The elusive peace

Maleeha Lodhi

In a season of leaks in America, a news report from Washington indicates a renewed U.S. effort to renew talks with Taleban representatives aimed at eventually installing an Afghan peace process.

But the Reuters report does little to contradict the view that with Presidential elections looming, the Obama administration is unlikely to take any foreign policy steps that could play into Republican hands.

Nevertheless, the surfacing of this information offers an opportunity to assess where the Afghan peace process is at the moment. According to the report, the U.S. recently made a revised offer to release five Taleban prisoners in exchange for an American serviceman in Taleban custody. Under a changed sequence, he is now required to be freed after all five Taleban detainees have been sent to Qatar. Earlier, American interlocutors had insisted that Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl should be freed in between the transfer of five Taleban prisoners who would be moved in two stages.

The report does not specify that this proposal was made over two months ago. It also does not mention the fact that it was conveyed through the Qataris as Taleban interlocutors refused to meet U.S. special representative Marc Grossman when he visited Doha in June. The Taleban have yet to respond to the proposal. During a number of secret U.S.-Taleban contacts in 2011 both sides saw the prisoner exchange as a starting point for formal negotiations. The swap was the key to other confidence building measures that were to pave the way for opening a Taleban office in Qatar. They included Taleban acceptance of a travel ban on detainees once they were in Qatar and a statement denouncing international terrorism.

When the Obama administration was unable to deliver on the prisoners, Taleban spokesmen broke off talks accusing American officials on going back on promises.

The Taleban accused American officials of changing the sequence of steps each side was to take. The U.S. offered it would first release two Taleban prisoners following the required 30-day notification to Congress. In deference to the Pentagon’s wishes, it would then wait for a sixty-day period to ‘test’ the Taleban, before moving the remaining detainees. In return the Taleban were to release the American prisoner in the sixty-day period before the other three Taleban detainees were transferred to Qatar. Calling these “new conditions” the Taleban rejected them.

Then two months ago the U.S. communicated the amended proposal. But what does this renewed American effort really mean? Does it signal the administration’s willingness to move ahead despite the political constraints of campaign season? Some American officials argue that if the Taleban were to accept this offer — a big if as they have insisted on a one-time release of all five leader — any political flak would be offset by securing the release of the only American POW.

The offer can alternatively be interpreted as a way to use the Qatar process to sow divisions in the Taleban movement, which has seen bitter differences erupt over talking to the Americans. The leak could also be an effort by the Pentagon to scuttle the prisoner deal.

Whatever the motives behind the leak, the fate of the prisoners’ proposal remains uncertain. More significantly it does not square with other moves being considered by the administration such as declaring the Haqqani network as a terrorist organization.

U.S. officials see no tension in this fight-and-talk strategy but it is a major impediment to establishing a peace process. Pakistan views this strategy to be dysfunctional and has instead advocated the mutual reduction of violence to create conditions for peace talks.

Also, despite President Obama’s call earlier this year for a ‘negotiated peace’ in Afghanistan, this has not brought an end to internal rifts within his administration on the issue. The American military and intelligence communities remain mistrustful of ‘reconciliation’ efforts.

All this makes prospects for serious peace talks rather bleak and out of step with the military drawdown proceeding apace as the 2014 transition looms. The latest U.S. effort to re-engage the Taleban shows that the peace process hasn’t even got to the starting point.

Dr Maleeha Lodhi served as Pakistan’s ambassador to the U.S. and United Kingdom. This piece appeared on Khaleej Times on Aug. 18.