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Clash of Interests Among Afghan and Foreign Players and Limits to Cooperation to Bring Peace and Stability in Afghanistan

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Clash of Interests Among Afghan and Foreign Players and Limits to Cooperation to Bring Peace and Stability in Afghanistan Clash of Interests among Afghan and Foreign Players and Limits to Cooperation to bring Peace and Stability in Afghanistan Master’s Thesis Presented to The Faculty of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Brandeis University Graduate Program in Global Studies Professor Robert Art, Advisor In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts in Global Studies by Talal Ahmed February 2016 Copyright by Talal Ahmed © 2016 ABSTRACT Clash of Interests among Afghan and Foreign Players and Limits to Cooperation to bring Peace and Stability in Afghanistan A thesis presented to the Graduate Program in Global Studies Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Brandeis University Waltham, Massachusetts By Talal Ahmed The purpose of this research is to find out how different domestic, regional, and international stakeholders view the current situation in Afghanistan. This paper is a humble endeavor to lay down the interests of all the major parties currently involved in Afghanistan. Also, how the respective players’ interests clash with one another is thoroughly presented in the paper. Some of the specific questions which I have dealt in this paper are: What are the different interests of the major parties involved in the ongoing conflict in Afghanistan, and what role these players have been playing in the country since the US’ invasion of 2001? The points of convergence and divergence of interests among the respective parties are also examined. This question is very important to devise future strategies to bring peace and stability in the country. An overview of all the major previous efforts for reconciliation and an analysis for future prospects for peace is also presented in this paper. iii Table of Contents Title Page………….......................................................................................................i Abstract……………………………………………………………………………….iii 1) Chapter One………………………………………………………………. 1 1.1 Introduction…………………………………………………………… 1 1.2 Methodology………………………………………………………….. 2 1.3 Major Stakeholders in Afghanistan…………………………………… 3 2) Chapter Two: Afghan Stakeholders…………………………………………. 5 2.1 Afghan Government……………………………………………………... 6 2.2 Northern Groups………………………………………………………… 8 2.3 Afghan Taliban…………………………………………………………... 10 2.4 Afghan Public……………………………………………………………. 13 3) Chapter Three: Regional and International Stakeholders……………………. 15 3.1 United States……………………………………………………………... 16 3.2 United Kingdom and other NATO allies………………………………… 18 3.3 India and Pakistan………………………………………………………… 19 3.4 Russia……………………………………………………………………... 31 3.5 China…………………….…………………………………………………34 3.7 Iran…………………………………………………………………………36 3.8 Central Asian states………………………………………………………...39 4) Chapter Four: Road to Peace………………………………………………….. 41 4.1 Past Attempts for Reconciliation…………………………………………. 41 4.2 Recent Initiatives and Future Prospects for Peace………………………… 44 5) Chapter Five…………………………………………………………………….49 5.1 Conclusion………………………………………………………………49 6) Bibliography…………………………………………………………………….53 iv Chapter I Introduction Afghanistan has held immense importance for the world during the last 15 years. In the 19th century, the region which is modern day Afghanistan served as a buffer zone between the British Empire and the Imperialist Russia. The last quarter of 20th century saw the country embroiled into a theatre of Cold War rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union. After the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan in 1988, the country plunged into a decade long civil war. While the West including the US, remained largely aloof to the country during the 1990’s, regional actors supported their favored factions. Russia, Iran, India, Pakistan, and Central Asian states chose their favored proxies in the conflict. The 9/11 attacks, planned from the mountains of Afghanistan by al Qaeda brought the US back to the region. The transnational terrorist networks which had been able to find safe heavens in Afghanistan during 1990’s with the help of an extremist Taliban regime, found themselves at war with the coalition of ANA (Afghan National Army), NATO, ISAF and US’ troops in the wake of 9/11 attacks. Terrorism and extremism in Afghanistan pose a serious security threat for the region. Besides that different regional and international players have developed economic and political stakes in the country due to its proximity to the landlocked and untapped resource rich Central Asian countries. China, Russia, Iran, India, Pakistan, and the US have all tried to pursue their own economic and political interests in Afghanistan which often clashed with one another. However, the eradication of terrorism has been at the forefront of all the international actors’ interest since only a stable Afghanistan could pave a way for sustainable economic activity. Surprisingly 1 though, US remained unsuccessful to seek a vibrant international cooperation to combat extremism and terrorism in Afghanistan. In this paper, I will lay down the interests of respective local, regional and global actors which are playing an important role in Afghanistan and explain some of the points of convergence and divergence of interests with one another? Different dynamics of international cooperation vis-à-vis Afghanistan between and among international players to combat extremism and terrorism in Afghanistan will also be presented. For the last two decades, various terrorist groups comprised of Uygur, Chechen, and Kashmiri militants operating from Afghanistan have posed a serious security threat to China, Russia, and India respectively. These countries are also in a fierce competition for economic and political gains in Afghanistan with their US and Western counterparts as Afghanistan serves as a strategic corridor to Central Asia. This competitive environment has led to the clash of interests among the major stakeholders at the cost of coherent strategy to fight an ever increasing trend of terrorism originating from Afghanistan. Methodology This paper is an effort to point out the interests and objectives of major local and foreign actors involved in Afghanistan. Drawing on the literature in political science, this paper first describes the major stakeholders in Afghanistan, and then explains each party’s interests and objectives. Also, their past role in the country has also been discussed. Academic work of various experts on the region, particularly Ahmed Rashid and Christine Fair has been used to present a picture of the ongoing conflict in Afghanistan. Both of these experts’ scholarship have been particularly helpful in explaining the role of neighboring countries particularly Pakistan in Afghanistan. Ahmed Rashid’s work ‘Descent into Chaos’ and ‘Pakistan on the Brink: The Future of Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the West’ has been used and quoted many times in this paper. 2 Christine Fair’s latest work ‘Fighting to the End; Pakistan’s Army Way of War 2015’ has also been very helpful in this paper to understand the dynamic of present conflict in the region. Similarly, Riaz M. Khan’s work “Afghanistan and Pakistan: Conflict, Extremism, and Resistance to Modernity” has helped in compiling a historically informed work regarding the ongoing conflict in Afghanistan. A 2014 publication by Chatham House “Who Wants What: Mapping the Parties’ Interests in Afghanistan” by Matt Waldman and Mathew Wright is used to outline some of the major stakes parties share and fight for, in Afghanistan. Similarly various other articles published by Carnegie Endowment for International Peace have been used to point out the conflict of interests among the parties. Drawing upon the scholarly work of many authors, points of convergence and divergence of interests among the parties have been presented, which would be very useful to devise future strategies for a peaceful settlement to the conflict in Afghanistan. All the major previous attempts for attaining peace and bringing the most active Afghan insurgent group i.e., Taliban, have also been discussed along with the reasons and causes of their failure. Major Stakeholders in Afghanistan In this paper, only the most important local Afghan, regional, and global stakeholders in Afghanistan will be discussed. Local Afghan actors, namely the Afghan government, Afghan Taliban, and the Northern Alliance will be covered in the Chapter 2. Whereas the Chapter 3 will cover the specific interests of global and regional powers like the US, the UK and other NATO allies, in addition to Russia, China, and Central Asian states. The interests of regional powers like India, Iran, and Pakistan will also be discussed in Chapter 3. All the major actors currently involved in Afghanistan, whether local or foreign have a wide variety of interests, ranging from geo-strategic, economic, political to sociocultural, and, reputational. A thorough insight into 3 these interests and objectives and their significance to the respective parties is very important in order to come up with the possible solution to the ongoing conflict. In Chapter 4, the previous attempts for reconciliation and future prospects for peace are discussed. As with any other conflicts in the world, there are various points of convergence and divergence of interests among the stakeholders. These points of convergence and divergence will be explored in the Chapter 5, since they are very important for the purpose of conflict resolution in this particular region. It is also very important to note that there are enough points where most of the parties’ interests converge, which suggests that there is sufficient
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