THE test launch by North Korea of an intermediate-range ballistic missile on Feb. 12 confronted the Trump administration with its first global crisis. There has been no such dramatic development in Afghanistan after Donald Trump assumed office in US, except the ongoing violence highlighted by the death on Wednesday of UAE ambassador to that country. The ambassador was injured in a bomb attack that killed 11 others at the Kandahar governor’s guesthouse on Jan. 10. An attack on Thursday night on Afghan security posts in the Dih Bala district in eastern Nangarhar province killed 17 soldiers. Trump and his democratic rival Hillary Clinton may have largely ignored Afghanistan in the campaign trail, but this South Asian country will continue to shatter the morning calm of a US president not because it is the longest war in America’s history but there are no signs of the war achieving any of its declared objectives. One objective of the war, launched in the wake of Sept. 11 attacks on US, was to topple Taleban from power and eliminate all terrorist havens in that country. Americans think Taleban provided a sanctuary for Al-Qaeda which was behind the attacks. But according to Gen. John Nicholson, commander of US forces in Afghanistan, “no fewer than 20 different terror groups” are operating there now. Speaking to senators last week, he said that after 15 years of war, Afghanistan now “has the greatest concentration of terrorist organizations in the world.”
Trump may have opposed his country’s overseas military interventions but he would not like to be known as the president who “lost” Afghanistan to Taleban or an assorted group of terrorists. Moreover, he is a president who has taken upon himself the task of “eradicating terrorism from the face of the earth.” So Afghanistan has to be part of that anti-terrorism fight. He has another excuse for leaving US troops in Afghanistan: They will act as a check on Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal. And both his Defense Secretary James Mattis and Homeland Security Secretary (retired) Marine Corps Gen. John Kelly think US should stay in Afghanistan. Mattis oversaw Afghanistan from 2010 to 2013 as the leader of US Central Command. Kelly lost his son, a Marine, while serving in Afghanistan. So don’t expect a big shakeup in American strategy. US troop levels will continue even if there is no “surge” as in Iraq. There will be more aggressive activity on the ground, and Trump will not announce a schedule for troop withdrawal. In short, those who think that the prospects of peace with Taleban will increase under a Trump presidency will be disappointed.
Those wanting continued military involvement advance two arguments. One, Afghanistan will probably fall to the Taleban in 30 days after American troops leave. Second, leaving the country now would heighten the risk of a terrorist attack on US. This is a variation of George W. Bush’s argument that “we will fight them over there so we do not have to face them in the United States of America.” To Taleban’s Zabihullah Mujahid, Trump may be a person who says “anything that comes to his tongue.” But Trump’s response to North Korea’s test launch shows he is not reckless. So we can rule out a dramatic escalation in the Afghan conflict. But the present stalemate is not in the interest of America or the Afghan people. At the height of the war, there were over 100,000 soldiers representing some 43 countries in Afghanistan. Still the Taleban could strike whenever or wherever they wanted including the very heart of the capital Kabul. How will 8,400 American troops even with some additions reverse the situation on the ground? All this argues for a negotiated solution to the conflict. If the experience of last 16 years has shown anything, it is that neither America nor its adversaries can hope for an outright military victory.
