988, the Soviets signed the UN-backed Geneva Accord, and Soviet forces

39 Hassan Abbas, The Taliban Revival: Violence and Extremism on the Pakistan-Afghanistan Frontier¸ New Haven: Yale University Press, 2014, 60. 40 Barfield, Afghanistan, 236. 41 Reidel, What We Won, 32. 22 were finally withdrawn from Afghanistan in 1989, the same year the Berlin Wall fell. Non- coincidentally, the Soviet Union collapsed shortly afterward, in 1991.

Najibullah’s short reign (1986-1992) was characterized by an attempt to purge the PDPA of its Soviet characteristics. He added clerics to the government payroll, rebuilt mosques, and proposed a coalition government that would include resistance leaders.42 Najibullah’s attempts to appease the mujahideen were deeply unpopular among his own socialist supporters, who viewed them as a betrayal. The mujahideen were similarly unimpressed and wanted to topple

Najibullah’s government. When the Soviets withdrew, the United States and Saudi Arabia defied international agreements by continuing to supply arms and aid to their respective proxies in Afghanistan. Most observers believed that the resistance would overthrow Najibullah’s government after the Soviet withdrawal, and Pakistan encouraged mujahideen leaders to consolidate their parties and reach a power-sharing agreement in preparation for the collapse of the Najibullah government. However, even with significant pressure from the United States and

Pakistan, the mujahideen were unable to unify behind a single leadership, leading to four more years of Najibullah’s regime and foreshadowing the future years of conflict.43

The Soviet war led to an increased national consciousness and the collapse of Kabul’s control over rural areas, which saw the rise of regional warlords. The occupation destroyed the agricultural sector and made the Afghan government heavily dependent on foreign aid. The

Soviets had invested in regional centers during their occupation, increasing the autonomy of

Afghanistan’s provinces. Finally, the ideological battles that would mark the Afghan conflict for the next 40 years began, as the mujahideen fought the foreign invaders in the name of Islam.

42 Barfield, Afghanistan, 239. 43 Nojumi, The Rise of the Taliban, 95. 23

When the Soviets withdrew, the justification to oppose the Najibullah government as a communist puppet regime ceased to exist, as there was no foreign influence controlling Kabul.

However, the influential commanders continued their resistance by forming the National

Commanders Shura (NCS) in 1990 to coordinate activities against the Najibullah regime.44

Unfortunately, the Shura was undermined by Hekmatyar, the CIA, the ISI, and the Saudis, who still preferred Hizb-i-Islami leadership to any other alternative. 45 This international strategy of supporting one party which was deemed most advantageous to international interests led to increased fragmentation among both the mujahideen leadership and the guerrillas fighting on the ground in Afghanistan.

During this time, the government’s relationship with the Soviet Union was still amicable and in fact, the Najibullah administration was highly dependent on both military and economic resources form the Soviet Union. This economic support from the Soviet Union allowed

Najibullah to essentially pay off his former enemies into subservience. Additionally, many former mujahideen commanders defected to the national military to benefit from the system of foreign aid that supported Najibullah’s administration.46 This again highlights the nature of the

Afghan conflict – not one of ideological motivation, but one of self-interest and patronage. As

Barfield states, “Afghans never saw the war they were fighting in such black-and-white terms because politics in Afghanistan were less ideological and more personal. It was a world where yesterday’s enemy might become today’s ally, meaning you should take no one for granted.”47

44 Ibid., 106. 45 Ibid., 108. 46 Barfield, Afghanistan, 244-45. 47 Ibid., 243-44. 24

However, when the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, Najibullah’s system came crumbling to the ground. Without foreign aid to prop up his government and pay off the various militias in his alliance, the government collapsed and Najibullah accepted a UN-brokered transition of power. However, the newly empowered regional militia forces and Pakistan-resistance groups

(still receiving funding from the United States) saw this dissolution as an opportune moment to take power for themselves. Hekmatyar aligned himself with the Khalqis in a surprising move that would once again prove that in Afghanistan, ideology is not as important as relationships and political opportunity.48 When Ahmad Shah Massoud heard of Hekmatyar’s intentions to take Kabul in early 1992, he occupied the capital preemptively. Najibullah attempted to flee the country, but he was thwarted by Massoud and Dostum’s troops who controlled the Kabul airport.

He was forced to seek refuge in the UN headquarters, where he would stay until 1996. After

Najibullah’s resignation, Afghanistan devolved into a bloody power struggle between competing warlords.

V. The Afghan Civil War and Rise of the Taliban

The devastating Afghan Civil War began in 1992, after Massoud took control of Kabul and left the formation of a new provisional government to Rabbani and Hekmatyar.49 The mujahideen had been held together by their common goal of forcing the Soviets out of

Afghanistan. Without that uniting factor, the factions no longer were motivated to cooperate.

Afghanistan’s rulers had previously claimed legitimacy through their dynastic lineage, success in battle, or more recently, foreign patronage. No mujahideen warlord had a clear claim to power based on these factors, so a power struggle now was inevitable. The Peshawar parties reached a

48 Ibid., 248. 49 Nojumi, The Rise of the Taliban, 114. 25 preliminary power-sharing agreement, with Hekmatyar as prime minister and Rabbani as president. However, before entering Kabul to assume his position, Hekmatyar began shelling the capital and Rabbani’s troops to take power for himself.50 This began a six-year civil war in which the heroes of the Soviet invasion revealed themselves to be unafraid of bloodshed and destruction in the pursuit of their political goals.

Unlike the Soviet invasion, which impacted the entire country, the Afghan civil war almost exclusively affected Kabul. The destruction led many of Kabul’s residents to flee to the countryside or to bordering nations. Neither Hekmatyar nor Rabbani could immediately gain power, so they began brokering deals with other mujahideen commanders to gain power.

Hekmatyar aligned himself with Dostum – more proof that ideology was not a primary motivator in the Afghan conflict, as an Islamist and a Communist make an unlikely pair.51 Massoud continued to fight on behalf of the Tajiks, primarily against the Hazaras, led by Ali Mazari.

The conflict was made ever-so bloody by the lack of major foreign support given to any of the mujahideen commanders. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the United States withdrew its aid to the mujahideen. The American government made tragic mistakes in its handling of Afghanistan after the Soviet occupation, chief among them being the decision not to support a peace process between the government and the mujahideen prior to Najibullah’s overthrow.52 In fact, then-CIA intelligence analyst and later secretary of defense, Robert Gates, confessed to “abandoning” Afghanistan by continuing to support jihad against the Najibullah government and then letting the country devolve into civil war after its overthrow.53 Neither the

50 Ibid., 115-116. 51 Ibid. 52 Andrew Sprung, “Did the U.S. “Abandon” Afghanistan in 1989?” The Atlantic, December 17, 2009, https://www.theatlantic.com/daily-dish/archive/2009/12/did-the-us-abandon-afghanistan-in-1989/192860/. 53 Ibid. 26

Russians nor the Americans threw their support behind any warlord. Only Pakistan retained an interest in Afghan affairs because of its desire to install a friendly regime on its western border, which it saw as a natural extension of Hekmatyar’s leadership. Pakistan’s ISI continued to funnel support to Hekmatyar and his commanders throughout the civil war.54 Here, international inaction critically blocked Afghan aspirations for peace. Both the involvement and disengagement of the United States have shaped the Afghan conflict. After years of heavily engaging in the conflict through supporting the mujahideen, the United States decided to disengage at a pivotal moment for Afghanistan’s stability, leading to a full-blown civil war.

The civil war effectively partitioned Afghanistan into regions ruled by competing warlords who battled for control of a country with no real central government. No faction was strong enough to completely overpower the others militarily, and no foreign power was willing to throw in its weight to change the outcome of the war. Dostum and the Uzbeks controlled northern Afghanistan in alliance with the Hazaras. Massoud and the Tajiks retained control in

Kabul, while being shelled by Hekmatyar and his alliance. The east was led by the Nangarhar

Shura, primarily run by commander Haji Qadir. In the south, Kandahar was ruled by Mulla

Naqibullah Akhund, and Paktia was under control of Mawlawi Haqqani.55 The regions threw their weight behind either the Hekmatyar or the Rabbani alliance, changing sides often throughout the conflict. The ethnic divides of these alliances were nebulous, with Pashtuns supporting both camps, Uzbeks and Hazaras primarily supporting Hekmatyar, and Tajiks supporting Massoud and Rabbani. However, despite the chaos, the factions did not see a collapse of the Afghan state as a desirable outcome. On the one hand, decades of war had

54 Reidel, What We Won, 49. 55 Nojumi, The Rise of the Taliban, 114-117. 27 increased a sense of Afghan nationalism, and on the other, no ethnic group or region had the organization necessary to separate from the state, even if they wanted this outcome.56 Civil war was not an opportunity for independence, but rather the regional commanders all vied for control over the entirety of the state with no willingness to compromise.

In this environment, with a defunct central government and regional powerbrokers committing unspeakable atrocities, the Taliban began to form. The Taliban was a movement started by Afghan Pashtuns who were trained in religious madrasas in Pakistan, funded by Saudi

Arabia and controlled by Pakistani Islamists aligned with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.57

During the Soviet occupation and subsequent civil war, almost five million Afghans were living in Pakistan as refugees, most of whom were Pashtun, with little to no access to state infrastructure.58 The Pakistani madrasas were religious schools that offered free education based on strict Islamist ideology, and young Afghan boys raised in refugee camps almost exclusively attended these schools because of their free room and board and monthly salaries for their students.59 Between the years 1971-1988 the number of madrasas in Pakistan increased from

900 to over 8,000 official and 25,000 unregistered.60 In the 1960s and 1970s, many of the graduates of these schools had gone on to join the Pakistan-based Islamist parties running the mujahideen, and these parties were initially involved in the madrasa leadership.61 In the 1980s and 1990s, the students in the madrasas had never seen Afghanistan, as they were too young to fight in the jihad against the Soviets. These students were not drawn by an experienced memory

56 Hyman, “Nationalism in Afghanistan,” 313. 57 Nojumi, The Rise of the Taliban, 119. 58 Ibid., 63. 59 Ibid., 119. 60 Daniel Sullivan, “Tinder, Spark, Oxygen, and Fuel: The Mysterious Rise of the Taliban,” The Journal of Peace Research 44, no. 1 (2007): 98. 61 Nojumi, The Rise of the Taliban, 120. 28 of Afghanistan and instead, were taught visions of an idealized Islamic state from madrasa leaders.62

When the mujahideen civil war began to pit the primary Islamist factions against each other, the clerical leaders in the madrasas denounced these leaders and lost confidence in their ability to create an Islamic authority in Afghanistan, especially as human casualties mounted in the chaos.63 The goal of the madrasa clerics shifted from supporting the mujahideen to creating a new government in Afghanistan out of the carnage, one that would honor pure Salafist tradition.

The madrasas became increasingly fundamentalist in this time period, and the disillusionment with the mujahideen leadership gave rise to a movement of young men dedicated to creating a puritanical order in Afghanistan based on their visions of an Islamic state. In this context, the

Taliban insurgency was born.

The rise of the Taliban is widely debated in literature, with many scholars describing its rise as mysterious and sudden.64 According to the Taliban, the movement began in mid-1994 in

Kandahar, led by a minor cleric named Mullah Omar, who had been personally disgusted by the destruction caused by the mujahideen civil war.65 The group was formed to provide security to the province and to combat the extortion of supply convoys at checkpoints manned by

Hekmatyar’s forces along the border with Pakistan. Some of these checkpoints began targeting

Pakistani convoys, infuriating the Pakistani government and partially explaining its eventual abandonment of Hekmatyar and support for the Taliban.66 After mobilizing, the group took the key border post of Spin Boldak, and then took control of Kandahar province within 48 hours.

62 Sullivan, “Tinder, Spark, Oxygen, and Fuel,” 98. 63 Nojumi, The Rise of the Taliban, 121. 64 Sullivan, “Tinder, Spark, Oxygen,” 93. 65 Nojumi, The Rise of the Taliban, 121. 66 Ibid., 117-118. 29

This stunning display of Taliban success attracted over 20,000 students from the madrasas in

Pakistan to join the movement.67 Eventually, powerful jihadi figures also joined the movement, such as former Hekmatyar commander and founder of the Haqqani network, Jalaluddin

Haqqani.68 Originally the fighters had no desired political aims, beyond an enforcement of

Sharia law in their acquired territory. However, as the Taliban continued to grow, the leadership decided on the eventual goal of creating an Afghan Islamic Emirate under Taliban control.

The rise of the Taliban cannot be understood without the pivotal role of Pakistani support. Pakistan could not afford a nationalist Afghan government with strong military resources, especially if that government’s leadership was not under Pakistani influence.69 As the civil war continued to rage without a singular mujahideen victor, Pakistan’s frustrations with

Hekmatyar grew, as Pakistan could not guarantee that the other mujahideen leaders would respect its primary interests. Pakistan needed to ensure an Afghan government would help to counter Indian influence, maintain Pakistan’s central Asian trade routes, and prevent the emergence of an independent Pashtunistan.70 Additionally, Pakistan strongly preferred an

Islamist government and was willing to shift support from the mujahideen to the Taliban to ensure eventual Islamist control. This combination of motivations led Pakistan to provide extensive material and logistical support to the Taliban, allegedly as early as the group’s first territorial conquest at Spin Boldak.71

After the Taliban took Kandahar, the group quickly consolidated the southern provinces and provided a degree of security not seen there in over ten years. They took the key province of

67 Sullivan, “Tinder, Spark, Oxygen, and Fuel,” 102. 68 Abbas, The Taliban Revival, 68. 69 Nojumi, The Rise of the Taliban, 133. 70 Khan, “Understanding Pakistan’s Pro-Taliban Policy,” 148; and Sullivan, “Tinder, Spark, Oxygen, and Fuel,”104. 71 Sullivan, “Tinder, Spark, Oxygen, and Fuel,” 104. 30

Helmand, where they were able to gain the economic advantage of controlling Afghanistan’s opium production.72 The Taliban then attacked eastern, Pashtun-dominated provinces, where they could count on the local population to support their advance. In the west, Herat fell to the

Taliban in September 1995, creating a significant military shift against Rabbani’s government.73

The march towards Kabul took a year of continued fighting. In September 1996, the

Taliban took Jalalabad, where they were able to capture a large supply of arms.74 Only Massoud and Dostum remained to fight the Taliban from taking Kabul. When the Taliban advanced, the two warlords retreated to the north to form the Northern Alliance, which would become the primary resistance to the Taliban for the next three years. On the same day that Massoud and

Dostam retreated, the Taliban executed Najibullah, who had remained in Kabul under UN protection.75 By the end of 1998, the Taliban had gained control of every province of

Afghanistan, including Mazar-i-Sharif and Bamiyan. The only region outside Taliban control was the northeast, surrounding the Panjshir Valley, which remained under the control of the

Northern Alliance.76

VI. The Taliban Government Before September 11th, 2001

When the Taliban first took control in 1996, many Afghans welcomed the end of the bloodshed and looked forward to the security promised by the Taliban regime. However, the

Taliban quickly institutionalized their highly fundamentalist takeover and became immensely unpopular because of their draconian social and religious policies.

72 Nojumi, The Rise of the Taliban, 118. 73 Ibid.,148. 74 Ibid.,150. 75 Ibid., 151. 76 Ibid., 170. 31

The Taliban envisioned themselves as the bulwark of traditional Islam and, as Salafists, wanted to bring Afghanistan back to the purity of the early days of Islam, when councils of religious leaders held political power.77 The Taliban government was originally controlled by a small council, headed by Mullah Omar. After difficulties emerged in implementing policies and running a bureaucracy, the Taliban revamped its administration to include the old bureaucratic offices of Afghanistan, which now reported to Mullah Omar.78 This proved difficult because the ministries could not make their decisions without Omar’s approval, and he refused to leave

Kandahar. The Taliban’s ideology was a mix of Salafi Islam and Pashtunwali, the Pashtun traditional tribal honor code. Readers will be familiar with the most notorious of the Taliban’s policies – the mandatory beards, suppression of women’s rights and appearance in public life, bans on music and art, medieval-style punishments like amputations and stoning, and the destruction of shrines and other structures, most notably the impressive Bamiyan Buddhas.

The Taliban government did not expand beyond its Pashtun base, alienating other tribal groups, and, it committed acts of genocide against minorities, particularly the Hazaras.79 The

Taliban’s leaders isolated themselves from the international community, sparing only their close relationship with Pakistan.80 However, Afghanistan’s historic reliance on foreign rents to create domestic security had not ceased, and the Taliban were poorly equipped to extract foreign aid because their brutal policies alienated the international community.81

The Taliban provided a haven to jihadists, including Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda.

Mullah Omar allowed al-Qaeda to use Afghanistan as a base from which to plan its attacks, as

77 Ibid., 152-153. 78 Ibid., 138-139. 79 Abbas, The Taliban Revival, 71. 80 Nojumi, The Rise of the Taliban, 172-174. 81 Ibid., 175. 32 long as it followed the rules of the Taliban. The Taliban and Al-Qaeda had operational links, mostly that the Taliban allowed Al-Qaeda operating space in exchange for cash.82 This friendliness towards Al-Qaeda proved to be the Taliban’s undoing and is indicative of Mullah

Omar’s tenuous grasp on foreign policy. In 1998, the United States launched air strikes into

Afghanistan after the al-Qaeda bombings of U.S. embassies in Africa.83 And in 1999, the UN imposed sanctions and an air embargo on Afghanistan to force the country to hand Osama bin

Laden over for trial.84 Despite the clear problems caused by al Qaeda’s presence and its limited

Afghan membership, the Taliban would not expel al Qaeda or other foreign jihadists. Mullah

Omar viewed cooperation with the United States as antithetical to the Taliban’s mission, and

Osama bin Laden had become a symbol of defiance against the West that resonated with the

Taliban and other Islamic fundamentalists.85 This mix of views proved fatal to the Taliban government after the September 11th terrorist attacks, as discussed in the next chapter.

82 Abbas, The Taliban Revival, 79. 83 Nojumi, The Rise of the Taliban, 199. 84 Ibid., 223. 85 Ibid. 33

Chapter Two: The Bonn Agreement and its Fallout (2001-2006)

The September 11th attacks would fundamentally alter the course of U.S. foreign policy and the future of Afghanistan. After Al-Qaeda orchestrated the attacks from Afghan soil,

Afghanistan shifted from a relatively unknown country in Central Asia to the center of U.S. national security priorities. The 2001 U.S. invasion and the Bonn Conference are the foundations of the American intervention in Afghanistan. The decisions of this crucial time period continue to impact Afghanistan today. Starting in 2001, Afghan stability was linked to

American national security. This meant that the United States would pursue a massive military campaign and state-building project to create an Afghanistan capable of preventing terrorist operations. Now, Afghan peace lay in American hands. Building a functioning state in a country devastated by decades of war and lacking effective institutions, infrastructure, and capital would prove immensely challenging. Yet, the United States tied its military success to this state-building project. U.S. policy after 2001 enshrined a short-term vision, in which the

United States could rebuild a failed state quickly and efficiently by creating a new constitution and providing military support to the new government. However, these goals required a long- term vision to ever succeed, and building capacity in Afghanistan would require investment far beyond the military support that the United States was prepared to provide. Finally, American policymaking in this period relied on assumptions about Afghanistan’s tribal divisions and national identity – assumptions that proved incorrect and led to a corrupt and illegitimate Afghan central government.

Before delving into the U.S.-led campaign, a look at Afghanistan as of 2001 is in order.

After almost three decades of violent conflict, Afghanistan found itself in a dire political and economic state. The country’s lack of key infrastructure had only been exacerbated by conflict-

34 borne destruction and a dearth of foreign investment. Each government over the previous three decades, whether it be the PDPA, Najibullah, Rabbani, or the Taliban, had proven grossly incapable of managing the failed state. The mass diaspora of Afghan refugees in the West and

Pakistan and Iran led to a lost generation of capable bureaucrats, managers, intellectuals, and community leaders, creating a “human resources vacuum.”1 Yet despite the decades of conflict – be it ideological, ethnic, tribal, or otherwise – the Afghan people were still united in their identity as Afghans, in what Thomas Barfield calls, “a united people in a failed state.”2 Going into the events of 2001, it is critical to understand that despite the lack of central authority, the tribal fragmentation of the mujahideen militias, and the ethnic politics of the Taliban, partitioning

Afghanistan was never on the table. Afghanistan’s ethnic and tribal fault lines were not the primary drivers of Afghanistan’s instability, but they would be continuously scapegoated by

American policymakers. Afghan identity functioned on multiple planes – tribal, ethnic, and national – and these planes all needed to be incorporated into an Afghan democratic system.

However, this multifaceted view of identity did not amount to a lack of national identity or an inability to function as a multi-ethnic state.

The attacks of September 11th changed the course of American foreign policy in immeasurable ways. Now, our wars were to be fought almost exclusively in the Near East and

Southwest Asia, with sometimes nebulous connections to American security interests. The new

American foreign policy linked military success to solving the challenges outlined above.

Democratization would become entrenched in military strategy, and the American people would

1 Neamatollah Nojumi, American State-Building in Afghanistan and its Regional Consequences: Achieving Democratic Stability and Balancing China’s Interests, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2016, 14. 2 Thomas Barfield, Afghanistan: A Cultural and Political History, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010, 277. 35 need to be repeatedly convinced of the dedication of their tax dollars and troops to state-building projects in countries that most Americans could not point to on a map.

I. Operation Enduring Freedom & Military Strategy

After September 11th, then-President George W. Bush announced the War on Terror, a new foreign policy paradigm that would lead the United States into international conflict to root out terrorist groups before they could attack American land. In its immediate application, this meant that the United States would invade Afghanistan, as the Taliban had famously provided a haven for Al-Qaeda and its leader, Osama bin Laden. When the Americans asked Mullah Omar to turn over bin Laden for extradition to the United States, the Taliban government refused.

Therefore, on October 7, 2001, the American bombing campaign, “Operation Enduring

Freedom,” began. The initial thrust of the campaign included targeted bombing of Al Qaeda training camps, but also Taliban command and communications centers.3 Quickly, the War on

Terror’s target shifted to include not only international terror groups but also the Taliban government. The distinction between Al-Qaeda and the Taliban was increasingly conflated by

American public opinion. The Bush administration began to publicly lobby against the Taliban, not only for harboring terrorist groups but for their egregious human rights abuses.

One striking example of this strategy was former First Lady Laura Bush’s famous

November 16, 2001 radio address to the American people, characterizing the War on Terror as

“a fight for the rights and dignity of women.”4 Anti-Taliban rhetoric and military strategy were undoubtedly first used as means to an end – if the Taliban supported Al-Qaeda, then the Taliban

3 Nojumi, American State-Building in Afghanistan, 20. 4 For more on the use of Afghan women as a mechanism to increase American public support for the invasion, see Kim Berry, “The Symbolic Use of Afghan Women in the War on Terror,” Humboldt Journal of Social Relations 27, no 2 (2003): 137. 36 too needed to suffer the consequences of the invasion to ensure no further use of Afghan territory as a launching pad for international extremism. However, by targeting the Taliban regime, the

Americans were putting themselves in a new predicament. If the Taliban was not going to govern Afghanistan, then who would take the reins? This question leads us to a larger examination of state-building as a national security strategy.

In military terms, the initial battle against the Taliban was quickly won by the Americans and their allies in the north (see Figure 4). The American strategy was to use Afghan allies on the ground to direct American air support to various targets. Initial U.S. troop numbers were low for this reason, with around 1,000 special operations forces and 1,300 Marines in the country, mostly in the north and in Kandahar. The Taliban initially retreated to Mazar-i-Sharif, but the

Northern Alliance took the city back with American support on November 12, 2001 (see Figure

4).5

5 Nojumi, American State-Building in Afghanistan, 20. 37

Figure 4. Map of Northern Alliance & U.S. Advances, 2001 (Source: CNN http://edition.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/trade.center/n.alliance.occupation.html) After the collapse of Taliban control at Mazar, popular revolts began against Taliban strongholds in Kabul and Herat (see Figure 4). To spread these uprisings to Taliban strongholds, the United States supported key Pashtun resistance leaders to rally eastern and southern Pashtuns against the Taliban. These leaders included Abdul Haq, Gul Agha Sherzai, and Hamid Karzai.

Abdul Haq was responsible for rallying Ghilzai Pashtuns in the east, while Sherzai and Karzai were working on the Durrani Pashtun south, near Kandahar. 6

After substantial pressure on Taliban command structures, the group retreated completely from Kabul to Kandahar in November 2001. A month later, Taliban resistance in the south collapsed. The Taliban lost its battle against the American invaders, quickly and humiliatingly.

Many Afghan Taliban saw the writing on the wall and negotiated their amnesty in exchange for

6 Ibid. 38 surrender with Afghan resistance leaders like Hamid Karzai.7 However, the United States failed to honor many of these agreements. Without a secure path to surrender, most top leadership of the Taliban movement fled to Pakistan, and many lower ranking personnel were sent to Afghan prisons. Less than 500 of these imprisoned fighters were transferred to U.S. custody, and most of them were foreign fighters, of Uzbek or Pakistani nationality.8 The influx of former Talibs into Pakistan will be analyzed further, as a significant policy mistake that contributed to the

Taliban’s resurgence.

In March of 2002, the United States launched Operation Anaconda to remove the last

Taliban stronghold in eastern Paktia province. The Northern Alliance quickly descended upon

Kabul, and successfully eradicated the Taliban resistance.9 With the Taliban movement in tatters, the future of the Afghan government was unclear. In this environment, state-building took the international spotlight as the next strategy to secure Afghanistan from terrorist influence.

II. The Fatal Selection of Hamid Karzai

In 2004, Hamid Karzai became the first democratically elected president of Afghanistan.

However, in 2001, he was still on the fringes of the Afghan political scene. Karzai is a Durrani

Pashtun from Kandahar province. After the Taliban assassinated his father in 1999, he became chief of the Popalzai tribe.10 During the many years of war, he was living in Pakistan and coordinating anti-Taliban activities with such notoriety that Pakistan refused to renew his visa to

7 Nick Mills, Karzai: The Failing American Intervention and the Struggle for Afghanistan, Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2007, 173. 8 Nojumi, American State-Building in Afghanistan, 21. 9 Abbas, The Taliban Revival, 82. 10 Mills, Karzai, 26. 39 stay in the country.11 On September 11, 2001, Karzai was conducting embassy meetings in

Islamabad when he received a phone call from his brother notifying him of the attacks.

Immediately, Karzai canceled his meetings and decided to travel to Quetta, where he would prepare his return to Afghanistan to oust the Taliban regime.12

Before official peace negotiations began in Bonn, Germany in December of 2001, another process was taking place that was arguably more important for the future of Afghanistan – the

American grooming of Hamid Karzai. Karzai would eventually be confirmed as the interim leader of the Afghan government at Bonn, and he would later be elected to lead the country.

Karzai’s selection as the head of state was one of the most important U.S. policy decisions after

2001, and it had much more to do with American preferences and diplomatic maneuvering than with Afghan collective decision-making.

After 9/11, Karzai decided to return to Afghanistan at the behest of various American officials, who had promised him extensive aid to rally a Pashtun counterweight to the Taliban.13

Karzai had received pledges of support from the French, Italians, British, and Americans for his mission of organizing Pashtun resistance in the heart of Taliban territory.14 Karzai had enormous popular support in the villages, even in Taliban strongholds like Oruzgan and Tirin Kot. Even so, during this period, Karzai was a far cry from a front-runner to lead the new Afghanistan.

The primary explanation for Karzai’s rise is that there were no viable alternatives in the eyes of the Bush administration.15 The most likely contenders for leading Afghanistan before

2001 were Ahmad Shah Massoud, Abdul Haq, and King Zahir Shah. Massoud, although a Tajik,

11 Ibid., 149. 12 Ibid., 147-148. 13 Ibid., 149. 14 Ibid., 154. 15 Barfield, Afghanistan, 305. 40 had become a national hero across ethnic lines for his success as a commander in the anti-Soviet resistance, the mujahideen civil war, and the United Front resistance to the Taliban. However, two days before September 11th, Massoud was assassinated by Al-Qaeda, leaving the anti-

Taliban resistance without its leader.16 Whether this was a plotted strategy of Al-Qaeda or just a tragic coincidence is still debated to this day, but, regardless, the international community found itself without the natural choice to head an interim government.

Abdul Haq, a Ghilzai commander, was seen as the Pashtun equivalent of Massoud, and easily would have been another option for head of state.17 However, on the first day of the Bonn

Conference, Abdul Haq was captured and killed by the Taliban. Finally, many Pashtuns supported the restoration of deposed King Zahir Shah. This argument had considerable merit, given that the King’s legitimacy would not be contested. He had large support from Afghans in the Taliban-held Pashtun south, who wanted to see a Pashtun leader, and he could also count on the support of non-Pashtuns who recognized his historic legitimacy. However, King Zahir Shah was opposed strongly by President Bush, who viewed the installation of a monarchy as an inappropriate outcome to the Bonn Conference.18 With few other national figures to compete for power, Hamid Karzai suddenly surged to the top of the international community’s list for an interim head of state.

Karzai was also attractive to international backers because of his extensive foreign contacts, his Western education, and his ethnic identity. In particular, the Americans wanted a head of state that they could trust, and through their existing ties to Karzai, they viewed him as an ally. Additionally, the international participants at Bonn noted Karzai’s Durrani lineage as a

16 Mills, Karzai, 147. 17 Ibid., 176. 18 Barfield, Afghanistan, 291. 41 strong factor supporting his candidacy in lieu of re-instating King Zahir Shah. Karzai hailed from Kandahar and would easily gain the support of the Pashtun south, and the Americans believed that Karzai’s Durrani heritage would provide him with legitimacy similar to that of the

King himself. However, this calculation proved incorrect, largely because legitimacy in

Afghanistan had never rested solely on lineage but rather on the federal system of the Afghan state that allowed ethnic and tribal communities significant self-governing capabilities. As will be discussed next, the Bonn Agreement gutted Afghan local governance and concentrated power in Karzai’s hands, undermining the legitimacy bestowed upon him by democratic institutions.19

III. The 2002 Bonn Agreement & the Beginning of Afghan Democracy

The UN-led talks in Bonn, Germany opened on November 27, 2001 with the goal of creating an interim government in Afghanistan.20 As discussed above, Hamid Karzai was the

American favorite going into Bonn, but there was still substantial opposition among Afghans about the proposed leadership structure. Four main Afghan factions negotiated at Bonn – the

Northern Alliance, mostly composed of Rabbani’s supporters and Massoud’s United Front; the

Peshawar Front, composed of Pakistan-based Islamists; the Cyprus Group, an Iran-backed group of exiled intellectuals; and the Rome Group, mostly southern Pashtuns, who supported the restoration of King Zahir Shah to the throne.21 Notably, two important parties were absent from the negotiations at Bonn. First, Karzai himself was not present; instead, he spoke to the delegates over the phone from Tirin Kot.22 Secondly, and devastatingly for the outcome of the process, no Taliban representatives were included in Bonn or its aftermath. This mistake led

19 Ibid., 305. 20 Ibid., 283. 21 Mills, Karzai, 175. 22 Ibid. 42

Lakhdar Brahimi, the chairperson of the Conference, to conclude in 2009, “we are now paying the price for what we did wrong from day one… the people who were in Bonn were not fully representative of the rich variety of the Afghan people.”23

After considerable debate, theatrical walkouts, and American strong-arming, Hamid

Karzai was selected as the leader of an interim government. His cabinet was composed of

United Front members, almost exclusively non-Pashtun guerilla commanders with their own private militias. King Zahir Shah was given a new, honorary position, and the Bonn Agreement was to be confirmed by loya jirga (an Afghan grand tribal council with a legislative function) within a year.24 This outcome seems surprising when looking at the initial composition of Bonn attendees, of whom the largest percentage supported a return of King Zahir Shah to the throne, a smaller percentage supported a parliamentary system with a prime minister and president, and the smallest share supported the highly centralized Karzai administration that was eventually selected.25

The Bonn Agreement was ratified by a loya jirga in June 2002, again with hot contestation. The jirga consisted of 1000 elected representatives, 500 delegates chosen by the organizers, and 45 unelected militia commanders.26 At the jirga, the southern Pashtuns put up a fight against Karzai in favor of King Zahir Shah. The debate swung enough support away from

Karzai that the U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Afghanistan, Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, had to strong-arm the King into throwing his support behind Karzai.27 After the King’s

23 Abbas, The Taliban Revival, 83. 24 Barfield, Afghanistan, 283. 25 Nojumi, American State-Building, 57. 26 Barfield, Afghanistan, 297. 27 Ibid. 43 declaration of support for Karzai, the jirga accepted the provisional government for two years, during which time a constitution would be produced and elections would be held.

In December of 2003, the new Afghan constitution was ratified by another loya jirga.

The main arguments at the 2003 jirga focused on the structure of a democratic government for

Afghanistan, particularly on the strength of the central government. Contrary to its own government system and founding beliefs, the United States lobbied the jirga strongly against federalism, in a move that would lead to many of Afghanistan’s enduring structural problems.

Local power was gutted, in favor of a strong central administration with a president at the helm.

Districts and provinces could elect local assemblies, but it was constitutionally unclear what power these bodies would have. Notably, the constitution was significantly influenced by three individuals: Karzai, Khalilzad, and future Afghan President Ashraf Ghani.28

In terms of the balance of power, the Constitution favored the presidency, allotting a significantly weaker role to the legislative branch. The power of the executive was so strong in the new constitution that it pulled language directly from the 1964 constitution, which featured a king as the head of state.29 Some of the enumerated powers of the president included the power to appoint the governors of each province and district, along with all members of the supreme court. The president could also nominate one-third of the members of the upper house of parliament, along with the entirety of the Independent Election Commission and the Independent

Human Rights Commission.30 Finally, the president controlled the right to tax and maintained a monopoly over the provision of government services.31 The combination of these powers led to

28 Nojumi, American State-Building, 58. 29 Ibid., 58. 30 Ibid. 31 Barfield, Afghanistan, 298-299. 44 a “democracy” that functioned almost like a monarchy, with a strong president controlling all branches of the federal government and most aspects of local administration. The constitution did attempt to institutionalize democratic norms of equal rights, such as the official equality of

Sunnis and Shias and the official recognition of ethnic minorities and their associated languages.32 However, the concept of equality meant little without effective legal and judicial institutions, both of which Afghanistan lacked in 2003.

In 2004, the provisional government’s mandate expired, and Afghanistan’s first election took place. Karzai became the first democratically elected president of Afghanistan, winning 56 percent of over eight million votes cast.33 The election demonstrated deep popular support and enthusiasm for the process, and the remaining Taliban factions were unable to disrupt it. Of the

18 candidates on the ballot, only four were real contenders, and Karzai was the clear leader after his term as interim president. Because of this lack of real competition, the 2004 election is widely thought not to have boosted Karzai’s governing legitimacy.34 Parliamentary elections were not held until 2005, after a year of postponement. Prior to these elections, Karzai had used his executive power to outlaw political parties, justifying his decision with the argument that political parties would heighten division among Afghans. However, this decision further weakened the legislative branch and heightened Karzai’s power. Candidates could not organize effectively without parties and instead ran as individuals, winning their seats by extremely thin and easily contestable margins.35 In the midst of this budding turmoil, the Afghan government soon found itself in the grip of a new insurrection. Instead of reckoning with its precarious

32 Ibid. 33 Joint Electoral Management Body, “Decision of the Joint Electoral Management Body,” The Independent Election Commission, November 3, 2004, http://www.iec.org.af/public_html/Election%20Results%20Website/english/english.htm. 34 Barfield, Afghanistan, 300. 35 Ibid., 301. 45 foundations, the government’s attention swiftly turned to security and survival. By 2006, the

Taliban was back – with a vengeance.

IV. Conditions of the Taliban Resurgence: Nefarious Neglect and Structural

Inadequacies

By 2006, signs of trouble were brewing in both Helmand and Kandahar provinces.

Canadian and British troops were suddenly facing a fully equipped Taliban force in these southern districts, and soon the eastern provinces began experiencing cross-border attacks from

Taliban units in Pakistan.36 Suicide bombings, improvised explosive device (IED) attacks, and armed conflict all increased in 2006, marking the beginnings of a full-blown Taliban resurgence.

Although the Taliban’s attempt to take back Kandahar with a conventional military operation proved unsuccessful, the group was able to organize and operate as a guerrilla force, using insurgency tactics like ambushes and roadside bombings to continue to destabilize the Kabul government.37 The initial post-2001 stability was all but reversed by the end of 2006.

International forces found themselves facing a regrouped Taliban that was operating out of eastern Afghanistan with significant Pakistani aid.

The Taliban resurgence plunged the country back into violence and necessitated new strategies to secure the Afghan state. The year 2006 marked the beginning of the current phase of the Afghan conflict, a struggle between the American-backed Afghan government and the

Taliban insurgency. This phase of the conflict will be the focus of the rest of this thesis, and its causes and conditions must be thoroughly explored. Here, I will argue that the U.S. policies guided primarily by a short-term, security-focused strategic vision and a misinterpretation of

36 Ibid., 319. 37 Ibid., 329. 46

Afghan tribal politics contributed significantly to the Taliban resurgence and the continuation of the conflict in a new form.

The American intervention at the Bonn Conference created the structural conditions for the Taliban’s resurgence, primarily through the American insistence on a strong, central government helmed by an almost unitary executive. This structure contributed to the Taliban’s rise by fueling local discontent and crippling the legitimacy of the Afghan state. First, the

Afghan constitution promoted Karzai and his cabinet at the expense of Afghanistan’s regions, erasing the power of local decision-makers in national politics. As the central government began to neglect local needs, peripheral areas became particularly vulnerable to Taliban influence.

District-level government could have played a key role in distributing resources in accordance with local needs and regional diversity to avoid this outcome.38 This resource-based neglect was exacerbated by growing ethnic and tribal tensions, enflamed by the Pashtun-dominated government. During the Bonn process, the Americans feared exactly this type of ethnic tension, but they believed that devolving too much power to the local level would be the cause. This conclusion was based on a false understanding of Afghanistan’s history. Local power would have forestalled ethnic infighting, and successful Afghan governments in the past devolved significant amounts of power to the regions to avoid this result.39 In 2002, with a Pashtun head of state, more local autonomy for different ethnic groups could have strengthened the state by giving non-Pashtuns enough power in their own regions to securely support the president.

Instead, the ethnic groups were disenfranchised by the strong central government created at Bonn

38 Abbas, The Taliban Revival, 88. 39 Barfield, Afghanistan, 338. 47 and the non-Durrani Pashtuns (specifically, the Ghilzais), along with other ethnic minorities found themselves once again on the wrong end of the government patronage system.40

The U.S. policy of supporting a centralized state to avoid ethnic tension was misguided, and it led to the exact outcome that it was intended to prevent. Additionally, this structure delegitimized the Afghan state by providing an opening for immense levels of corruption. This corruption played into the ethnic tensions described above, and it largely hinged upon Karzai’s constitutional power to unilaterally appoint provincial governors. Karzai appointed his closest allies to governor positions and distributed international aid to provinces based on his personal relationships with their leaders. Karzai created a patronage system that did nothing to add to state power and everything to add to his personal political clout. Additionally, Karzai often avoided democratic accountability by simply moving governors to new provinces if allegations mounted against them, so that he could continue rewarding his former warlord allies and maintain his client network.41 This enraged local populations and led to a lack of confidence in

Karzai’s government as a true democratic institution. If the constitution had given the regions the political infrastructure to advocate for their own economic opportunity, this could have appeased some of the ethnic tension and dissatisfaction that fueled the Taliban’s rise. Additionally, it could have given the state true legitimacy as a provider of resources, rather than its status as a corrupt regime with little support beyond its cadres.

Despite the myriad of problems posed by a strong central government in a new democracy plagued by corruption scandals, one of the largest problems was the ineptitude of the man at the helm. In the words of Thomas Barfield,

40 Ibid., 303-305. 41 Ibid., 309. 48

“A badly flawed structure might succeed if run by a talented leader while a more

expertly designed structure could survive the mistakes of a poor one. What a fragile

state could not easily survive was a badly designed government in the hands of a poor

leader.”42

The central design of the Afghan government birthed by the Americans at Bonn and confirmed through the loya jirgas only exacerbated the poor decision-making of Karzai, his corruption and reliance on patronage systems, and the ethnic divisions that the international community had tried to avoid. All these problems resulted in a strengthened position for the Taliban in recruiting and operating in neglected regions, like the Pashtun south and east.

Additionally, the Taliban resurgence was accompanied by a new Taliban brand – one that developed as a reaction to American actions. Although the Taliban had always stylized themselves as a bastion against the infidel foreign invaders, this traditionally took a second seat to their role as harbingers of a pure Islamic state. In the aftermath of the U.S. invasion, the

Taliban emphasized the first point of their mission, calling Afghans back to their past as the

“graveyard of empires.” Like the earlier insurgencies against the British and Soviets, the Taliban were branding their insurgency as a battle against the forces of American imperialism.43 In their resurgence, the Taliban strategically avoided repeating their emphasis on Islamism and instead emphasized resistance, defiance, and revolt – against the United States.44

U.S. policy both during and after Bonn did nothing to alleviate this charge. For example, the United States was open in its strong-arming of the Afghans into accepting Hamid Karzai as

42 Ibid., 302. 43 Ibid., 327. 44 Abbas, The Taliban Revival, 120. 49 the leader of the interim government. Ambassador Khalilzad pressured King Zahir Shah to step aside so that the Pashtuns would be forced to accept Karzai in the loya jirga of 2002.45 During his tenure as U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan (2003 – 2005), Khalilzad spent so much time at the presidential palace that he was dubbed, “America’s warlord” by Afghans and “the U.S.

Viceroy to Afghanistan” by sardonic White House staff.46 This interference compounded the delegitimization of Karzai’s government by giving rise to a slew of critiques that he and his cabinet were simply American puppets. In the military realm, the American use of night raids and drone strikes with mounting civilian casualties facilitated Taliban recruiting. The Taliban capitalized on the fear and anger of many Afghans, and its resurgence provided an opportunity for aggrieved Afghans to strike back against the American military.47 Kabul’s inability to stop the drone strikes and its perceived acquiescence contributed to an overall dissatisfaction with the government’s ability to provide security.

Finally, despite the intense American interference in Afghan politics, the United States did not have a long-term strategy for state-building in Afghanistan. This lack of strategic vision, combined with a dearth of development investment, created the conditions for a Taliban resurgence. When the United States invaded in 2001, the mission was one of national security – change the Afghan regime to one that would not provide a haven to international terrorist organizations. This strategic goal has remained the same throughout the 18 years of conflict, and importantly, it prioritizes American security interests over the proper functioning of the Afghan government. U.S. policy naturally assumed that American security and long-term Afghan stability were linked. However, U.S. security policy focused on military solutions and had a

45 Nojumi, American State-Building, 57. 46 Barfield, Afghanistan, 310; and Nojumi, American State-Building, 58. 47 Abbas, The Taliban Revival, 202. 50 short-term vision for success. A full commitment to rebuilding the Afghan state for the purpose of Afghan stability necessitated a long-term vision and massive investment in state capacity building. This commitment was not the one that undergirded U.S. policy after 2001. The United

States undertook the mission of rebuilding Afghanistan on a largely military basis, beginning with a military intervention and supported by military-led reconstruction teams. U.S. policy rested on the assumptions that these military strategies could create the conditions necessary for democracy, and that these strategies could achieve permanent success in a relatively short timeframe. After initial battlefield successes had stabilized the country by 2005, Washington reduced its aid for Afghanistan by 38 percent and planned to reduce troop numbers by three thousand in the coming year.48 The Americans undertook an enormous challenge in deciding to democratize Afghanistan. But rather than seeing it through, the mission was cut short after the short-term goals of initial security had been achieved. The decisions to cut support for

Afghanistan after initial success unveiled a prevailing belief in Washington that short-term security could create the conditions for long-term democratic change and stability. However, the

Afghan case proves that this is far from the reality – rebuilding a failed state requires a long-term vision, and that vision cannot be solely linked to national security policy.

A key element of this short-term approach was the dearth of international investment in the necessary sectors for state-building, such as industry, law enforcement, judicial services, and education, after the initial military thrust. Rather than investing in Afghanistan’s industry or infrastructure, the international community poured money into the security sector, donor-led projects, and contractors, all of which diverted money and resources away from real capacity

48 Barfield, Afghanistan, 318. 51 building.49 Per capita, the U.S. aid to Afghanistan in the first two years after 2001 was only $50, compared to a $1,390 per capita investment in Bosnia from 1996 to 1997.50 After decades of devastating conflict, international aid was not nearly enough to cover rebuilding key infrastructure, agricultural areas, educational systems or other necessary investments for growth.51 The rampant corruption among the warlords governing many of the provinces only exacerbated this problem by creating a system even worse than the foreign-aid economy fostered under the likes of Najibullah. Now, government officials were making money through illegal taxation, forced labor, and bribery across both private and public sectors, then taking this money and funneling it out of Afghanistan’s economy entirely, pocketing it for themselves in foreign bank accounts.52 The lack of international investment combined with the sky-high corruption created a country-wide crisis in economic opportunity. In this environment, a new market for economic gain emerged – the illicit production and trade of opium. It was this economic scenario that allowed the Taliban to begin profiting enormously from taxing the opium trade, which was especially lucrative in the Pashtun south.53 These regions where the population felt increasingly neglected by Kabul were ripe for insurgency recruitment.

Ironically, the security policy that received all the international resources and attention was poorly coordinated and lacked the necessary reach. In 2002, the International Security

Assistance Force (ISAF), was barely large enough to secure Kabul, and it shied away from coordination with the Afghan security forces, to their detriment.54 The Afghan National Police

49 Nojumi, American State-Building, 61. 50 James Dobbins, “Nation-building: The Inescapable Responsibility of the World’s only Superpower,” The RAND Review 27, no. 2 (2003): 23. 51 Abbas, The Taliban Revival, 92-93. 52 Nojumi, American State-Building, 67. 53 Barfield, Afghanistan: A Cultural and Political History, 327. 54 Abbas, The Taliban Revival, 88-89. 52 were virtually ignored during this initial push to rebuild the security sector, and the top four donor countries (the United States, Britain, Italy, and Germany) were assigned different fields to reform, without any top-level management or integration of their approaches.55 The outpouring of international aid to Afghanistan’s security sector was mismanaged, and in turn, it was ineffectual in building the long-term capacity of the Afghan National Security Forces.

The short-term and security-focused U.S. policy combined with a flawed Afghan central government provided the perfect breeding ground for a new insurgency against the government.

These issues were compounded by the failures of the international community and the American negotiators in implementing a hallmark of peacebuilding: disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration (DDR). The Bonn Agreement itself did not include DDR, which instead was initiated in February 2003 by the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA). By 2006, the DDR program officially collected thousands of weapons, artillery, guns, and tanks, with over

250 militias demobilized and over 63,000 former combatants disarmed.56 However, this program failed to disarm the most influential, American-backed militia commanders, who took advantage of the power vacuum after the Taliban’s collapse to exert control over the regions through their monopolies on access to power, local resources, and weaponry.57 Many of these commanders had engaged in atrocious crimes against humanity, yet continued to receive aid from the United States that they could use to fuel their cronyism. For example, in 2001, Abdul

Rashid Dostum and his troops ruthlessly packed Taliban and Al-Qaeda prisoners into shipping containers with no food and water to send them to his base. Many suffocated to death or were killed when his troops shot into the containers. They were buried in a mass grave, yet Dostum

55 Ibid., 90. 56 Mills, Karzai, 192. 57 Nojumi, American State-Building, 61. 53 continued to receive massive CIA payouts for his “counterterrorism” services.58 Commanders like Dostum became warlords, using their American paychecks to create patronage systems in their regions of control. Eventually, these warlords became governors, members of parliament, or cabinet officials, and they participated in the rampant corruption described earlier. Dostum himself became the vice president of Afghanistan in 2014. The failure to fully disarm and demobilize these regional militias entrenched a corrupt and violent warlordism into the bedrock of Afghan institutions. The American accommodation of warlords destabilized Afghanistan, and it is another example of a poor U.S. policy decision in the key period after 2001.

While the disarmament and demobilization aspects of DDR were not effectively applied to the anti-Taliban resistance forces, the reintegration piece was woefully neglected for former

Taliban. After the fall of the Taliban government, most Taliban foot soldiers retreated to their villages in the south and east of the country and attempted to blend in with the other returnees after years of conflict.59 Many higher-ranking Taliban personnel who surrendered to the Karzai government were instead taken into U.S. custody at Bagram and Kandahar airfields and, in some cases, at Guantanamo Bay. 60 Others whose surrenders were not accepted eventually played pivotal roles in the Taliban resurgence. One such example was Jalaluddin Haqqani, who tried to mend relations with Kabul but was forcefully rejected.61 Incredibly, innocent civilians were occasionally accused of terrorism and detained, either mistakenly or for the more nefarious purpose of personal revenge. The American government provided enormous sums to commanders who turned in “terrorists.” This led to a system wherein warlords framed their

58 Luke Harding, “Afghan massacre haunts Pentagon,” The Guardian, September 13, 2002, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/sep/14/afghanistan.lukeharding. 59 Ibid. 60 Abbas, The Taliban Revival, 81. 61 Nojumi, American State-Building, 117. 54 rivals as Al-Qaeda affiliates and turned them in to the U.S. government. The U.S. military imprisoned these “terrorists” and gave warlords cash payments for their cooperation in U.S.

“counterterrorism” efforts.62 This process served to reinvigorate former Taliban fighters who were unable to surrender and return to normal life, while simultaneously radicalizing members of the civilian population by falsely charging them with allegiance to the Taliban or Al-Qaeda.63

Finally, many commanders fled into neighboring Pakistan. There, the Taliban was able to regroup and receive Pakistani financial support that was instrumental in designing a full-blown insurgency.

In this chapter, I explored the initial American intervention in Afghanistan. Importantly, this intervention did not stop with the military victories of 2001, but continued in the form of the

Bonn process and state-building initiatives. U.S. policy in this early time period created enduring issues including the disenchantment of Afghan ethnic groups with the central government, a lack of state capacity, and a system ripe for patronage and corruption. American negotiators crafted an inherently undemocratic Afghan government and propped up its corrupt leadership, while the military attempted to pursue state-building, but did so through a short-term and security-focused lens. These U.S. policies crippled the post-conflict Afghan state and set the stage for the Taliban resurgence, ultimately continuing the Afghan conflict into its next bloody phase.

62 Ibid., 202. 63 For more on this issue, see Anand Gopal, “Black Holes” in No Good Men Among the Living, New York: Picador, 2015. 55

Chapter Three: The Taliban Resurgence, 2006-2014

Despite the initial optimism surrounding the Bonn Agreement, the first Afghan presidential and parliamentary elections, and the dispersal of the Taliban, the story of the Afghan conflict was far from over after the U.S. invasion. Now, the Taliban was once again a military threat, and the weak capacity of the Afghan security forces necessitated international support for the conflict. As yet another phase of war ravaged the country, conversations about a negotiated peace became relevant as did U.S. policy towards an eventual Afghan peace process. During the

Taliban resurgence, U.S. policy still experienced some of the same strategic pitfalls as it did during the Bonn-era, specifically regarding its lack of a long-term vision. Additionally, U.S. policy experienced new challenges in the form of integrating regional actors to its approach.

This chapter will explore the Taliban resurgence through an examination of Pakistan’s role in the

Taliban’s rebirth, American counterinsurgency policy under Obama, and U.S. policy in

Afghanistan’s peace negotiations.

First, a look at the nature of the Taliban insurgency is in order. Even before 2006, the

Taliban had been making strategic gains throughout Afghanistan. The group started with gains in Zabul province and eastern Paktika in 2003, then expanded to Uruzgan and Kandahar by 2004 and northern Helmand in 2005.1 However, the Taliban were unable to make large-scale incursions into Afghanistan because of a lack of central strategy and cohesion. This changed with the formation of the Quetta Shura. Starting in 2005, the international community became aware of a Taliban administrative body forming in Pakistan’s Baluchistan province, specifically in the city of Quetta. This group was dubbed the Quetta Shura, and it was managed by Mullah

1 Hassan Abbas, The Taliban Revival: Violence and Extremism on the Pakistan-Afghanistan Frontier¸ New Haven: Yale University Press, 2014, 119. 56

Omar’s deputy, Mullah Baradar.2 With the added cohesion of the Quetta Shura, the resurgence blossomed. By 2005, the Taliban had created a parallel political structure in Afghanistan with shadow governors operating in 11 of the 34 provinces.3 As the insurgency grew in 2006, the

Shura’s hold on operations loosened, but the rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan was now unquestionable.

The new Taliban was much different than the Taliban of the 1990s. Now, instead of using conventional military tactics and focusing on radical religious zeal, the Taliban was relying on guerrilla tactics, improvisation, the growing illicit economy, and anti-imperialist ideology.4

From 2002 and beyond, guerrilla tactics became the Taliban’s modus operandi.5 The group’s strategy was to keep civilian casualty levels low to gain popular support and position itself in opposition to American night raids and drone strikes.6 From 2005 to 2006, suicide attacks were up by 400 percent and armed attacks almost tripled.7 By 2008, the frequency of Taliban attacks was greater than at any other time since 2001, and IEDs became a Taliban mainstay, with up to

7,000 attacks in the year 2009.8 By 2010, the Taliban had influence or direct control over large swaths of the south and east, and it was orchestrating an assassination campaign against district governors, police chiefs, and other members of the Karzai government in those provinces.9 In this year, it also became an urban threat for the first time since 2001, staging an attack in Kabul itself.10 As will be discussed, the Taliban was initially thwarted by the Obama-era troop surge,

2 Ibid., 118-119. 3 Ibid., 120. 4 Ibid., 177. 5 Seth Jones, Counterinsurgency in Afghanistan, Santa Monica, CA: The RAND Corporation, 2008, 50. 6 Abbas, The Taliban Revival, 138. 7 Ibid., 49. 8 Ibid., 138-139. 9 Ibid., 186. 10 Ibid., 189. 57 but after the subsequent withdrawal, it quickly regrouped. In 2014, the Taliban launched its largest offensive in years, pushing back against Afghan government forces in Helmand,

Kandahar, Kunduz, and Nangahar.11

I. Pakistan’s Early Role in the Taliban Resurgence

It is impossible to explain the Taliban’s resurgence without mentioning the FATA or the

Federally Administered Tribal Areas, in northwestern Pakistan. The FATA existed from 1947 until 2018, when it was merged with the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (see Figure 5). The region was created by the British in the Durand Line agreement, as an unmarked frontier separating the Pashtun tribes in Afghanistan and Pakistan.12

Figure 5. Map of the former Federally Administered Tribal Area (FATA) of Pakistan in relation to Afghanistan, 2019 (Source: The Economist https://www.economist.com/asia/2019/07/20/pakistans-borderlands-at-last-win-a-say- in-their-own-administration)

11 James Dobbins and Carter Malkasian, “Time to Negotiate in Afghanistan: How to Talk to the Taliban,” Foreign Affairs, 94, no 4 (2015). 12 Abbas, The Taliban Revival, 35. 58

FATA was notorious for its status as a haven for international terrorists, separatists, and other militant groups.13 The area played this role because of its unique administrative status – it was not subject to the Pakistani judicial system, and the Pakistani police could not operate there.

Instead, the Frontier Crimes Regulations (FCR) governed the borderlands, with a goal of controlling crime rather than providing justice.14 The combination of a lack of investment, no political representation, abusive policies by the Pakistani government, and no real justice system pushed the region into extremism. 15 FATA developed an infamous economy of “five T’s”– trucking of smuggled goods, toll collection, trafficking, trekking, and more recently, terrorism.16

After 2001, the Taliban, Al-Qaeda militants, and other extremists who had been in Afghanistan all fled to FATA, where they regrouped.

However, even though FATA was not controlled by the Pakistani government, the

Taliban would not have been able to thrive there without the explicit support of some Pakistani officials.17 Even after the U.S. invasion – and despite the U.S.-Pakistan relationship – there was a pervasive belief among Pakistani government officials that the Taliban could be used in some capacity against India.18 Additionally, there were religious figures in Pakistan who viewed the defeat of the Taliban by the Americans as an Islamist struggle, and they encouraged the

Taliban’s renewal.19

13 Jones, Counterinsurgency, 44-46. 14 Abbas, The Taliban Revival, 43. 15 Ibid., 43-45. 16 Ibid., 51. 17 Jones, Counterinsurgency, 54. 18 Ibid., 55. 19 Abbas, The Taliban Revival, 96. 59

Even without direct support, Pakistan made key mistakes in its effort to control FATA’s extremist leanings that strengthened the Taliban. Pakistani peace deals with FATA militants inadvertently increased militant power by creating political vacuums, recognizing the legitimacy of the militants, and allowing them to regroup.20 After a 2006 accord between Pakistan and the militants, the Taliban began operating openly in FATA, establishing parallel administrative structures.21 During the time period of the Taliban resurgence, Pakistan was attempting to practice two polices – one of policing the Taliban to appease the U.S. and one of staying in the

Taliban’s good graces to keep Indian influence out of Afghanistan. These policies were contradictory and gave the Taliban the space that it needed to regroup.

When the Taliban insurgency took hold in Afghanistan in 2006, Pakistan’s support changed to a more direct channel. In fact, Karzai was reportedly not on speaking terms with the

Pakistani head of state because Karzai believed Pakistan was brazenly supporting the insurgency.22 For example, in 2009, when the international community began building the capacity of the Afghan National Army, Pakistan attempted to slow the process because it viewed a strong Afghan army as a threat.23 Additionally, any aid that India provided to the Karzai government was viewed as a direct threat by Islamabad.24 This dynamic served to empower the

Taliban by crippling the Afghan government’s ability to build regional partnerships.25

II. A New American Strategy – Obama’s War

20 Jones, Counterinsurgency, 58-59. 21 Abbas, The Taliban Revival, 114-115. 22 Ibid., 139. 23 Ibid., 191. 24 Jones, Counterinsurgency, 55. 25 Abbas, The Taliban Revival, 207. 60

In 2008, the new administration of Barack Obama prioritized the war in Afghanistan with a new vigor. This shift eventually led the conflict to be dubbed, “Obama’s War.”26 Towards the end of the Bush era, extensive U.S. military and economic resources were being funneled into

Iraq, often at Afghanistan’s expense. President Obama changed this prioritization in mid-2009, when the costs of the war in Afghanistan for the United States exceeded those of Iraq for the first time.27 The Obama Administration decided to dive into the Afghan conflict, both by surging the number of American troops in the conflict zone and by revising the American approach to establishing security. Primary among these changes was the implementation of the new

American counterinsurgency strategy (COIN) that would focus on development and governance, while continuing to target insurgent operational and support bases through tactics like night raids and drone strikes.28 Scholars had increasingly critiqued America’s Afghanistan policy, stating that the counterinsurgency tactics of troop increases and continued military pressure would not work without strengthening Afghan local governance and the Afghan security sector.29 COIN attempted to rectify these critiques, but it still fell short of the level of investment required to truly reverse the blunders of the Bush era and the previous short-term strategy of U.S. policy.

The first American surge occurred in August 2009, providing 17,000 new American troops to secure the Afghan presidential election of 2009, as discussed below. In December of the same year, the United States sent an additional 30,000 troops to implement COIN. By 2010, there were over 100,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan.30 The deployment period was only for twelve months, with a planned drawdown in 2011, which was a very short-term timeframe to

26 Barfield, Afghanistan, 330. 27 Ibid., 333. 28 Nojumi, American State-Building, 23-24. 29 Jones, “Chapter Two: Success in Counterinsurgency Warfare,” in Counterinsurgency in Afghanistan, Santa Monica, CA: The RAND Corporation, 2008. 30 Barfield, Afghanistan, 333. 61 accomplish the lofty goals of reversing previous U.S. policy failures. These troops were increasingly deployed to the areas of rural Afghanistan that had been ignored in 2001, particularly the south and east through the use of Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs).31

First used in 2002, the PRT program expanded greatly in 2008, with units operating in 26 out of

34 provinces.32 These PRTs were tasked with building capacity, increasing security, and improving governance at the local level. The strengthening of Afghan law enforcement and military capacity went hand in hand with the troop surge – a dimension of reconstruction that had been previously ignored. In 2009, the Obama administration planned to raise the Afghan

National Army’s (ANA) troops to 134,000 at a cost of $10 billion over five years.33 By 2014, the ANA was almost 350,000 troops strong, but it remained weak in training and operational capacity.34 Often, recruitment was the sole priority in bolstering the Afghan security sector, which led to a large, but ill-equipped, security force. When the numbers got high enough, the

United States felt comfortable leaving the forces to fight on their own, without the necessary indicators of the ANA’s true strength or competency.

Diplomatically, the Obama administration changed the view of the Afghan conflict from isolated to regional by creating the “AF-PAK” view of the conflict.35 Here, the Obama administration correctly recognized that there could be no peace in Afghanistan without engaging Pakistan, a reality that if pursued in 2001 might have helped to prevent the Taliban resurgence. Additionally, Obama enlisted a new group of diplomats to engage in the conflict, including Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, who would be the first American official to advocate

31 Ibid. 32 Nojumi, American State-Building in Afghanistan, 22. 33 Barfield, Afghanistan, 334. 34 Abbas, The Taliban Revival, 190. 35 Barfield, Afghanistan, 333. 62 for a negotiated settlement with the Taliban. This shift would critically change American thinking towards the conflict in Afghanistan and its solution.36

The new U.S. policy towards Afghanistan also focused on increased development efforts, with a new goal of helping Afghans grow the economy to root out the appeal of terrorism and insurgency.37 The Afghan economy was in abysmal shape by 2006. This economic situation can be partly explained by poor post-conflict investment levels. However, Afghanistan’s economic problems could also be explained by cyclical corruption and the narcoeconomy, both of which became priorities under the Obama administration.

Afghanistan’s corruption resulted from previous policy errors, and it extended to all sectors of Afghanistan’s economy. For example, the lack of a strong police force created a reliance on private security contractors. There was no reliable law enforcement to secure development projects or trucking convoys, so Afghan companies hired private firms to secure their enterprises. The levels of corruption in the Afghan contracting industry were of epidemic proportions, creating enormous media attention and public outcry. Specifically, it was uncovered that some of these private security contractors were Taliban fronts, or were paying the

Taliban protection fees for safe passage with U.S. development money.38 In another shocking example, construction companies were involved in attacks on schools because the destruction would create more need for reconstruction business.39 The Afghan economy could not grow without a viable road network, secure construction zones, investment in education, and more, but these projects were all affected by the endemic corruption in the development system after 2001.

36 Dobbins and Malkasian, “Time to Negotiate in Afghanistan: How to Talk to the Taliban.” 37 Abbas, The Taliban Revival, 168. 38 U.S. House of Representatives: Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs, Warlord, Inc.: Extortion and Corruption Along the U.S. Supply Chain in Afghanistan, Rep. John F. Tierney, Washington, D.C., June 2010. 39 Abbas, The Taliban Revival, 171. 63

The international community’s role in the growth of this so-called “culture” of corruption cannot be diminished. Western officials took to calling corruption a “facet of Afghan culture,” in an Orientalist effort to avoid their own blame for this problem. However, the U.S. government had many former warlords on its payrolls and used cash payments to fund corruption and cronyism. Some of these cash handouts went from MI6 and the CIA to Karzai himself as a reward for his cooperation.40 The Obama administration’s answer to the corruption crisis was to create more official oversight, specifically through the creation of the office of the U.S. Special

Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), headed by John Sopko.

Additionally, the United States supported the Mutual Accountability Framework, established at the Tokyo Conference in 2012, designed to improve local governance and rule of law through reform goals, monitoring, and evaluation of corruption reduction.41 Despite these inroads, dismantling this “culture” of corruption has taken far longer than it took for international powers to create it, and its existence unearths once again the lack of long-term forecasting in U.S. policy.

III. Afghan Politics in a New Era of Conflict

Missing from many conversations on the Afghan conflict is a discussion of how the bungled electoral system heightened the Taliban’s ability to recruit. Without faith in the Afghan democratic system, the entire state-building project undertaken since 2001 was for naught. The elections held in 2004 and 2005 had their fair share of problems, but the presidential election of

2009 and the parliamentary election of 2010 truly held the writing on the wall for the failure of

Afghan democratic institutions.

40 Ibid., 183. 41 Nojumi, American State-Building in Afghanistan, 26. 64

First and foremost, a consideration of the electoral processes implemented in Afghanistan is needed. As noted by Thomas Barfield, elections were initially viewed as a peculiar mechanism for political legitimacy by Afghans. To illustrate this point, he used a quote from an

Afghan friend, “you Americans pray before the meal; we Afghans pray only after we have eaten it.” 42 In Barfield’s interpretation, political legitimacy in Afghanistan came from action, not wrested authority. Wrested authority in Afghanistan came in different forms, but almost all of them were outside the confines of the state. Reputation, tribal linkages, personal militias, and strategic relationships continued to allow individuals to amass political power without ever being elected to an office, and this served to undermine the legitimacy of elections themselves.43 This does not mean that elections serve no purpose in Afghanistan, that they are not worth investing in, or most problematically, that Afghanistan is somehow unfit for democracy. Rather, this analysis proves that sources of political legitimacy in Afghanistan are multifaceted and must be accounted for when designing electoral institutions. U.S. policy failed to take this dynamic into account, and instead, it assumed that the technical electoral institutions would bring legitimacy to the Afghan government in and of themselves.

The 2009 presidential election, which saw the reelection of Hamid Karzai, was the perfect example of how Afghan electoral institutions began undermining the legitimacy of the state. Karzai had made it increasingly clear in the years following 2001 that he had no intention of ceding power after one term as president.44 His cronyism was destabilizing the nascent

Afghan government, and many of his decisions served to increase his personal power at the

42 Barfield, Afghanistan, 301. 43 Noah Coburn and Anna Larson, Derailing Democracy in Afghanistan: Elections in an Unstable Political Landscape, New York: Columbia University Press, 2014, 21-23. 44 Barfield, Afghanistan, 331. 65 expense of good governance. His government became increasingly unpopular, especially as it proved unable to provide basic security needs in the provinces amid the Taliban resurgence.45

Therefore, in the 2009 election, he faced competition that had not existed in 2004.

Instead of defeating his competition within the confines of the democratic system, Karzai turned to fraud and corruption. To reduce threats from the 41 candidates, Karzai promised powerful warlords and minority group leaders positions in his cabinet, or simply paid them off in cash for their support.46 Of Karzai’s opposition, Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, a Tajik-Pashtun who had served as a close advisor of Ahmad Shah Massoud before becoming foreign minister in both Rabbani and Karzai’s administrations, posed the largest threat to Karzai.47 The opposition was strong enough that Karzai was unable to win the needed 50 percent plus one on election day.48 This led to a crisis in which international actors, the Afghan Independent Election Commission, and the

Afghan Supreme Court disagreed about how to move forward. A second round of voting was eventually deemed necessary. But before the election, Abdullah withdrew his candidacy.

Abdullah ceded to Karzai in what some have perceived as an effort to preserve national unity in such a fragile climate, but others have called a display of disgust.49 By stuffing the ballots, among other measures, Karzai’s camp had fabricated 1.3 million votes, or about 23 percent of all votes cast, according to the Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC).50 The elections seriously damaged Karzai’s credibility, and focused all attention on the national elections, leaving the equally important local contests out of the spotlight.51

45 Ibid. 46 Ibid. 47 BBC, “Who is Abdullah Abdullah? Afghanistan’s three-times presidential contender,” BCC, September 27, 2019, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-27138728. 48 Coburn and Larson, Derailing Democracy, 104. 49 Ibid., 333. 50 Ibid., 108. 51 Ibid., 105. 66

The local contests in 2009 were for seats on provincial councils, but in 2010 another chance to elect local leaders came, in the form of the September 2010 parliamentary elections.

These elections were different from the 2009 election in that negotiation efforts between the U.S. and Taliban became public in 2010, as will be discussed below. This began enflaming ethnic tensions, as non-Pashtuns were markedly less excited about the idea of welcoming the Taliban back into the Afghan political scene. 52 This sensitivity to ethnic identity impacted the elections, and it encouraged parliamentary candidates to campaign along ethnic lines.53 The security situation at the polls worsened, with Taliban disruption and threats to election monitoring teams, especially in rural areas.54 The candidates were “representative” of women and minorities because of mandatory quotas, but often these candidates were still entrenched in the fraud and corruption of Afghan politics, receiving endorsements and capital from warlords to run for office.55

Finally, the international community’s focus on the technical aspects of elections (i.e., voter turnout, female participation, fraud, etc.) led to an inability to see the wider trends of

Afghan political events, and they converted elections from a stabilizing force into part of the

Afghan political problem.56 The technical aspects of building better elections, such as voter turnout, the single nontransferable voting system, and voter identification, all received analytical attention.57 This came at the expense of attention paid to the impact of the elections on the

Afghan political landscape. This “outside-in” perspective on the Afghan elections was compared

52 Ibid., 159. 53 Ibid., 159-160. 54 Matthew Rojansky, Caroline Wadhams, and T. Kumar, “Observing Afghanistan’s 2010 Wolesi Jirga Elections,” The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, October 21, 2010, https://carnegieendowment.org/2010/10/21/observing-afghanistan-s-2010-wolesi-jirga-elections-event-3058. 55 Ibid. 56 Coburn and Larson, Derailing Democracy, xv. 57 Rojansky, Wadhams, and Kumar, “Observing Afghanistan’s 2010 Wolesi Jirga Elections.” 67 to having a “missing leg" by noted scholar Dr. Neamatollah Nojumi. The technical aspects all fit the narrative of a democratic society, but crucial components of democratic state-building, such as robust civil society and well-resourced local institutions, were overlooked by Western observers and U.S. policy.58

The 2009 elections had dire consequences for Afghanistan’s government and the status of the conflict. The government was illegitimate in the eyes of the Afghan people. Access to leadership in their country could be bought and sold, disrupted with threats of violence, or usurped through non-state mechanisms of power like tribal affiliation or warlordism. The power of the ballot box had been disproven, and confidence in the democracy created at Bonn was depressingly low. With no government to believe in, the Taliban’s message against Karzai became increasingly convincing. The international community insisted on the short-term rubber- stamping of Afghanistan’s democracy, instead of focusing on long-term democratic capacity building. This policy choice led to a further delegitimization of a government that already lacked popular support, in many ways due to its relationship with the United States. The elections of

2009 revealed deep, structural inadequacies in the conceptualization of democracy in

Afghanistan, yet American policymakers continued to employ the same tactics and rhetoric, plunging prospects for stability further into the dark.

IV. The Failed Peace Negotiations

The period of 2006-2014 marked the first time that the international community and the

Afghan government attempted to reach a settlement with the Taliban. Unlike the Bonn

Agreement, the peace attempts in this phase of the conflict attempted to engage the group in

58 Nojumi, American State-Building in Afghanistan, 33. 68 dialogue about the future of Afghanistan. This was a turning point, as it denoted a profound perspective shift in Washington: The Taliban could not be defeated militarily, at least not in a palatable timeframe. The need for a negotiated settlement that would include the Taliban became the new standard. Critically, this was an international decision. Again, Afghanistan’s future was removed from its own hands, and the peace process privileged U.S.-Taliban deal- making over intra-Afghan negotiations.

The peace process did not begin with U.S. maneuvering; instead, it started with Taliban outreach. At the end of Bush’s second term, Mullah Baradar opened communications with members of Karzai’s family, and a Taliban delegation began communicating with a UN official in Dubai.59 In 2008, Karzai himself had reached out to the Taliban for “reconciliation,” and

Pakistan was supposedly on board, with offers to mediate any peace talks.60 However, all meaningful progress slowed in 2010 when Pakistan detained Mullah Baradar in Karachi, a move that signaled Pakistan’s unwillingness to allow a true settlement between the Taliban and the

Afghan government.61 An unnamed Pakistani official described the move as an attempt to show the Taliban that it could not negotiate a deal without the direct input of Pakistan.62 Again,

Pakistan was interfering in Afghanistan’s affairs, postponing peace in pursuit of its interests.

After the failed round of negotiations from 2008-2010, the U.S. government started pursuing peace on its own terms. Championed by Holbrooke and his top advisors, the idea of negotiating directly with the Taliban gained traction, resulting in a lifting of the U.S. ban on talking to Taliban leadership in May 2010.63 After the ban was lifted, Karzai formed the High

59 Ibid. 60 Abbas, The Taliban Revival, 227. 61 Dobbins and Malkasian, “Time to Negotiate in Afghanistan.” 62 Ibid. 63 Ibid. 69

Peace Council (HPC), led by former president of the mujahideen government, Rabbani.64 The

HPC initially included 70 members, some of whom were former mujahideen and former Taliban.

At this time, former Bonn chairman, Brahimi, and U.S. officials visited Kabul and Islamabad to gauge the possibility of peace talks. They reported that the Taliban was interested in a settlement, and in November of 2010, U.S. diplomats engaged the Taliban for the very first time.65 These talks were a failure because, remarkably, the “member of Taliban leadership” that the United States had paid to take part in talks was an imposter.66 Regardless of the talks’ success, there was a shift in 2010 from an Afghan peace process engineered by Afghans themselves to one focused on U.S. interests. After the failure of the 2008 rounds, the U.S. decided to pursue peace on its own terms, largely for the purpose of disengaging itself from the lengthy and costly conflict.

In a major speech to the Asia Society in February of 2011, Secretary of State Hillary

Clinton set out the three American conditions for negotiations with the Taliban: a split between the Taliban and Al Qaeda, a renunciation of violence, and a recognition of the new Afghan constitution.67 Around the same time, Karzai’s HPC created its Peace Process Roadmap to 2015, which called for an “Afghan-led and Afghan-owned” process.68 Karzai’s administration had realized that an American peace was not necessarily an Afghan peace, and tensions rose between the HPC and the American-led peace effort. Talks between the United States and the Taliban continued into late 2011 and early 2012, but ceased due to a variety of factors – the Taliban assassinated Rabbani in September 2011; tensions between Washington and Islamabad were at a

64 Ibid. 65 Ibid. 66 Dexter Filkins and Carlotta Gall, “Taliban Leader in Secret Talks was an Impostor,” The New York Times, November 22, 2010, https://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/23/world/asia/23kabul.html 67 Abbas, The Taliban Revival, 228. 68 Ibid., 229. 70 historic high after Osama bin Laden was killed; and key U.S. policymakers had differing viewpoints on the steps forward.69

In 2013 the Taliban once again re-initiated a conversation about peace by declaring its intention to open a political office in Doha for the sole purpose of negotiation. The agenda of new peace talks included the release of Taliban prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, the removal of

Taliban leaders from the UN sanctions list, and the release of U.S. army sergeant, Bowe

Bergdahl.70 However, the Taliban opened the office in the name of the Islamic Emirate of

Afghanistan, a title that the Afghan government categorically opposed.71 The Taliban then closed the office and communications between all parties were once again halted for a brief period. The halt did not continue for long because of the U.S. interest in releasing Sergeant

Bergdahl from Taliban captivity. In 2014, the United States achieved its first negotiated agreement with the Taliban, securing the release of Sergeant Bergdahl in exchange for five

Taliban prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay. This process was mediated by Qatar. After the exchange was accomplished, all communication between the parties ceased. Although the

Americans achieved one of their most important goals, this negotiation did not meaningfully advance peace in Afghanistan. This exchange highlights the mismatch between American and

Afghan goals in the peace process. Although the United States negotiated successfully with the

Taliban in 2014, the year ended with little progress towards ending the conflict raging in

Afghanistan.72 The 2010-2014 peace negotiations highlighted future U.S. policy towards the necessary conditions for a peace deal. Notably, these conditions needed to allow the United

69 Dobbins and Malkasian, “Time to Negotiate in Afghanistan.” 70 Ibid. 71 Ibid. 72 Ibid. 71

States to withdraw its troops, but they did not need to create a true or permanent end of violence, indicative of the short-term and national security-focused lens of U.S. policy.

V. Key Lessons Learned

The Taliban resurgence came as a result of many factors, but U.S. policy and regional actors like Pakistan played an outsized role. As the United States continued to pursue its strategic interests in Afghanistan, it continued to destabilize the country to the point of insurgency. The Afghan government created at Bonn was a democracy in name only. The

Western desire for a democratic state in Afghanistan ensured that the new government checked the boxes on technical requirements, but investment in the institutional and societal components of democracy was overlooked. This result came once again from a misunderstanding of Afghan identity and local politics, combined with a lack of long-term vision and capacity building. The negotiated peace process began in this period and from the beginning, Pakistani and American interests were privileged over true Afghan peace. The narratives of Afghanistan as inherently undemocratic, prone to division, or “backwards” are all tempting fallacies, told by Western policymakers to avoid blame. The truth is that in many ways the Afghan conflict has been sustained by U.S. policy.

The beginning of a formal peace process in 2010 highlighted the key stumbling blocks to a negotiated peace, along with the U.S. policies towards the peace process that have remained largely the same through the present day. First, peace in Afghanistan will not be possible without the support and engagement of Pakistan. As seen in 2010, Pakistan has the power to singlehandedly thwart peace efforts. Pakistan’s role in creating and sustaining the Taliban gives it an outsized ability to influence the Taliban’s reaction to peace. Pakistan will not accept a strong Afghan state, especially when that state is not a Pakistani ally. The Taliban are Pakistan’s

72 mechanism for exerting control over Afghanistan, and the conflict will not be alleviated unless

Pakistan feels comfortable with the conditions of Afghan governance.

Other key dynamics of the peace process revealed themselves during these early talks.

First, when the Taliban has battlefield success, it is much more difficult to bring it to the negotiating table. Second, the Taliban was not prepared to accept the Afghan constitution by the end of 2014, as doing so would imply legitimization of an American puppet regime. This dynamic remains in place today. Finally, the Taliban has been willing to repudiate Al Qaeda since 2009, when it stated that if foreign forces withdrew from Afghanistan, they would not seek to attack other countries, nor would they let Afghan territory serve as a haven for international terrorism.73

Additionally, the international community learned the results of the “new American strategy” of 2009. Initially, the Obama Administration’s shift from a counterterrorism to a counterinsurgency strategy had key successes. First, in the military realm, the high amount of military pressure on insurgents during the troop surge led to victories.74 These military victories disrupted Taliban territorial control throughout 2010 and 2011, opening up Afghan civil space at the local level and leading to the loss of key operational bases for Taliban leadership by 2012.75

This led to an era of transformation between 2012 and 2014, in which Afghanistan experienced a rapid growth in urban population, flourishing civil society, and growing youth movements.76

Going into 2014, there was a reason for hope.

73 Ibid. 74 Nojumi, American State-Building in Afghanistan, 24. 75 Ibid., 25. 76 Ibid., 29. 73

However, the small period of success in 2012 to 2014 is overshadowed by the overall trend of the conflict, marked by Taliban strength and violence. The fact remains that the Taliban are still disrupting Afghanistan today, and part of the reason for this continued challenge lies in the U.S. policy decisions of the COIN era. First, the massive lack of institutional investment in the initial years following 2001 required even higher levels of investment to correct. COIN simply did not meet the astronomical level of investment needed. Additionally, COIN continued the U.S. tunnel vision on security-sector development. Under Obama, the security sector continued to take the lion’s share of resources, leaving civilian-sector investment as an afterthought, and further exacerbating the investment shortage that led to the Taliban resurgence in the first place.77 The political climate in Washington was one of operational frenzy during the troop surge, leading to a recognition among senior officials that the focus was on “today and tomorrow” and not on rectifying the mistakes of the past.78 The yearlong deployment timeline of the troop surge led U.S. policy to be rushed, and nominal performance indicators, such as recruitment numbers, were incorrectly interpreted as larger indications of overall capacity growth and effectiveness. This approach overlooked the connections between different policy decisions, and it failed to view the conflict continuously. Under Obama, massive amounts of money and

American lives were once again being poured into Afghanistan, to no avail.

All these issues reflected a lack of cohesive, long-term U.S. political strategy.79 This strategic dearth in 2001 led to the Taliban’s resurgence in 2006. The counterinsurgency operation fixed some of the mistakes of 2002, but instead of charting the course forward, the

Obama administration was playing catch-up to the consequences of previous policy failures.

77 Ibid., 56. 78 Ibid., 73. 79 Ibid., 53. 74

Unraveling each previous policy, seeing the connections between them, and taking the corrective steps necessary would have taken a massive investment, for which U.S. officials had no political will. Each of the messy policy failures from 2001 to 2014 was very expensive, and these failures depleted the U.S. appetite for investments big enough to right the wrongs of the past.

The total cost of U.S. reconstruction in Afghanistan from 2001 to 2014 reached $104 billion, compared to a total investment of $13 billion in today’s dollars for the entire Marshall

Plan.80 This enormous commitment of economic resources exacerbated mission fatigue in the

United States, which then only worsened the problem of having enough resources to direct to the right programs and causes. Although the American troop surge was able to “clean” out Taliban strongholds, they were not able to “hold” and “build” these successes because of this lack of vision and investment. Unfortunately for Afghanistan, the optimism of early 2014 would soon be dashed. In the next chapter, the period 2014-2018 will be discussed, bringing us to a renewed

Taliban strength, unprecedented negotiations, two presidential transitions, and a mission fatigue that would go on to consume American politics.

80 Ibid., 79. 75

Chapter Four: The NATO Withdrawal and the Government of National Unity, 2014-2018

The period from 2014 to 2018 saw dramatic changes in the Afghan conflict and the domestic politics of the major countries involved. The rule of Hamid Karzai ended in 2014 with the election of the Government of National Unity, led by Ashraf Ghani. In the United States, foreign policy radically shifted with the election of President Donald Trump in 2016. In 2014,

NATO forces withdrew from Afghanistan, and the United States attempted a drawdown as well.

With fewer troops and a still weak Afghan security sector, the Taliban once again resurged.

Peace negotiations became the new norm, reflecting a paradigm shift about the end goal for the

United States in Afghanistan: “winning” in the conventional sense was no longer an option.

Mission fatigue reached its present-day peak, with appetites in the United States and NATO countries at an all-time low for continuing the mission in Afghanistan. The troop withdrawals of this time period were justified with short-term measures of security success that once again led to increased conflict and instability. U.S. policy after 2014 was designed to create a clean-exit strategy rather than achieve peace, and this undermined possibilities for success. Finally, the

Afghan presidential election of 2014 unveiled more cracks in the democratic foundations of the country than any previous Afghan election. The American intervention in the resulting political crisis reinforced the widespread view that the government in Kabul was an American “puppet” regime. The Taliban capitalized on this environment of decreased international military presence and political crisis to resurge once more, reaching their present-day heights.

I. The 2014 Troop Drawdowns and the New Role of the United States and NATO

In 2014, NATO/ISAF members and the United States withdrew troops from Afghanistan for the first time since 2001, handing the majority of war power to the Afghan National Security

Forces (ANSF). The success of the early COIN victories led the international community and

76 the United States to feel comfortable leading a troop drawdown. However, another component of the drawdown was the extensive mission fatigue in the countries leading the charge in

Afghanistan. In the United States, the war in Afghanistan began to be characterized as a “forever war” or “the new Vietnam.” The optimism in 2014 gave the United States a justification for troop withdrawal that it had not had throughout the previous 13 years of conflict. Given the domestic implications, the United States took hold of this opportunity and seized it.

The 2014 exit strategy championed by the Obama Administration hinged upon two bilateral security agreements (BSAs), one to be signed between the United States and

Afghanistan and another to be signed between NATO and Afghanistan.1 These agreements were intended to maintain a limited number of troops for the continued training of the ANSF and for counterterrorism missions.2 President Obama announced his intention to implement these BSAs during a May 2014 trip to Kabul. At the time of his speech, there were 32,000 American troops in Afghanistan, along with NATO forces. Obama’s announcement faced pushback from the

Washington defense community, particularly in light of a 2012 Pentagon report and a 2013

SIGAR report stating that the 350,000-strong ANA was not coherent, disciplined or strong enough to secure the country.3

Nevertheless, President Ashraf Ghani signed a BSA with the United States on September

29, 2014. The agreement ensured an American-Afghan security alliance until 2024. The United

States had the option of maintaining bases like the Bagram and Kandahar air fields, along with any troop size, for long-term periods.4 This agreement was signed within twenty-four hours of

1 Amin Saikal and Kirill Nourzhanov, Afghanistan and Its Neighbors after the NATO Withdrawal, Lanham, MD: Lexington Books 2016, 7. 2 Ibid., 7. 3 Ibid., 8. 4 Ibid., 9. 77 the election of Ashraf Ghani, in stark contrast to the months of debate surrounding the agreement under Karzai.5 The final agreement rapidly passed the Afghan parliament. In fact, it was the fastest legislation passed by the parliament in the previous 15 years.6 In conjunction with the

U.S. bilateral security agreement, the Afghan government signed the Status of Forces Agreement

(SOFA) with NATO on September 30, 2014, also ratified by the Afghan parliament in

November 2014.7 By December 2014, the United States drew its forces down to 9,800.

NATO/ISAF forces followed Washington’s lead, viewing 2014 as the strategic year to end the mission in Afghanistan. On December 28, 2014, the NATO mission’s flag was ceremonially retired, marking the formal end to NATO’s combat mission in Afghanistan.8 At the time of the mission’s end, NATO/ISAF troops in Afghanistan numbered 17,000, down from 84,721 in

2013.9 The Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) were disbanded, and their tasks were handed off to the ANSF.10

After the singing of the bilateral security agreement and the official end of NATO’s combat mission in Afghanistan, a new era of international engagement in Afghanistan began. In

January of 2015, NATO launched its new mission, dubbed “Resolute Support.” Resolute

Support would “train, advise, and assist” the Afghan security forces and institutions, rather than engage in direct combat.11 Resolute Support’s initial size as of January 2015 was 13,110 troops,

5 Nojumi, American State-Building,163. 6 Ibid. 7 NATO, “Resolute Support Mission (RSM): Key Facts and Figures,” October 2015, https://www.nato.int/nato_static_fl2014/assets/pdf/pdf_2015_10/20151007_2015-10-rsm-placemat.pdf. 8 Pamela Constable, “NATO flag lowered in Afghanistan as combat mission ends,” The Washington Post, December 28, 2014, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/nato-flag-lowered-in-afghanistan-as-combat-mission- ends/2014/12/28/5a3ad640-8e44-11e4-ace9-47de1af4c3eb_story.html. 9 Ibid. 10 Anthony Cordesman, “The Conflicting Assessment of the Trends in Combat in Afghanistan: 2014-2018,” The Center for Strategic and International Studies, August 16, 2018, https://csis-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs- public/publication/180820_Conflicting_Trends_Afghanistan.pdf?y35qBzPzETU9qfmiKcIeGt4YVdaVsKDE. 11 NATO, “Resolute Support Mission (RSM): Key Facts and Figures.” 78 from 42 contributing nations.12 Resolute Support has continued its mission in Afghanistan through today, with nations committing troops to the force at annual NATO summits.13

In early 2015, the United States shifted its mission objectives in line with NATO. Now,

“Operation Enduring Freedom” (2001-2014) was over. The United States began a new campaign, “Operation Freedom’s Sentinel” (2015-present). The mission objectives for OFS were twofold: first, continue counterterrorism operations in Afghanistan and, second, work with allies in Resolute Support. The bulk of American troops in Afghanistan after 2014 were members of Resolute Support, but a smaller contingent was designated for combat, under OFS.

In the immediate aftermath of the 2014 withdrawals, Afghans had starkly different reactions. In some circles, a climate of fear was palpable, but in others, the withdrawal of international forces was a cause for celebration. In some camps, there was a fear of civil war without substantial numbers of international forces.14 Analysts spent time and resources developing counterfactuals for the event of civil war, with dire predictions that regional actors would back Afghan proxies, in a scenario mirroring the 1990s.15 In fact, Russian security officials in 2015 were actively planning for Afghan state failure and collapse in the aftermath.16

It is important to note that the United States and NATO were not sheltered from these popular opinions, and knew at the time of troop drawdowns that continued instability was not only a possibility – but a likely one.

12 Ibid. 13Cordesman, “The Conflicting Assessment of the Trends in Combat in Afghanistan.” 14 Vanda Felbab-Brown, “Security and Political Developments in Afghanistan in 2014 and After: Endgame or New Game,” in Afghanistan: 2014 and Beyond, Austrian Federal Ministry of the Interior, March 2014. 15 Ibid. 16 Saikal and Nourzhanov, Afghanistan and Its Neighbors after the NATO Withdrawal, 212. 79

However, other contingents saw the removal of international forces as a positive step towards Afghan independence from international influences. It comes as no surprise that the

Taliban took the withdrawal with enthusiasm. The Taliban spokesperson released a statement claiming victory, stating that the “infidel powers who thought they would turn Afghanistan into their strategic colony [had been] pushed to the brink of defeat.”17 This rhetoric fell in line with the Taliban’s new operating strategy. However, this viewpoint was not unique to the Taliban or even to Taliban sympathizers. President Karzai himself began providing a similar message about

American intentions in Afghanistan, despite his role as a U.S.-backed leader for the better part of a decade.

On September 23, 2014, Karzai gave his farewell address, concluding his reign with accusations against the U.S. government, claiming that America had spent its time and resources in Afghanistan to achieve “its own interests,” rather than accomplishing the best outcomes for the Afghan people. He alleged that there was no peace in Afghanistan because “Americans didn’t want peace.”18 This speech marked an important mainstreaming of anti-American rhetoric, and as thoroughly discussed in this thesis, this view of the conflict has considerable merit. The conditions in Afghanistan as of 2014 could be linked to previous U.S. policies, undergirded by rushed military planning, a lack of local and regional context, or a simple disregard for Afghan interests in a conflict that was never about Afghan interests to begin with.

Ironically, the “American puppet” whose ineffective polices had increased Taliban support was now preaching directly against the system that he had helped create.

17 Constable, “NATO flag lowered in Afghanistan as combat mission ends.” 18 Nojumi, American State-Building in Afghanistan, 164. 80

U.S. policies enflamed the dire security situation before 2014, and it was now the American drawdown that would lead to a resurgent Taliban. In another prioritization of short-term security interests, the United States withdrew forces before the ANSF truly had the capacity to secure the country.

II. The Afghan Security Environment & Renewed Diplomacy - 2015-2016

The U.S. policy of the 2014 troop withdrawals impacted the Afghan security environment and contributed to the Taliban’s negotiating position. By the end of 2015, the average security incidents per day rose to 71.8 from 63.7 at the end of 2014. This reporting was the highest since mid-2014 when the troop withdrawals were first seriously announced. The total number for the period from August-October of 2015 was 6,601, the highest reported since before November of

2012.19 In the Asia Foundation’s 2015 survey of the Afghan people, the stated support for armed opposition groups surged to above 80% in Wardak province and between 61-80% in provinces like Kandahar, Ghor, and Laghman.20

In September 2015, the Taliban took control of Kunduz city, the capital of Kunduz province.21 Earlier in the same year, the Taliban had made strategic gains in Helmand province as well, prompting concern within Resolute Support and OFS about the strength of the Afghan security forces.22 Gardez, Jalalabad, Kandahar, and even Kabul itself became vulnerable to attacks in late 2015 and early 2016 (See Figure 6).23 Additionally, ISIS-Khorasan, an offshoot of

19 Cordesman, “The Conflicting Assessment of the Trends in Combat in Afghanistan.” 20 Ibid. 21 Tim Craig and Sayed Salahuddin, “Taliban storms into northern Afghan city in major blow for security forces,” The Washington Post, September 28, 2015, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/taliban-overruns-half-of- northern-afghan-city/2015/09/28/53798568-65df-11e5-bdb6-6861f4521205_story.html. 22 Ibid. 23 Sarah Almukhtar and Karen Yourish, “More than 14 Years after U.S. Invasion, the Taliban Control Large Parts of Afghanistan,” The New York Times, April 19, 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/09/29/world/asia/afghanistan-taliban-maps.html. 81 the Islamic State terrorist group, started its activities in this time period, with district centers in

Nangarhar falling to ISIS-K control between July and September of 2015. The United Nations threat level assessment for over half of Afghanistan’s districts was considered “high” or

“extreme” in September of 2015, the highest it had been at any point since 2001.24

Figure 6. Regions of Taliban Control & Support, September 2015 (Source: The New York Times, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/09/29/world/asia/afghanistan-taliban-maps.html)

These advances occurred against the background of renewed peace attempts throughout

2015 and 2016. The Afghan government had attempted to begin negotiations with the Taliban during this time period. However, in July of 2016, the Taliban announced that Mullah Omar had died in a Pakistani hospital in April of 2013. From 2013 to 2016, the Taliban had been operating

24 Cordesman, “The Conflicting Assessment of the Trends in Combat in Afghanistan.” 82 without a recognized leader, but in 2016, the group appointed Omar’s successor: Mohammed

Monsour, a longtime senior aid to Omar. The Taliban released strange statements, professing apologies for any “mistakes” that Omar had made during his rule of Afghanistan.25 These statements were released during a round of peace talks, and the announcement of Omar’s death resulted in the talks’ postponement. Two important dynamics revealed themselves in this time.

First, conflict in Afghanistan continued to increase during peace attempts, a trend that continues to be relevant today. The Taliban uses violence to increase pressure on the government during negotiations. Second, the Taliban’s branding continued to shift. With the death of Omar and the message of apology, the Taliban continued its adaptation to a “new” branding, one that attempted to break with the Taliban of the past, to increase popular support.

In January of 2016, the peace talks resumed with a quadrilateral effort that brought representatives from China, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and the United States (the “Quadrilateral

Coordination Group”) together to outline the future of the peace process.26 This was a key turning point – A crucial stumbling block to peace had been the lack of coordination between regional actors and international stakeholders, specifically the United States’ unwillingness to bring diplomatic rivals to the table. This occasion was the first time that these four countries came together to discuss peace in Afghanistan. It is truly astonishing that a conference of this type had not occurred until 2016, and it reflects the self-interested nature of many previous attempts at negotiation. However, this shift in negotiation tactics came against a dramatic new backdrop. The setbacks of 2015 had increased. A day before the fourth round of discussions

25 Pamela Constable and Brian Murphy, “Afghan talks postponed amid fallout from news of Taliban leader’s death,” The Washington Post, July 30, 2015, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/afghan-peace-talks-postponed-amid- fallout-from-taliban-leaders-death/2015/07/30/409f3da0-36b1-11e5-9739-170df8af8eb9_story.html. 26 Hashmat Moslih, “The Taliban and obstacles to Afghan peace talks,” Al Jazeera, February 25, 2016, https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2016/02/taliban-obstacles-afghanistan-peace-talks- 160225095920107.html. 83 began in February, the Afghan government effectively handed control of Helmand province to the Taliban.27 After a massive military investment over the past fourteen years, Afghan security had only further deteriorated. It seemed that Washington had finally reached the conclusion that including international actors in a brokered peace agreement was the only way to ensure an end to the fighting. However, the Taliban rejected the effort unequivocally in March of 2016, bringing the renewed peace effort to a halt.28

Despite their failure, the QCG talks still impacted the overall peace process. The conference brought to the forefront several key negotiating issues, both in the media and among the nations present at the discussions. First, the Taliban would insist on the withdrawal of all foreign forces in any peace deal, which was a major sticking point. Second, the Taliban would likely push for constitutional reform, instituting sharia law in the country. Third, the issue of power-sharing was discussed – would the Taliban accept a power-sharing agreement with a government created by “American puppets”? And, could the donor community accept an

Afghanistan with the Taliban in power? Fourth, the structural issue of Afghan federalism was finally addressed in a formal setting. The QCG discussed holding provincial governor elections to devolve power to the local level. However, this solution would be unacceptable to the elite in

Kabul. Most ironically, Washington would likely oppose the measure, showing how U.S. policy shaped the conversations during the peace process, to the detriment of consensus-building.29

27 Ibid. 28 Reuters, “Taliban refuse to take part in Afghanistan peace talks,” The Guardian, March 5, 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/05/taliban-refuses-to-take-part-in-peace-talks. 29 Moslih, “The Taliban and obstacles to Afghan peace talks.” 84

In April 2016, one-fifth of the country was under Taliban control, with some analysts estimating true Taliban control or heavy influence in over half of Afghanistan.30 Opium production was soaring, providing the Taliban with steady revenue for their operations, particularly in Helmand province, where the Taliban maintained control into 2016.31 However, during 2016, the Taliban’s popularity began to fall, as Afghans civilians were increasingly killed and injured by Taliban attacks.32 In 2016, 61% of civilian casualties were caused by “threat forces,” as opposed to 24% caused by pro-government forces.33 According to the 2016 Asia

Foundation survey, the fear for personal safety among most Afghans skyrocketed to above 80% of respondents in almost every province.34 Going into 2017, Afghans’ morale was at its lowest since 2001, and the pressure for peace talks subsequently mounted.

III. The Government of National Unity

The time period after 2014 was seminal for Afghan politics. For the first time since the creation of the Afghan democracy at Bonn, Hamid Karzai was not in the presidential race. This opened the contest to different powerbrokers in the country. The two front runners in 2014 were

Abdullah Abdullah, Karzai’s opponent in the hotly contested 2009 elections, and Ashraf Ghani, a renowned anthropologist and economist. As noted earlier, Abdullah Abdullah is a Tajik-Pashtun who served with Massoud before his death. Adbullah’s affiliation with non-Pashtuns was significant, and his support base came from the non-Pashtun camp. His running mate,

Mohammed Mohaqiq, was a leader of the Hazara community, strengthening the ticket as a non-

30 Almukhtar and Yourish, “More than 14 Years after U.S. Invasion, the Taliban Control Large Parts of Afghanistan.” 31 Cordesman, “The Conflicting Assessment of the Trends in Combat in Afghanistan.” 32 Abbas, The Taliban Revival, 208. 33 Ibid. 34 Ibid. 85

Pashtun voting bloc. In contrast, Ghani is a Pashtun and former close ally of Karzai, serving as his VP of Finance in 2002.35 However, the two fell out in 2004, and Ghani went on to become the Chancellor of Kabul University.36 He chose Uzbek former mujahideen commander, known warlord, and flagrant violator of human rights, General Dostum, as his running mate in an effort to win segments of non-Pashtun voters.37

Prior to the election, members of the international community were already concerned about the potential outcome. Holding a presidential election prior to the publicized troop withdrawal was an enormous risk. Additionally, there were fears that Hamid Karzai would not relinquish power to an election at all, or that he would select an ally to run in his place, effectively sealing the fate of the election.38 Although these specific issues did not occur, the election did lead to increased instability in the country and international intervention. The election was held on April 5, 2014, but no candidate emerged with majority support. This resulted in a second round of voting on June 14, 2014 between the top two candidates, Ghani and

Abdullah.39 However, in the second round of voting, the turnout was much higher, specifically among Pashtun Ghani supporters, leading Abdullah’s camp to accuse his rival of extensive fraud.40 These accusations quickly devolved into threats of violence, with some supporters of

Abdullah claiming that they would attempt to establish a parallel government.

In this context, it also important to understand the levels of electoral violence and the

Taliban’s role in the election results. This election marked the first occasion that the Taliban

35 BBC. “Who is Ashraf Ghani? The technocrat who sought to rebuild Afghanistan.” BBC. September 26, 2019. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-27142426. 36 Ibid. 37 Ibid. 38 William Byrd, “Understanding Afghanistan’s 2014 Presidential Election: The Limits to Democracy in a Limited Access Order,” The United States Institute of Peace, Special Report 370, April 2015, p. 2. 39 Ibid. 40 Ibid. 86 considered endorsing a candidate or otherwise involving themselves in the process.41 Among many Taliban, Ghani was perceived as the better negotiating partner out of the two candidates, with a belief that he would be more sympathetic to the rural Pashtun Taliban base.42 Those

Taliban with a predilection towards negotiating with the government preferred intervening in the election to champion Ghani.43 However, many Taliban were opposed to negotiating and had opposed the preceding peace talks. This camp favored intervening violently to disrupt the elections, preventing the establishment of a strong government. Finally, some Taliban who opposed negotiation wanted to intervene to support Abdullah Abdullah, presuming that his victory as a non-Pashtun could create a mass backlash that could be a strategic gain for the

Taliban’s mobilization.44 Importantly, because of the death of Mullah Omar and struggles between the Quetta Shura and newer Talibs, the Taliban lacked a central leadership capable of making this decision and enforcing it across the group.45 With this divide in mind, the complicated nature of Taliban violence on election day is brought to light. There are reporting discrepancies on the Taliban’s level of violence in the 2014 election, as ISAF and the UN report lower levels of violence than in 2009, but the Taliban itself reports higher levels of violence.46

Notable amounts of violence also came from militias linked to local strongmen and national- level warlords, like General Dostum, the running-mate of Ghani himself.47

With the fragile climate of violence, a disputed second-round of voting, and threats of government dissolution, the international community decided to intervene once more in

41 Giustozzi and Mangal, “Violence, The Taliban, and Afghanistan’s 2014 Elections,” 3. 42 Ibid., 5. 43 Ibid. 44 Ibid. 45 Ibid., 5. 46 Ibid., 8-10. 47 Ibid., 12. 87

Afghanistan’s political process. In the aftermath of the second round, President Obama personally appealed to both candidates to prevent violence, and Secretary of State John Kerry flew to Kabul twice to attempt to mediate. The result was an agreement from both Ghani and

Abdullah to a “Government of National Unity,” in which the losing candidate would become the

“Chief Executive” (CEO) of the country, a new cabinet position, and the winner would be the president.48 Then, the two sides agreed to an audit of the election results. However, as it became increasingly clear that Ghani was still in the lead, Abdullah threatened to disengage from the process. Intense bargaining kept Abdullah in the deal, but it required many concessions from

Ghani surrounding the powers of the CEO position.49 In the end, it was decided by all parties to not announce the election results at all, but rather Abdullah conceded to Ghani in the name of preserving the country.50 Announcing the results could have angered Abdullah supporters beyond the point of reconciliation. Preserving the fragile government prevailed as the overarching goal, and the Government of National Unity (GNU) was formed, albeit with heavy international intervention.

The result of this chaotic process was a further deterioration of Afghans’ confidence in their government and with electoral institutions in general. The non-announcement of the election results and the international community’s role in designing the GNU played into the

Taliban’s narrative that the West had shaped the Afghan government, with little to no role for the

Afghan people. However, it is worth considering how the Taliban’s narrative holds merit. The frustration and despair among Afghans were justified, and the Taliban had effectively heightened these emotions. The interference of the United States in determining the structure of the Afghan

48 Byrd, “Understanding Afghanistan’s 2014 Presidential Election,” 5. 49 Giustozzi and Mangal, “Violence, The Taliban, and Afghanistan’s 2014 Elections,” 3. 50 Byrd, “Understanding Afghanistan’s 2014 Presidential Election,” 3. 88 government, while encouraging the suppression of democratic norms that would never be acceptable in the United States itself, has been a fuel behind the Taliban’s fire. U.S. policy decisions in the 2014 election preserved the flimsy Afghan democracy, at the cost of its legitimacy.

IV. The Early Trump Presidency – 2016 and 2017

With the election of U.S. President Donald Trump in 2016, U.S. policy towards

Afghanistan turned in a new direction. Trump put an increased emphasis on withdrawal and peace talks in the pursuit of a decreased U.S. presence in the country. From the 2016 debates to his inauguration in 2017, Trump’s Afghan policy seemed to be one of unconditional troop withdrawal.51 President Trump was a vocal critic of the U.S. policy in Afghanistan in every way.

However, when the time came for his administration to draw up concrete plans, much remained the same as in presidencies past.

In August of 2017, Trump unveiled his administration’s first broad Afghan policy, stating firmly that the U.S. mission in Afghanistan would no longer be one of “nation-building.” He stated that continued military presence would be strictly used for counterterrorism purposes.

Trump also called upon Pakistan to stop its continued support for the insurgency, removed the

Obama-era SRAP position from the State Department, indicated U.S. support for a negotiated settlement with the Taliban, and surprisingly, announced an increase in U.S. troops.52 In 2017, the U.S. sent an additional 4,000 troops to Afghanistan, joining the 8,500 left in the country after the 2016 withdrawals.53 This strategy came after Trump reportedly told senior advisors that he

51 Krishnadev Calamur, “Trump’s Plan for Afghanistan: No Timeline for Exit,” The Atlantic, August 21, 2017, https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/08/trump-afghanistan/537474/. 52 Ibid. 53 Ibid. 89 believed the United States to be “losing” the war. The sudden reversal was surprising to many observers.54

The troop increase came in light of the military losses of 2016 and 2017, which led to growing concern at the Pentagon about the security situation.55 The initial strategy delegated the ability to decide troop numbers to the Pentagon, with no timeline for withdrawal or specific cap to these numbers.56 This “open-ended” approach had benefits when compared to Obama’s withdrawal timeline because it did not give the Taliban a specific date to target. At the same time, it continued the U.S. approach of tangling in Afghanistan without any long-term strategy.

The president’s language highlighted the U.S. frustration with the war, giving the Taliban a stronger bargaining position going into 2018. The additional troop numbers implied recognition of the Taliban’s battlefield success. The pivot of language towards a negotiated settlement showed that the United States seemed to be ready for the first time to entertain a peace agreement that included the Taliban in a future Afghan government. Finally, Trump’s inclusion of Pakistan and India in his plan and speech showed a continuation of the new regional approach that had been unfortunately neglected by U.S. policy until the QCG meeting in 2016.

The Trump administration fully pivoted to its main Afghan peace strategy in late 2017, with the appointment of Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad to a new position at the State

Department – the Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation on September 5, 2018.57

54 Ibid. 55 David Nakamura and Abby Phillip, “Trump announces new strategy for Afghanistan that calls for a troop increase,” The Washington Post, August 21, 2017, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-expected-to- announce-small-troop-increase-in-afghanistan-in-prime-time-address/2017/08/21/eb3a513e-868a-11e7-a94f- 3139abce39f5_story.html. 56 Ibid. 57 Michele Keleman, Diaa Hadid, and Vanessa Romo, “Zalmay Khalilzad Appointed As U.S. Special Advisor to Afghanistan,” NPR, September 5, 2018, https://www.npr.org/2018/09/05/641094135/zalmay-khalilzad-appointed- as-u-s-special-adviser-to-afghanistan. 90

The creation of this position within the Trump administration signaled another shift in U.S. policy, towards one of actively promoting peace and reconciliation at the highest levels of U.S. diplomacy. This was a move that had never previously been attempted. In a statement to the press, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo explained that Khalilzad would be “full-time focused on developing the opportunities to get the Afghans and the Taliban to come to a reconciliation. That will be his singular mission statement.”58 Never had the U.S. government so openly and singularly focused its Afghanistan policy on peace and reconciliation. However, the appointment of Khalilzad was not without controversy. As discussed earlier in this thesis,

Khalilzad played an instrumental role in Afghanistan after 2001. His decisions at Bonn combined with his heavy hand in the Karzai administration are to blame for many of the problems Afghanistan is experiencing to this day. U.S. policy during the end of the Obama administration and the beginning of the Trump administration continued to face obstacles because of its short-term, security-focused strategic vision. This is readily apparent in the 2014 troop withdrawals and the subsequent Taliban strength. Even in the early years of the Trump administration, the desire to reach a solution in Afghanistan that fulfilled U.S. security interests, no matter the costs, seemed fairly mainstream. The disastrous results of the 2014 election further deteriorated any existing confidence in the Afghan democratic government, and the American decision to throw its weight behind Ghani did not provide the new president with organic sources of legitimacy. Rather, this decision increased speculation that Kabul was prioritizing American interests over the Afghan people. By early 2018, the new U.S. policy towards the Afghan conflict was in full-throttle – a full withdrawal of U.S. troops under a negotiated settlement.

58 Ibid. 91

Chapter Five: The Current State of the Afghan Conflict, 2018-Present

On February 29, 2020, the United States signed a deal with the Taliban to finally “end” the U.S. engagement in Afghanistan. The deal is between only the Taliban and the United

States, and it is only a framework, not a final peace agreement.1 This deal is the result of two years of bargaining under the Trump administration, highly motivated by the President’s desire to bring American troops home. The deal as it stands is a mix of different strategies that have been attempted since 2018, which will be outlined and analyzed below.

The peace framework achieved by the United States and the Taliban notably excludes the

Afghan government. Many of the conditions of the framework are contingent upon the future participation of the Afghan government in peace talks. However, it cannot be overstated how the discourse surrounding this “peace deal” privileges American security interests over the end of the Afghan conflict itself. Calling an agreement between the United States and the Taliban a peace deal implies that the deal will bring an end to violence in Afghanistan. However, this deal only provides the conditions for the American government to remove its troops, not any meaningful guarantee for the conflict’s end. Although the deal is a step forward in the Afghan peace process, it must be viewed through a critical lens. If history is any guide, U.S. policy in

Afghanistan has always prioritized short-term security gains over long-term prospects for peace and stability. The new deal between the United States and the Taliban seems likely to follow this trend, allowing for American troop withdrawal in exchange for security assurances, without the longer-term vision of capacity building commitment and governmental restructuring required to truly end the conflict.

1 Mujib Mashal, “U.S. Strikes Deal with Taliban to Withdraw Troops from Afghanistan,” The New York Times, February 29, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/29/world/asia/us-taliban-deal.html 92

I. Building to Peace – 2018 in Afghanistan

The Trump administration’s move towards peace efforts began in 2018 with the historic

Eid ceasefire between the Taliban and the Afghan government. The Taliban announced the Eid al-Fitr ceasefire on June 9, 2018, in a surprise move to mark the end of Ramadan with the first ceasefire since the war began in 2001.2 This ceasefire was monumental for many reasons, not only because it was the first to occur since the war’s beginning. The Ghani administration had announced a one-sided, unconditional ceasefire, ending government pursuit of the Taliban from

June 5th to June 20th.3 However, the Taliban did not agree to the government ceasefire. Instead the Taliban created its own ceasefire, scheduled for Eid on June 9th. The Taliban’s decision to create a ceasefire was shocking, especially given its recent battlefield successes. Throughout

2017 and 2018, the Taliban saw some of its largest battlefield gains since its rebirth in 2006.

Specifically, the Taliban had been operating a bloody spring campaign in April of 2018, in a reaction against the Trump administration’s new aggressive policies.4 The Eid ceasefire instructed the Taliban to stop all offensives against domestic forces, but it excluded foreign troops. In fact, Taliban leadership specifically instructed its fighters to “continue your offensives on them [foreign troops] whenever and wherever you see them.”5 The U.S. government stated that it would honor the ceasefire, even though the Taliban had not included foreign forces in its statement.6

2 Akhtar Mohammad Makoii, “Taliban leaders declare Eid ceasefire with Afghan forces,” The Guardian, June 9, 2018, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jun/09/taliban-ceasefire-eid-afghanistan. 3 Shereena Qazi, “Afghanistan: Taliban resume fighting as Eid ceasefire ends,” Al Jazeera, June 18, 2018, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/06/afghanistan-taliban-resume-fighting-eid-ceasefire-ends- 180618044536196.html. 4 Ibid. 5 Akhtar Mohammad Makoii, “Taliban leaders declare Eid ceasefire with Afghan forces.” 6 Ibid. 93

The ceasefire was an internationally recognized achievement. It brought hope to

Afghanistan and the world in a way that had not been seen since the beginning of the conflict, decades before. On the first day of the ceasefire, Talibs, civilians, and government officials prayed together in mosques throughout Afghanistan. Social media flooded with photos of

Afghans celebrating Eid with Taliban neighbors and community members.7 However, the ceasefire conspicuously omitted terrorist organizations like Al-Qaeda and ISIS, and the groups took the reduction in insurgent violence as an opportunity to orchestrate their own attacks.

Attacks by the Islamic State in Nangarhar and Jalalabad claimed nearly 50 lives, highlighting the desperate need for a true peace in the country to eradicate extremism and halt the bloodshed.8

On the final day of the ceasefire, the Ghani administration announced a ten-day extension. The Taliban rejected this proposal, announcing instead that they would resume operations against the government on the last day of Eid al-Fitr.9 In their announcement, the

Taliban stated their preconditions for peace talks, laying out on the table that they would only negotiate directly with the U.S. government, not the Ghani administration. Additionally, the group stated that all foreign forces must leave Afghanistan in any peace agreement. These two conditions would be the main issues underlying the period of negotiations from 2018 until 2020.

The Taliban rejected a negotiating role for the Afghan government, while the Ghani administration rejected the idea of any final peace agreement without its input. The Taliban required a reduction of all troops, whereas the Afghan government believed a reduction in U.S. troops would inevitably lead to an escalation in violence.

7 Shereena Qazi, “Afghanistan: Taliban resume fighting as Eid ceasefire ends.” 8 Ibid. 9 Ibid. 94

In the first nine months of 2018, UNAMA reported 8,050 civilian deaths, more than in any time since 2014. Of these, 65 percent were attributed to anti-government elements, including the Taliban and terrorist organizations. The Taliban itself was responsible for 35 percent of all civilian deaths and pro-government forces were responsible for 22 percent.10 This spike in violence occurred against the backdrop of the peace attempts, underscoring the need for peace and simultaneously casting a shadow of doubt over the Taliban’s sincerity and goodwill.

On June 20th, slightly over a week after the Eid ceasefire’s end, the Taliban launched massive attacks against Afghan military outposts.11 At least 30 Afghan soldiers were killed in the attacks, and two outposts were overrun in the northwest of the country. Before the June 20th attacks, the Taliban had also attacked security forces in Kunduz province, killing ten soldiers and police officers.12 This violence occurred during the government’s ten-day ceasefire extension.

Critics of the government stated that Ghani’s willingness to reduce violence without any Taliban guarantees allowed the insurgents to regroup and plan stronger attacks.13

The most dramatic increase of Taliban violence occurred in early August 2018, when the

Taliban launched a massive offensive to take the capital of Ghazni province. In the five-day siege of the city, 150 soldiers and 95 civilians were killed, a shocking display of the Taliban’s fighting power.14 Afghan soldiers backed by U.S. forces were able to push the Taliban out of the

10 United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, “Quarterly Report on the Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict: 1 January to 30 September 2018,” 10 October 2018, https:.//unama.unmissions.org/protection-of-civilians- reports. 11 Mujib Mashal, “Taliban Kill Dozens of Afghan Soldiers, as Cease-Fires Give Way to Violence,” The New York Times, June 20, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/20/world/asia/afghanistan-taliban-attack-ceasefire.html. 12 Ibid. 13 Ibid. 14 Al Jazeera, “Afghanistan’s Ghani declares Eid ceasefire with Taliban,” Al Jazeera, August 19, 2018, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/08/afghanistan-ghani-declares-eid-ceasefire-taliban-180819143135061.html. 95 area, but not without high costs and damage to public and international confidence in the Afghan government’s control of the country.

Despite the increases in violence, the government continued to attempt ceasefires later in

2018, occurring as both the Trump administration and NATO reviewed their Afghanistan policies. For the Eid al-Adha holiday in August 2018, Ghani once again extended a ceasefire to the Taliban.15 The ceasefire was intended to last from August 19, 2018 until November 21 – the

Prophet Muhammad’s birthday. The Taliban did not immediately comment, but then responded by requesting a government release of prisoners to signify goodwill and allow the Taliban to move forward with the ceasefire in confidence.16 Pakistan welcomed the ceasefire, in a show of an increasingly supportive regional environment for peace. Given the backdrop of the Ghazni offense, the ceasefire was even more important both to reduce violence and to prove a continued willingness to negotiate or contemplate peace. However, this renewed ceasefire attempt failed, and the prisoner release did not occur.

The Taliban had been striking two tones throughout mid-2018. On the one hand, the group was engaging in rampant levels of violence. On the other, it was agreeing to ceasefires, promising to halt suicide bombing in civilian areas, and announcing that any who surrendered would not be harmed.17 In the Taliban’s Ghazni offensive, as well as a similar one in Faryab province, the insurgents vowed to release any government officials who surrendered and promised to treat them “as brothers.” In Faryab, 50 officials were freed after their surrender. In

15 Ibid. 16 Rod Nordland and Fahim Abed, “As Taliban Start Charm Offensive, Afghan President Calls for Cease Fire,” The New York Times, August 19, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/19/world/asia/taliban-afghanistan.html. 17 Ibid. 96

Ghazni, the Taliban were pushed out of the city before such negotiations could occur, but the group offered the same conditions.18

By August 2018, the Taliban either controlled or influenced 61 of Afghanistan’s 407 districts.19 In areas that it captured or had a heavy presence, the Taliban began using propaganda tactics on social media, interviewing local civilians in an effort to portray happiness with Taliban rule. In some instances, specifically in Jowzjan province, the Taliban drove out Islamic State militants, and civilians were relieved to no longer live under the grip of ISIS horrors.20 In other cases, civilians seemed noticeably nervous to be interviewed by the Taliban, expressing happiness about the Taliban’s takeover likely out of fear of retribution.21

The Taliban was playing a game of social courting, attempting to increase its popularity throughout the regions it controlled and on the internet. This policy was pursued in conjunction with an escalation of violence, affecting civilian lives more than in any period since the NATO withdrawal. These two strategies seem counterintuitive, but both served an important purpose – to bolster the Taliban ahead of a potential peace agreement. The Taliban knew that the United

States and NATO forces were eager to end the war in Afghanistan. This message was clear both in public discourse about the topic and in U.S. strategy since 2014. The election of Donald

Trump provided a new opportunity for the Taliban to push a narrative of peace with the hopes of achieving a U.S. withdrawal. In 2018, the Taliban began seizing this opportunity. It needed to achieve three goals before a peace agreement:

18 Ibid. 19 Ibid. 20 Ibid. 21 Ibid. 97

1. The Taliban needed to be militarily strong enough that the U.S. government would

feel increased pressure to reach a deal and withdraw troops from the conflict; but

2. The Taliban needed to seem ready for peace in order to be “palatable” enough to be

brought to the negotiating table by the Americans; and

3. The Taliban needed to assuage public fears about their intentions so that international

actors would entertain the possibility of Taliban involvement in a future Afghan

government.

With these three goals in mind, the Taliban’s strategy in 2018 becomes less murky, and it is easier to understand how Ghani’s proposed second round of ceasefire failed. By September

2018, Afghanistan was discussed in major news outlets as “more dangerous than ever.”22 The

Trump administration’s military tactics of “maximum pressure,” reminiscent of the Obama troop surge, included air strikes and night raids, which once again proved ineffective in combatting the

Taliban.23 Top Taliban commanders were killed by the campaign, but the Taliban’s overall operational capacity and territorial expansion remained stable, if not more effective, than in the past.24 The estimated number of Taliban fighters at the beginning of the decade was about

15,000, but by 2018, this number was closer to 60,000.25 Pakistan, though publicly committed to peace, was still not engaging any more than it had in the past. The level of Islamic State involvement in Afghanistan had raised levels of violence and provided a new reason for the U.S. campaign to “root out terrorism” in the country. Meanwhile, the American unwillingness to engage regional actors like Iran, Russia, and China was at an all-time high under the Trump

22 BBC, “Why Afghanistan is more dangerous than ever.” 23 Ibid. 24 Ibid. 25 Ibid. 98 administration.26 By all accounts, the prospect of an Afghan government victory over the

Taliban in 2018 seemed abysmal, and with growing American opposition towards the war effort, the only option was to aggressively pursue a political solution to the conflict.

A final element of the 2018 climate was the political instability of the Government of

National Unity. Afghanistan’s first parliamentary elections since 2010 were scheduled for

October 2018, an opportunity that was bound to be fraught with violence, given the overall security situation. The Ghani-Abdullah alliance in the GNU had proven rocky, with the two camps largely divided on many issues. The fallout of the 2014 election had created an Afghan government ill-equipped to meet the increased challenge of the Taliban in 2018. The October parliamentary elections had been delayed for three years, having been originally slotted for 2015 but delayed by the instability after the NATO withdrawal. The elections were finally held on

October 20, 2018, with extreme levels of disturbance. On election day, only 33 of Afghanistan’s

34 provinces went to the polls. Ghazni province’s elections were cancelled due to the high levels of Taliban activity.27 Additionally, Kandahar’s elections were rescheduled for October 27th because of the high-profile assassinations of the Kandahar chief of police and head of the

National Directorate of Security, Afghanistan’s intelligence service.28 Even in the provinces where elections were held on October 20th, 401 polling stations failed to open, resulting in a second day of elections on October 21st.29

26 Ibid. 27 Ali Yawar Adili, “The Results of Afghanistan’s 2018 Parliamentary Elections: A new, but incomplete Wolsei Jirga,” The Afghan Analysts Network, May 17, 2019, https://www.afghanistan-analysts.org/en/reports/political- landscape/the-results-of-afghanistans-2018-parliamentary-elections-a-new-but-incomplete-wolesi-jirga/. 28 Ibid. 29 Ibid. 99

The results of the October 2018 elections were not announced until May 14, 2019, seven months later.30 President Ghani himself called the election process “a catastrophe,” and in the final announcement votes from Ghazni province were still not included. The Ghazni parliamentary elections were scheduled to coincide with the Afghan presidential election, which experienced its own delays. The presidential election was originally scheduled for April 2019 but pushed back until September of that year. The parliamentary elections themselves were marked by high levels of technical incompetence, bribe-taking, and lack of coordination among relevant institutions.31 This process again served to undermine the legitimacy of the Afghan government and strengthen the Taliban’s negotiating position on the eve of 2019 – a seminal year for the current Afghan peace process.

II. 2019 – The Khalilzad Peace Talks through the “Camp David Accords”

At the end of January 2019, news broke that the United States and the Taliban had been engaging in secret negotiations on the framework necessary to begin two-party peace talks.32

The negotiations, led by Ambassador Khalilzad, took place in Doha for six days, ironing out the key issues needed to create a “framework” to peace. The Taliban appointed Mullah Baradar as their chief peace negotiator, though he was not present in Doha.33 The Doha conversation created an agreement “in principle” to provide a “framework” for an eventual peace agreement. This convoluted structure highlighted the complexity of the timeline and the numerous steps that would be required to achieve even nominal success.34 The initial agreement in January laid out

30 Ibid. 31 Ibid. 32 Mujib Mashal, “US and Taliban Agree in Principle to Peace Framework, Envoy Says,” The New York Times, January 28, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/28/world/asia/taliban-peace-deal-afghanistan.html. 33 Ibid. 34 Ibid. 100 the idea that the Taliban would agree to end Afghanistan’s role as a safe haven for terrorist organizations in exchange for the total withdrawal of American troops. This broad goal would be supported by other guarantees, such as a cease-fire and an agreement that the Taliban would negotiate directly with the Afghan government. The first exchange was achieved in January, when the Taliban agreed to stop supporting international terrorism, contingent upon an eventual deal.35 This announcement was the largest public step towards a peace deal that had ever been achieved in the history of the conflict, but it was met with mixed optimism and caution.

Many understood the deal as an attempt by the Trump administration to withdraw troops at all costs, without ensuring the stability of Afghanistan in the aftermath or guaranteeing the political and civil rights of groups previously targeted by the Taliban.36 Others took it as a sign of American desperation and signaled that it could bolster the Taliban’s bargaining position, especially given the proximity of the next U.S. presidential election. The Afghan government was particularly wary, with growing concern that Khalilzad’s team would negotiate crucial aspects of an interim government without its presence. Ghani and his administration were adamantly against any and all talk of an interim government in early 2019, mostly because of the

Afghan presidential elections scheduled for that year. Here began another struggle, that between

Ghani and the peace agreement. If the U.S.-Taliban talks occurred too quickly, they could derail the presidential election by establishing an interim government transition period. This was highly unacceptable to the Ghani government.

In some circles, the Ghani administration was considered anti-peace. As the presidential elections drew near, it became strategically better for the Ghani camp to hold out on a peace deal

35 Ibid. 36 Ibid. 101 until after Ghani had been re-elected. In late 2018, the originally scheduled April 2019 elections were pushed back to July. This means that during the crucial negotiating periods in early 2019

(the January and February talks), all parties were under the impression that a presidential transition could occur that very summer. This cast a cloud over the negotiations, particularly because of the lack of government representation. On March 20th, the elections were once again pushed back, to September 28, 2019. However, it is important to note that, for the negotiations that occurred before March, all parties believed an election was coming in several months.

In Ghani’s reluctance towards a peace deal, we are reminded of Hamid Karzai – another president who at some level, disagreed with a peace agreement because of its impact on his personal political power. We see yet again how the structural deficiencies in the democracy created at Bonn continued to block the establishment of peace. The Afghan democracy was based on technical aspects and not popular legitimacy. Governments ruled in the self-interest of leaders who refused to accept any lapse in their own power and were propped up by American support.

Speaking of Hamid Karzai, he was an important figure in another peace framework occurring alongside the Khalilzad-led efforts of early 2019. In November of 2018, the first round of Afghan-Taliban talks was held in Moscow by the Russian government.37 These talks, unlike the American rounds in Doha, were Afghan to Afghan. However, they still notably lacked any representatives of the Ghani administration, and rather featured other high-profile

37 James Schwemlein, “The Afghan Peace Process has Started. But Tough Choices Are Still to Come,” The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, January 31, 2019, https://carnegieendowment.org/2019/01/31/afghan- peace-process-has-started.-but-tough-choices-are-still-to-come-pub-78266. 102

Afghans, such as former president Karzai.38 The Moscow follow-up round was held in February

2019, and the talks resulted in a nine-point vision for peace, the highlight of which was a commitment to the fundamental rights of Afghan citizens, including women.39 Although the sincerity of the Taliban on this point was still hotly contested, the goodwill shown at the meeting created hope going into the second round of American-led talks in February. Importantly, the

Moscow talks were not coordinated with American efforts. The Russian inclusion of actors such as Karzai in the peace process was perceived as a rebuke to the current Afghan government, and suspicions abounded about the circumstances and intentions of these talks.

At this early stage, there were still many fears – the largest of which was the risk of a hasty American exit from the war that could further destabilize the country. Many believed that such an exit could provide the Taliban with an opportunity to sideline the Afghan government or that it could lead to a power struggle similar to the 1992 civil war.40 These fears were fueled by

Taliban statements in early 2019. The Taliban leaked false negotiating promises, such as the withdrawal of all American troops by April or that the ANSF would be dismantled after a peace deal.41 These statements undermined the progress of the talks. Large issues began to appear in early 2019. Most notably, questions arose over the Taliban’s true intentions, the ability of the international community to monitor and enforce a peace deal, and the future of international troops in the country.42

38 Andrew Higgins and Mujib Mashal, “Taliban Peace Talks in Moscow End With Hope the U.S. Exits, if Not Too Quickly,” The New York Times, February 6, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/06/world/asia/taliban- afghanistan-peace-talks-moscow.html. 39 Ibid. 40 Ibid. 41 Ibid. 42 James Schwemlein, “The Afghan Peace Process has Started.” 103

The position of the U.S. government was Khalilzad’s hallmark phrase, “nothing is agreed until everything is agreed,” referring to the interlocking nature of the four components of a framework agreement: ceasefire, intra-Afghan talks, troop withdrawal, and assurances that the

Taliban would break with international terrorism.43 By April, the topic of the intra-Afghan dialogue was receiving the most attention, with attempts by negotiators to achieve a date and format for these discussions.44 The Ghani administration also began planning a loya jirga for peace, in which prominent Afghan leaders could express redlines for the negotiation process ahead of Afghan-Afghan talks.45 The April attempt to host the intra-Afghan dialogue fell apart, as the Taliban disagreed with the proposed 200-strong list of representatives.46 The selection process for these 200 individuals was arduous, and the Afghan government refused to revise it after the Taliban rejected the list.47 The Ghani administration’s refusal to revise the list was seen by some as proof of his government’s unwillingness to achieve peace, seeing a better opportunity of re-election if the talks failed.48

The talks restarted for the summer, after the announcement of the presidential election delay, including rounds of negotiation in Doha in both June and July. Each round was notably similar to the others, with few breakthroughs. Press releases announced that both sides were

“close to achieving a final agreement,” without any public concessions on the troop withdrawal timeline or talks with the Afghan government. In late June 2019, U.S. Secretary of State

43 Johnny Walsh, “The State of Play in U.S.-Taliban Talks and the Afghan Peace Process,” The United States Institute of Peace, April 11, 2019, https://www.usip.org/publications/2019/04/state-play-us-taliban-talks-and- afghan-peace-process. 44 Ibid. 45 Ibid. 46 Mujijb Mashal, “Peace Conference Derailed as Taliban Object to Afghan Delegation,” The New York Times, April 18, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/18/world/asia/peace-conference-in-jeopardy-as-taliban-object-to- afghan-delegation.html. 47 Ibid. 48 Ibid. 104

Michael Pompeo made a surprise visit to Kabul, announcing the U.S. intention to reach a peace deal by September 1, 2019.49 This move was later criticized as giving the Taliban too much leverage.

After the visit and other diplomatic maneuvering, both parties finally agreed to hold the

Intra-Afghan Dialogue in Doha in early July 2019. At the conclusion of the dialogue, the parties released a statement dubbed the “Roadmap to Peace,” outlining points of agreement between them. This roadmap included a conditions-based prisoner release, an assurance for women’s rights, the “institutionalizing” of an Islamic system for the country, and monitoring and observation of the agreement, among other topics.50 This agreement was truly groundbreaking – marking the first time in the history of the conflict that the Taliban had reached an agreement with other Afghans about the conditions of a peace process. Hope abounded in the weeks after the Doha talks, with international and domestic actors alike preparing for the eventuality of a peace agreement in Afghanistan and a full withdrawal of U.S. troops. This is not to say that speculation about the deal’s potential completely faded. In particular, many advocates for women’s and minority’s rights in the country remained unconvinced that the Taliban had truly changed their tone on these issues.

However, this rapid movement towards peace was scuttled in the span of three days in

September of 2019, when President Trump attempted to invite Taliban leaders and the Ghani government to Camp David to sign a historic peace accord.51 The Trump administration had

49 Rupam Jain, “U.S. Secretary of State visits Kabul, hopes for a peace deal before September 1,” Reuters, June 25, 2019, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-afghanistan-usa-pompeo/us-secretary-of-state-pompeo-visits-kabul-hopes- for-a-peace-deal-before-september-1-idUSKCN1TQ20X. 50 FP Editors, “The Taliban Have a Road Map for Peace,” Foreign Policy Magazine, July 10, 2019, https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/07/10/the-taliban-have-a-road-map-for-peace/. 51 Ron Elving, “At Camp David, Trump Sought The Mantle of History. But Afghanistan is Different,” NPR, September 10, 2019, https://www.npr.org/2019/09/10/759268550/at-camp-david-trump-sought-the-mantle-of- history-but-afghanistan-is-different. 105 planned the talks in secret, and they were scheduled to occur three days before the anniversary of the September 11th terrorist attacks. The secret talks were only revealed when Trump cancelled them, via Twitter. American politicians reacted strongly against the idea of Taliban representatives appearing at Camp David, especially in close proximity to 9/11.52 Even in the aftermath of Trump’s tweet, it was unclear how close the peace deal was to being achieved.

However, what was clear was that after the bungled Camp David event, talks with the Taliban were “dead,” as President Trump himself said, and the gains of 2019 faded quickly.53

III. Peace Back on the Table and the Presidential Election

This cessation of U.S.-Taliban peacemaking occurred just a few weeks before the Afghan presidential election. Ghani was facing fierce opposition from Abdullah and other challengers, like former Minister of the Interior Mohammed Hanif Atmar. Atmar suspended his campaign in

August of 2019, leaving the rivalry between the president and the CEO of the country to be replayed from the 2014 election. Fears spiked ahead of the election, with many scenarios that could destabilize the country being played out in U.S. situation rooms. Violence was high, with

Taliban bombings of Abdullah’s election office, a Ghani campaign rally, and near the U.S. embassy. The risk of fraud remained, and there were fears that if Ghani won by too high of a margin, his election would be disputed as inherently fraudulent. On the other hand, before

Atmar dropped out, there were fears of divided voting that could lead to a second round, like in the 2014 election. This was highly unpopular, as it was perceived as a recipe for instability.

However, the least desirable option was a contest between only Abdullah and Ghani in which

52 Ibid. 53 Ibid. 106 neither candidate won by a significant margin, giving both a claim to power. Unfortunately, the last scenario is the one that occurred, leaving the country in a dire situation.

Immediately after President Trump called for the “death” of U.S.-Taliban peace talks, experts began calling for their resumption.54 However, they also noted the difficulties that the election would pose for a restoration of talks.55 Many concluded that waiting until after the election would create better conditions for peace. Key scholars cited the Taliban’s war fatigue as a crucial component in the negotiation process and argued that the time was still ripe for a peace deal, despite the Camp David failure.56

The ability of the Afghan government to pursue peace was severely impaired by the presidential election on September 28th, whose results were not announced until early 2020.

Turnout for the election was historically low, which for a country with already severely repressed voting patterns spelled a disaster for confidence in the country’s institutions.57

Abdullah voiced concerns early after the election about the reliability of the Independent

Election Commission’s priorities in counting the votes. The CEO withdrew his observers from the ballot counting process, arguing that any votes not corroborated with biometric data were fraudulent.58

In this environment, the Afghan government continued attempts at peace, without

American involvement. The Afghan government and the Taliban agreed to a coordinated

54 USIP Staff, “How to Revive an Afghan Peace Process,” The United States Institute of Peace, September 18, 2019, https://www.usip.org/publications/2019/09/how-revive-afghan-peace-process. 55 Ibid. 56 Ibid. 57 Scott Worden, “Will a Prisoner Swap with the Taliban Push the Afghan Peace Process Forward?” The United States Institute of Peace, November 21, 2019, https://www.usip.org/publications/2019/11/will-prisoner-swap- taliban-push-afghan-peace-process-forward. 58 Ibid. 107 prisoner release in November of 2019, with each side exchanging prisoners in a sign of their goodwill and intention to continue talks.59 However, these talks were to be contingent on a ceasefire, a step that the Taliban refused to accept without a withdrawal of U.S. troops. The interconnectedness of the issues made it impossible for any two parties to the conflict to achieve a deal without the involvement of all three, a reality that became increasingly clear in late 2019.

The impatience of the Trump administration meant that these all-party talks would not occur.

Rather, a separate deal between the United States and the Taliban became more and more likely, especially with the uncertainty surrounding the composition of the Afghan government itself.

In December 2019 the situation continued to deteriorate, with opposition groups aligned to Abdullah besieging election offices around the country, as the results remained unannounced.60 These forces began stating their intention to fight rather than let the United

States broker election results once again. The heart of the dispute now hinged on only 300,000 votes, which election officials stated could favor Ghani over Abdullah. However, at least

100,000 of those votes occurred outside of election hours, raising the alert on fraud. The tight margin of the race made it impossible for one side to declare victory. Unlike the compromise that saved the 2014 election, the same kind of power-sharing now seemed impossible because

Ghani had diminished Abdullah’s power within the GNU for the past five years, publicly humiliating him.61

IV. The Current U.S. – Taliban Deal

59 Ibid. 60 Mujib Mashal, “A Bitter Election Dispute Sends Afghanistan Back to the Brink,” The New York Times, December 12, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/12/world/asia/abdullah-afghanistan-election.html. 61 Ibid. 108

The status of the current peace deal in Afghanistan is an ever-evolving situation. At the time of this writing, the Trump administration has signed two deals with the Taliban.62 The first agreement, signed on February 29, 2020 in Doha, is known as the “Agreement for Bringing

Peace to Afghanistan.” The Doha agreement was signed by Ambassador Khalilzad and Mullah

Baradar, representing the United States and the Taliban, respectively. Secretary of State Pompeo was present at the signing, but no member of the Afghan government was in attendance.63 The deal guaranteed a complete withdrawal of all U.S. and coalition troops in exchange for a Taliban commitment that no terrorists would be permitted to operate on Afghan soil. The other two guarantees (the intra-Afghan talks and a ceasefire) were supporting conditions and were detailed in a separate agreement.64 The exchange of American troop withdrawal for counterterrorism guarantees highlights the national security lens through which the United States has always viewed peace in Afghanistan.

The U.S. withdrawal is conditioned by a timeline. The United States will have drawn its forces in Afghanistan down to 8,600 troops by mid-July 2020 and will fully withdraw from five military bases in the country during the same time frame.65 By the end of April 2021, the United

States is slated to have fully removed all of its troops from Afghanistan, though only if terrorist organizations are prevented from using Afghan soil as a base.66

The Doha Agreement was reached in tandem with the “Joint Declaration between the

Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and the United States for Bringing Peace to Afghanistan,”

62James Dobbins, “The First Step on a Long Path to Peace in Afghanistan,” The RAND Corporation, February 27, 2020, https://www.rand.org/blog/2020/02/the-first-step-on-a-long-path-to-peace-in-afghanistan.html. 63 Thomas Ruttig, “From Doha to Peace? Obstacles rising in the way of intra-Afghan talks,” The Afghan Analysts Network, March 3, 2020, https://www.afghanistan-analysts.org/en/reports/war-and-peace/from-doha-to-peace- obstacles-rising-in-the-way-of-intra-afghan-talks/. 64 Ibid. 65 Ibid. 66 Ibid. 109 which calls for the start of the intra-Afghan phase of negotiations aimed at creating a new

Afghan government system that includes the Taliban.67 The talks have two stated aims: (1) to create a permanent and sustainable ceasefire; and (2) to create an agreement over the future political roadmap of Afghanistan.68 This process was originally slated to begin on March 10th, but it has already experienced delays.

The text of the Doha Agreement imposes few obligations on the Taliban, beyond a murky promise to stop terrorist organizations from operating within the country, and an agreement not to ask for the release of any prisoners who would threaten the security of the United States and its “allies” – a term that does not include the Afghan government or civilians living in government-controlled areas.69 Restrictions on foreign fighters are notably absent, along with any mechanisms for the monitoring or enforcement of these obligations.70 In contrast, the U.S. government has many obligations in the agreement, including some that should have earned the consent of the Afghan government before the signing. One example is the U.S. promise to release 5,000 Taliban prisoners from Afghan prisons in exchange for 1,000 prisoners held by the

Taliban by March 10.71 This guarantee was initially rebuked by the Ghani administration, as it was agreed upon without the government’s presence.72 Eventually, the Afghan government agreed to the exchange, with an initial release of 1,500 Taliban scheduled to start on March 14 at a rate of 100 per day. The remaining 3,500 will be released at a rate of 500 every two weeks after the beginning of negotiations between the government and the Taliban, conditioned on a

67 Ibid. 68 Ibid. 69 Ibid. 70 Ibid. 71 Mujib Mashal, “Afghan President Orders Taliban Prisoner Release,” The New York Times, March 10, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/10/world/asia/taliban-prisoner-release.html. 72 Ibid. 110 reduction of violence. The Taliban has already called the release unsatisfactory, stating that all

5,000 should be released at once before the beginning of talks.73

The United States has also agreed to work to remove sanctions against members of the

Taliban when the intra-Afghan negotiations begin, with the goal of lifting American sanctions by

August 2020 and UN sanctions by May 2020.74 The United Nations Security Council unanimously endorsed the Doha Agreement, in a rare moment of consensus, welcoming the steps towards ending the war.75

Other notable portions of the agreement include the lack of a timeline on the intra-Afghan negotiation piece, the call for regional consensus on achieving peace in Afghanistan, a U.S. promise to “refrain from intervening” in Afghan domestic affairs, U.S. assurances on economic cooperation, and a U.S. promise to “seek positive relations” with the Taliban.76 The United

States “offers” to continue counterterrorist operations in the country at the “invitation” of the post-peace government.”77

This agreement has been hailed as a landmark achievement in the ongoing Afghan peace process, but it must be analyzed in the historical context of the conflict. The deals signed between the United States and the Taliban will allow the United States to extricate its troops, but the real work of forging peace still looms in the distance. The intra-Afghan talks are certainly the most important condition in ensuring a true reduction of violence in Afghanistan, and the

U.S.-Taliban deal does not ensure that these talks will happen before allowing a full withdrawal of U.S. forces. When viewed in the context of the conflict’s history, this decision mirrors

73 Ibid. 74 Thomas Ruttig, “From Doha to Peace? Obstacles rising in the way of intra-Afghan talks.” 75 Mujib Mashal, “Afghan President Orders Taliban Prisoner Release.” 76 Ibid. 77 Thomas Ruttig, “From Doha to Peace? Obstacles rising in the way of intra-Afghan talks.” 111 previous decisions in 2005 and in 2014 to withdraw international troops in the name of U.S. security policy. Both of those events had disastrous outcomes that were not included in the short-term calculus of U.S. policy.

For all intents and purposes, the February 2020 deal between the United States and the

Taliban was engineered to remove U.S. troops from Afghanistan, regardless of the costs.

Although this strategy may be the politically popular one, it is likely that it will not resolve the conflict. This deal is almost entirely based on American security interests and not the security of the Afghan people. The United States secured only the withdrawal of U.S. troops in exchange for counterterrorism measures, instead of securing the most important facets of a peace agreement: intra-Afghan dialogue and a ceasefire. The American presence in Afghanistan has been dangerous, ill-conceived, and violent since its first day, but the wrong kind of withdrawal will be equally disruptive. Now, it is the responsibility of the United States to ensure peace for

Afghans, instead of single-mindedly pursing American security – a responsibility that is being ignored by the Trump administration.

First, it is important to note that the total withdrawal of U.S. forces in this agreement is not contingent upon the success of the intra-Afghan negotiations. The Khalilzad talking point of

“nothing is agreed until everything is agreed” has been effectively abandoned with the Doha

Agreement. Now, the United States can withdraw all troops, based only on the Taliban’s treatment of terrorist organizations, and with no regard to the success of a ceasefire, the

Taliban’s treatment of Afghan civilians, or any other assurances.78 This is particularly worrying in the context of continued Taliban violence.

78 Ibid. 112

The day after the signing, Taliban violence continued, with 50 civilians kidnapped in

Maidan Wardak province, and a motorcycle bomb detonated at a soccer match in Khost. The

Afghan Ministry of the Interior reported on March 3rd, that the Taliban had attacked 33 times, with six dead and 24 wounded in the span of 24 hours.79 The Islamic State has also continued to attack, killing 32 worshipers at a gathering on March 6th.80 The Taliban does not seem to be participating in a reduction of violence in anticipation of the intra-Afghan negotiations. In fact, the Taliban is likely going to continue to ramp up violence, to strengthen its bargaining position ahead of the talks and to prove that the group has the capacity to fight if its demands are not met.81 The difference now is that the brunt of this violence will be felt by Afghans, not by international or U.S. forces.

Additionally, the deal has other problematic elements, such as whether it includes paramilitary forces in Afghanistan that have been funded or trained by the CIA, of which there are several.82 The deal also has no guarantees for women or other minorities, like the Hazaras, regarding either their presence at the intra-Afghan negotiations or, of course, in any final government deal.83 Though the Taliban have vocalized support for protecting these groups in a peace agreement, many have warranted fears that these statements have only been for appearances. The presence of women and minorities in the negotiating team would give some assurances, but it would likely be symbolic and not representative of deeper commitments.

79 Ibid. 80 David Welna, “Despite Bloody Week in Afghanistan, U.S. Pushes Taliban Peace Talks Forward,” NPR, March 6, 2020, https://www.npr.org/2020/03/06/812924960/despite-bloody-week-in-afghanistan-u-s-pushes-taliban-peace- talks-forward. 81 Ibid. 82 For more on CIA paramilitary groups in Afghanistan, see: Stephanie Glinski, “How the CIA Aims to Keep a Footprint in Afghanistan,” Foreign Policy, August 8, 2019, https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/08/08/how-the-cia-aims- to-keep-a-footprint-in-afghanistan-taliban-talks/. 83 Thomas Ruttig, “From Doha to Peace? Obstacles rising in the way of intra-Afghan talks.” 113

However, these concerns do not even begin to consider the looming Afghan leadership crisis. After five months of delay, the results of the Afghan presidential election were announced on February 18, 2020, declaring Ashraf Ghani the winner with 50.64 percent of the vote.84 This outcome was the worst of all scenarios, confirming the incumbent president with hardly enough votes to dispute the allegations of fraud and corruption against him. Hours after the announcement, Abdullah Abdullah also declared himself the winner and stated that he would form his own parallel government. The tensions bled into the streets, and the need to select a true leader became even more tense as the idea of intra-Afghan negotiations loomed.85

The United States, fearing a dissolution of its peace deal with the Taliban, once again attempted to broker a deal between Ghani and Abdullah. American diplomats led marathon talks in Kabul, attempting to create another Government of National Unity.86 At the center of these attempts was Ambassador Khalilzad, who shuttled back and forth between Ghani and Abdullah’s offices, desperately trying to achieve a concession from either side. However, these attempts failed. On March 9th, both Ghani and Abdullah took the oath of office, swearing themselves in as the president of Afghanistan.87 The two ceremonies took place only moments apart, separated by a thin wall. Notably, top U.S. officials, including Khalilzad, attended Ghani’s ceremony. No senior U.S. diplomats attended the inauguration of Abdullah.88

84 Mujib Mashal, Najim Rahim, and Fatima Faizi, “Ghani Named Afghan Election Winner. His Opponent Claims Victory Too,” The New York Times, February 18, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/18/world/asia/afghanistan-election-ashraf-ghani.html. 85 Ibid. 86 Mujib Mashal, Fatima Faizi, and Najim Rahim, “Ghani Takes the Oath of Afghan President. His Rival Does, Too,” The New York Times, March 9, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/09/world/asia/afghanistan-president- inauguration-ghani-abdullah-.html. 87 Ibid. 88 Ibid. 114

The conflict between Ghani and Abdullah is still unresolved, with both men claiming the title of president of Afghanistan. This political crisis will have untold, but certainly negative, impacts on the Afghan peace process. Without a confirmed head of state, decision-making in

Afghanistan will be divided, and policies will be unimplementable. Negotiations between the

Taliban and the Afghan government will be near impossible without a clear delineation of who represents the Afghan government. A peace deal between the Afghan government and the

Taliban cannot be signed if there is no singular Afghan government. Now, Afghanistan is facing a new factionalism, unseen since 1992. If there is no political solution between Ghani and

Abdullah, violence is not out of the question. This could devolve into another civil war, and a peace deal with the Taliban will be the last priority.

As of this writing, the prisoner swap with the Taliban is still being actively negotiated.

With the new threat of coronavirus, Afghanistan is facing increased pressure to unify and ensure the survival of the state and its people. Amid these extraordinary challenges, the United States has issued a $1 billion cut in aid to Afghanistan, initially designed to pressure Ghani and

Abdullah to reconcile.89 This cut could not have come at a worse time for Afghanistan. With the impending U.S. military withdrawal, the ANSF needs assistance now more than ever to prevent a total Taliban takeover of the Afghan government. This is not to mention the extraordinary investment necessary to contain the rising number of COVID cases in the country, where over a million Afghans are projected to perish.90 Although the global financial climate has not been more fragile in recent memory, the U.S. decision to withhold $1 billion in aid for political

89 Kimberly Dozier, “As Coronavirus Spreads, Washington’s $1 Billion Aid Cut Couldn’t Have Come At a Worse Time for Afghanistan,” Time Magazine, April 4, 2020, https://time.com/5815473/coronavirus-afghanistan-aid/. 90 Ibid.

115 reasons is both callous and irrational. Never has it been clearer that America does not want an

Afghan peace, but rather an escape route from the mess of its own making.

116

Conclusion

U.S. policy in Afghanistan, from the initial campaign through the current attempts at peacemaking, has continually missed the mark in achieving peace and stability. Decision- making in Afghanistan has always been tied to American security, which has left the United

States, the rest of the international community, and the various Afghan governments unable to truly stabilize the country. Creating a post-conflict democratic government that incorporates all factions, holds elected officials accountable, prevents corruption, and provides security to its constituents is impossible when implementation timelines are tied to short-term security goals and not long-term indicators of state capacity building. Throughout this thesis, I have highlighted specific U.S. policies that were ineffective in ending the Afghan conflict. In some cases, these policies directly contributed to instability in Afghanistan and served to exacerbate the insurgency. The lessons learned from the impact of U.S. policy in Afghanistan have far- reaching implications, both for the current U.S.-Taliban peace deal and for other cases of U.S. international intervention.

Through a chronological analysis of the Afghan conflict, several key themes repeated themselves in American policymaking. First, U.S. policy in Afghanistan was short-sighted.

Each administration took advantage of slight improvements in the Afghan security situation to withdraw troops or reduce U.S. aid to the country, resulting in a strengthened Taliban. This short-term strategy supported a security lens of the conflict, in which battlefield metrics were more important to policymakers than measurements of state capacity. This lens also coincided with the domestic pressures in the United States surrounding the war. As each American administration faced opposition to the war in Afghanistan, it became politically expedient to opt for short-term solutions, especially when facing presidential elections.

117

Second, U.S. policy in Afghanistan failed to effectively incorporate the interests of regional actors, like Pakistan, and this lack of coordination emboldened the Taliban insurgency.

The level to which U.S. policy would have been able to influence Pakistani actions is debatable, but regional solutions to the Afghan conflict were not largely pursued by U.S. policymakers until after the NATO withdrawal. The mere fact that the first regional peace summit was held in 2016 speaks volumes to the lack of regional thinking in U.S. policy throughout the earlier stages of the conflict. If the United States had approached the conflict with a more collaborative framework, perhaps Pakistan would have been less likely to engage in unconstructive ways.

Third, U.S. policy rested upon incorrect assumptions about Afghan ethnic fault lines, tribal politics, national identity, and history. I do not want to presume that the American interagency did not have knowledgeable resources on this topic. In fact, I have met a few of

Washington’s Afghan experts, and these professionals are acutely aware of the dynamics that I have outlined in this thesis. However, certain U.S. policies after the 2001 invasion – namely, the implementation of a central government structure, the hyper focus on technical election indicators, and the ignorance of anti-colonial sentiment as a driver of the Afghan insurgency – seem predicated upon false understandings. While significant forces in Afghan politics, tribalism and ethnic identity do not have to spell doom for effective Afghan governance.

Instead, these tensions flare when Afghanistan’s regions are not given the political tools to express their individual needs, or when the central government is run by corruption and patronage that privileges some ethnic and tribal groups over others. An Afghan democracy must recognize the multifaceted sources of political legitimacy in the country, and it must allow for sources of regional, tribal, and ethnic power to influence government policy. The current structure is woefully lacking in these components, and thus, the Afghan democratic project is in

118 turmoil. A fundamental misreading of the Afghan national identity caused U.S. policy to overemphasize tribalism as a destructive force, creating an almost self-fulfilling prophecy.

Afghan state institutions were not built with the capability of local governance or true democratic accountability, leading to a crisis in political legitimacy.

In the final leg of this thesis, I specifically delved into U.S. policy surrounding the recent peace processes between the United States and the Taliban. These processes have largely served

American interests, falling within the framework of U.S. policy delivering short-term, strategic gains for American policymakers. Though the current deal between the United States and the

Taliban is an unprecedented achievement, it provides enormous concessions to the Taliban, with very little assurances that the group will work with the Afghan government to achieve peace.

This outcome comes as no surprise when viewed within the larger context of U.S. policy towards the conflict. U.S. policy in Afghanistan has always been designed to achieve U.S. security interests, which does not necessarily mean Afghan peace. These security strategies have lacked a long-term vision, frequently dooming them to failure.

In this view, the current U.S.-Taliban deal has little prospect for true success. The deal will likely only serve to extract American forces, while leaving Afghans to suffer without a ceasefire. The United States will more than likely continue to be involved in the Afghan conflict, despite its efforts to extricate itself from a situation largely of its own making. Without a long-term vision and commitment, the problems in Afghanistan will continue to resurface, bringing the United States back into the fold.

It is much easier to explain the Afghan conflict from an Orientalist perspective, bemoaning an “endemic” culture of corruption, division, and brutality in the country. American policymakers, journalists, and even academics lean on these points to avoid their own culpability

119 in Afghan suffering. However, these points do not hold up to academic scrutiny. In this thesis, I have deconstructed the ongoing conflict, from its historical roots to its current iteration.

Throughout my chronological analysis, I have highlighted how time and again, U.S. policy had outsized impacts on the state of the conflict. Rather than avoiding this reality, it would serve

U.S. policymakers well to fully reckon with the strategic mistakes that have been plaguing

Afghanistan. A full deconstruction of previous policy decisions, beginning with the Bonn

Conference, will allow for a more nuanced view of the current situation in the country. To create a workable Afghan political system, the policy decisions of the past need to be unraveled and replaced – ideally by Afghan decisionmakers.

The lessons of the Afghan conflict are enormously important, as they can be extrapolated to other cases of American intervention in the 21st century. In particular, the case of the Iraq War shares many themes with the Afghan conflict. The invasion of Iraq to topple Saddam Hussein placed the United States in the same state-building position as did the overthrow of the Taliban government. In both cases, the United States entered states with fragile institutions and weak capacities, toppled the governments, and attempted to install democratic regimes. The Iraq case also involved a protracted and devastating war, ethnic and tribal cleavages, and undertones of imperialism. Iraq, like Afghanistan, ended as a failed state, plagued by a corrupt government, violent insurgency, and terrorism. Importantly, these two cases occurred at the same time, straining the provision of key resources, aid, and military capacity in both conflicts. An important extension of this thesis would be an application of key U.S. policy failures in

Afghanistan to the conflict in Iraq. If the same failures are held true in both cases, a larger and more encompassing statement can be made about the nature of American intervention in the 21st century.

120

Despite the many obstacles facing the current peace deal in Afghanistan, the world has been thrown into flux, turning all previous assumptions about peace and conflict on their head.

Although all previous conditions and analysis provide a dire forecast for the future of Afghan peace, the current coronavirus crisis may change the negotiating calculus between Abdullah and

Ghani, or even more importantly, between the Afghan government and the Taliban. It is with this observation that I will end on a final note of optimism, the global challenges facing the world today can only be fought with unprecedented cooperation. Cataclysmic, paradigm-shifting events like these can create unity and peace as no other events can, and if there were ever a time that stakeholders in Afghanistan would come together for the common interest of the people – it would be now.

121

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