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Michael Rubin@mrubin1971September 5, 2019 | Washington ExaminerThe Afghanistan agreement is even worse than first reportedForeign and Defense Policy, India/Afghanistan/PakistanZalmay Khalilzad, President Trump’s special envoy for Afghanistan peace talks, has announced a preliminary peace deal with the Taliban, in theory ending the Afghanistan war and allowing US forces to come home.Khalilzad has been singing his deal’s praises, but his efforts to silence criticism and smother dissent should raise alarms: Through much of the negotiations, he kept the elected Afghanistan government in the dark. When Afghanistan’s National Security Adviser Hamdullah Mohib criticized Khalilzad’s negotiating conduct, the State Department responded with an over-the-top campaign to blacklist him, never mind that Mohib was 1) right in his criticism and 2) is crucial for counterterrorism coordination.Zalmay Khalilzad, President Trump’s special envoy for Afghanistan peace talks, has announced a preliminary peace deal with the Taliban, in theory ending the Afghanistan war and allowing US forces to come home.Fearful that former Afghan intelligence chief and interior minister Amrullah Saleh might question key tenets of the agreement, Khalilzad and the US State Department conspired to deny him any visa to the United States, never mind that he remains perhaps the most popular figure in Afghanistan, a vice presidential candidate in forthcoming elections and, unlike Khalilzad, has never tried to profit from his Afghan work. Khalilzad refused for months to brief Indian authorities on the details of his plan, even as the White House and State Department were urging greater Indian commitment to Afghanistan.Read more at: https://www.aei.org/publication/the-afghanistan-agreement-is-even-worse-than-first-reported/
June 3, 2019 Topic: Afghanistan Region: South AsiaWinning in Afghanistan Requires Taking the Fight to PakistanThe stability of Afghanistan—and the denial of its territory to terrorist groups—requires a good-faith Pakistani agreement to cease backing extremists, and after nearly two decades, this means, coercing Pakistan.by Michael RubinU.S. Special Envoy for Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad was in Washington, DC last week to brief Capitol Hill on his ongoing talks with the Taliban. The senators were unimpressed, and with reason. There any many flaws in Khalilzad’s plan: It revives the pre-9/11 formula of legitimizing Taliban rule in exchange for a Taliban pledge to close terror camps; it undercuts the legitimacy of the elected Afghan government; and it discounts the Taliban’s long history of insincere diplomacy and fleeting commitments. The biggest problem with Khalilzad’s approach, however, is it ignores a simple fact: There can be no peace in Afghanistan so long as Pakistan chooses to undercut Afghan stability and support extremism. The missing piece to the Khalilzad strategy, therefore, is how to bring Pakistan to heel.Why Pakistan Supports RadicalismPakistan has been a problem for decades. While a Cold War ally, the distrust toward the United States among ordinary Pakistanis and the country’s elite is pronounced. Pakistani officials understand that the Truman administration only allied with Pakistan after India spurned the United States. Pakistani officials have also convinced themselves that Washington betrayed their country in both 1965 and 1971 when the United States did not come to Pakistan’s rescue during its wars with India. From Pakistan’s perspective, India was the aggressor and the Central Treaty Organization (CENTO) obliged the United States to enter the conflict. From the U.S. perspective, however, Pakistan initiated the fight, the United States was therefore not obliged and, regardless, U.S. forces were busy in Southeast Asia.The 1971 secession of Bangladesh (formerly East Pakistan) shook Pakistan to its core. After all, Pakistan was meant to be an Islamic state, but Bengali succession showed both how potent ethnic nationalism was, and how it posed an existential threat to the country. It was then that the Pakistani military broadly and the Inter-Services Intelligence specifically concluded that Pakistani security depended upon the spread of radical Islamism so that religion could trump ethnicity as the primary identity across the country.Read more at: https://nationalinterest.org/feature/winning-afghanistan-requires-taking-fight-pakistan-60332?page=0%2C1
