Pathology of Doha peace Negotiations
Dr. Mohammad Hossain Kholousi[1]
One year has passed since the collapse of the republican system and the contribution of the Doha negotiations to this collapse is undeniable. While most of the scientific conferences, diplomatic efforts and press activities in the mass media and among the civil society were going on regarding the issue of peace, despite the expectation, not only was there no peace, but the entire political system collapsed.
The Doha negotiations resulted completely contrary to the results of the Geneva negotiations. In the Geneva negotiations, it was believed that immediately after the withdrawal of the Soviet soldiers, their puppet political system would also disappear; However, in the Doha talks, it was thought that after the withdrawal of the American troops, the republican system would remain, and with diplomatic efforts and the continuation of negotiations at the national level, peace would be achieved between the Taliban and the republican government. Unfortunately, this did not happen and before the full withdrawal of the American soldiers, the republican system collapsed.
This bitter experience of negotiation and compromise requires that the Doha negotiations be correctly analyzed in order to draw the path of peace correctly from the empirical data of this historical reality and the implications of its failure. Although today the geographical territory is under the control of the Taliban; But the government based on Taghlib lacks legitimacy, and of course the continuation of its rule faces serious challenges. Every government in Afghanistan is averse to compromise and negotiation, and no other option other than comprehensive peace can solve the problem of conflict in Afghanistan. It is based on the assumption that pathology gains importance from the Doha negotiations. This pathology is very important in drawing the perspective of policies and adopting appropriate strategies.
The Doha negotiations included two parts; First, the end of the war between the US and the Taliban, which was the main issue of the Doha negotiations, and most of the diplomatic efforts were focused on this part. Second, reaching a national agreement between the Taliban and the government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. Although this level of negotiations was not important for the first issue, negotiations at this level continued until the last days of the fall of the republican system. The Doha negotiations only led to a treaty on the first axis; But it led to failure in the second axis. In this review, the factors of this failure are examined in order of importance:
1) I believe that the most important factor in the failure of the Doha negotiations was the success in its first stage. The acceptance of America’s withdrawal from Afghanistan strengthened the self-confidence of the Taliban group. The direct negotiation between the Taliban and the United States in the absence of the Afghan government in the first stage was a clear message for the Taliban that the only thing that matters to the Trump administration is the United States, not Afghanistan. Based on this, the Taliban participated in the second axis from the victorious position against America and NATO and did not show any flexibility.In this way, dividing the negotiation into foreign and domestic has been a strategic mistake. It was perhaps for the first time that in America, from within the discourse of conservative Republicans who are usually security-oriented and authoritarian, the priority of butter (welfare) over the cannon (security) was preferred in foreign policy.
This precedence was derived from Trump’s economic and business-oriented approach, and in some cases its security consequences were ignored. In this way, under this strategy, negotiation engineering was done in haste. Trump was in a hurry to leave Afghanistan and reduce the US government’s spending in Afghanistan. He considered the principle and the secondary in the negotiations and put the issue of America’s withdrawal as the principle and the agreement on the next system in Afghanistan as a secondary.
Instead of a comprehensive multilateral diplomacy, America’s foreign policy implemented two bilateral diplomacy, one of which was responsible for the negotiation between the US and the Taliban, and the other was dedicated to the negotiation between the Afghan government and the Taliban. If the negotiation was based on multilateral diplomacy and followed the approach of “agree on everything or no agreement” or the approach of prioritizing systemization in Afghanistan over the withdrawal of American soldiers from Afghanistan, the situation would not have ended here.
Therefore, the first ring of unrealistic dualism is the separation of the subject of negotiations into two levels, America and Afghanistan. This strategy turned the main problem, which is system building, into a secondary problem, and this system sub-problem became a path for the collapse of the republican system.
2) Not paying attention to the consequences of ethnic infrastructure in Afghanistan is one of the important variables in the failure of peace negotiations and the collapse of the republican system. The fact that at the head of the negotiating delegations of the three parties, three actors belonging to a particular ethnicity were present and all three followed the logic of political exclusivism with historical evidence, played a role in the direction of the negotiation process towards the collapse of the system.
This logic of political exclusivism is the same Pashtun governor who formulates politics based on Ibn Khaldun’s nervousness. This factor caused the second ring of dualism to arise, based on which the negotiations were divided into two main and apparent parts. The protection of the historical monopoly as a common point was placed in the position of the main goal of the negotiations. Khalilzad repeatedly supported the dominance of one party in the system and placed others under that dominant party. According to him, the dominant side was based on the idea of Taliban ethnicity, not the Afghan government.
Formulation of development, nation building, state building and this time negotiation and compromise were all done from the perspective of the elites of the ruling group through the channel of Afghanistan’s political history and without paying attention to the new ideas in politics, great efforts were made to develop within the historical links and Put political traditions. This is the reconstruction of Afghanistan’s political history that follows the version of nation-building based on ethnicity. I imagine if Tom Wiest, Mullah Ghani Baradar, Dr. Ahmadi or Hafiz Mansour from three addresses; The US, the Taliban, and the Republican regime were talking and negotiating with each other, but the Taliban did not reach any of these existing achievements.
3) The lack of realism in the government of the Republic has also played a small role in the failure of the Doha negotiations. Ashraf Ghani’s controversial management and his historical interests in monopolizing power had alienated all political actors from him. In order to expand his legitimacy and widen popular support and political currents for the republican system, Ashraf Ghani organized an all-inclusive combination in the negotiating team of the republican government; But most of the people who joined the committee from political currents did not attach much importance to Ashraf Ghani personally. In order to reach an agreement and save the system from collapse, they were ready to place Ashraf Ghani as a victim.
In the middle of negotiations, an informal agreement was reached; But what was expected was almost clear between the Taliban and the Republican government. This point of agreement was Ashraf Ghani’s departure from power. This point of agreement was Ashraf Ghani’s departure from power. Ashraf Ghani was not accepted by the Taliban as an irreligious, secular and American mercenary, and he was rejected by the political activists within the system as a full-fledged ethnocentrism and conflict-inducing. This happened when he was at the head of the government and he was responsible for the first role in the composition and organization of the negotiating team of the government. Ashraf Ghani thought that if others use the existing situation against him, he also has the right to use all his powers against them, even if the price of this confrontation is the entire political system. Ashraf Ghani had two strategic goals in the political arena; His person being in power and the continuation of the historical monopoly of power from an ethnic point of view. When he came to the conclusion that his first goal could not be achieved, he spent leaving power for the second goal, and with this strategy he took his revenge on other political reformers as well.
In this way, I reach the same variable as before, which links this revenge with the main issue of Afghan nations; The nervousness of the people who interpret politics not as a collective action of citizens and their agreement, but as a legacy from the first invasion. This thinking, which is popular among the elite of the Pashtun people, came to the conclusion that with the democratic system, development has overcome history and that political monopoly will disappear sooner or later. Ashraf Ghani correctly understood that in the Republic, the basis and direction of policies is pluralism, and his and Karzai’s stoning may delay pluralism and equality; But due to the inherent nature of the system, they cannot historically protect political monopoly.
Therefore, the sense of revenge mixed with ethnic nervousness became a double factor that pushed Ghani towards handing over power. As a result, the third circle of dualism emerged, which weakened the role of the negotiating team and pushed it to the sidelines; Apart from the official channel of negotiations, an independent channel was established between him and the Taliban through the National Security Council (led by Mohib) In this way, the main channel of negotiations lost its strategic role and the delegation of the republican government remained in Doha in a symbolic form without any effective authority.
4) The weakest variable of the collapse is related to the opposition of the government’s diplomacy with the paradiplomacy of political groups and currents. Parallel to the negotiations in Doha by the government, independent negotiations between political elites and party leaders with the Taliban and neighboring governments were underway. Most of those who participated in these negotiations were political opponents of Ashraf Ghani. Accordingly, there was no coordination between these two levels of negotiations.
If paradiplomacy followed political rationality and was placed next to the political diplomacy of the government, it could strengthen the position of the Hamhori government; However, the lack of coordination and the lack of compromise capacity based on strategic rationality, among government politicians and party leaders, caused tension and as a result, confrontation between diplomacy and para-diplomacy.
If a conclusion can be drawn from the above, it is that optimism is not accepted in politics. The optimism of the Afghan nation and government towards the United States and the international community sacrificed the political system of the republic and the negotiation process with the Taliban. In addition, crossing the balance in political management and being satisfied with a marginal role in politics has been the most important strategic error of non-ruling ethnicities. This weakness has acted as the most important factor in political management, peace and conflict management. Today’s exclusion from the political arena is rooted in yesterday’s marginalization.
Past political history shows that being at the center of politics in Afghanistan is based on political relationships, military power and a high level of agreement and compromise among political actors. Any congregation or any ethnic group that has the most of these three elements has the most share in Afghanistan’s politics. Solving the issue of peace and conflict these days requires political consensus and drawing a clear, inclusive and fair discourse. The amount of social credibility of such a discourse determines the political winner of the conflict or possibly the compromise.
[1] University Professor and member of APJO leadership board
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