If it is the price for keeping his hold on the presidency, Karzai might be prepared to accept Taliban control over some local strongholds. This would be facilitated by constitutional reforms strengthening provincial autonomy. The Taliban is likely to condition a settlement on a formal devolution of power that would give the provinces partial or complete control over the police, the courts, local elections, taxation, and opium production.
This would not be a de facto partition, as some have suggested, but rather a shift to a loose federation, similar to the model that prevailed under the pre-1970 monarchy. The provinces under Taliban rule would have a significant stake in stable relations with Kabul as a source of foreign aid for dams, roads, and other economic infrastructure projects.
From the perspective of the United States and its allies, an acceptable U.N.-brokered neutralization agreement would have to bar the use of the Taliban provinces for transnational terrorist activities, place limits on the size and character of the local militias maintained by the Taliban, and rule out the development of local air forces. So long as Kabul has a monopoly on air power, the use of the Taliban provinces as bases for terrorism could be combated and a devolution of power need not mean the breakup of the Afghan state.
Afghanistan's neighbors would be more likely to help contain the Taliban under a U.N.-brokered agreement than under wartime conditions in which they want to avoid identification with an unpopular U.S. military presence. The close intelligence cooperation between the United States, Iran, Russia, and India that existed in 2001 could be revived and broadened to keep the Taliban from pursuing power in Kabul again. Equally important, the agreement could lead to coordinated aid efforts and could encourage the neighbors to increase their economic assistance. These partners are more likely to provide large-scale aid if helping out strengthens their own influence in Kabul rather than merely reinforces a U.S.-dominated regime.
Iran and India, which are already giving large-scale economic aid to Kabul, might well increase their assistance packages if U.S.-NATO aid diminishes. Li Qinggong, deputy secretary-general of the China Council for National Security Policy Studies, alluded to increased Chinese aid in a Sept. 29, 2009, statement, which also envisioned talks on "how to dispose of the forces of al-Qaeda" if and when the United States disengages. Beijing is investing $3 billion in Afghanistan's Aynak copper mine and is considering a U.S. request for help in police training. Russia has already opened negotiations with Kabul on a $1 billion package of projects to refurbish 140 Soviet-era hydroelectric stations, bridges, wells, and irrigation systems.
The proposed agreement would be signed by the seven neighbors, the United States, and NATO but could also include others, notably Saudi Arabia, that are playing a significant role in Afghanistan. Signatories would pledge to respect the country’s military neutrality, not to provide arms to warring factions and to co-operate in U.N. enforcement of an arms aid ban.
No U.N. monitoring system could completely seal off arms aid to the rival Afghan factions or bring an end to the competition between India and Pakistan for influence in Kabul. But a structure for regional cooperation could moderate arms inputs and reduce conflict among rival factions.
The most difficult issue in negotiating such an agreement would be how to deal with the status of the Durand Line, the de facto eastern boundary of Afghanistan imposed by Britain in 1893. The Durand Line has never been accepted by Afghanistan, and Pakistan would undoubtedly press for its confirmation as a key condition for its participation in a regional neutralization accord. However, this would be unacceptable to key Afghan political factions, including the Taliban, and a compromise finessing the issue would be necessary.
To be sure, Islamabad would not like an agreement that leaves the boundary issue in abeyance and legitimizes the role of India as a power broker in Afghanistan. But Islamabad would have two powerful reasons for joining in the accord. First, India, like other signatories, would be barred from operating out of Afghanistan militarily in the event of an India-Pakistan conflict and from using Afghanistan as a base for supporting Baluch and other ethnic insurgents in Pakistan. Second, while the accord would seek to prevent the Taliban from re-establishing control in Kabul and using its local strongholds as a base for terrorist operations elsewhere, it would not seek to remove all Taliban influence in Afghanistan. Thus, Pakistan would still have political allies in future Afghan power struggles.
Pressure from China, which provides Islamabad with fighter aircraft, would also help assure Pakistani participation in a regional accord.
The biggest obstacle to the accord is not likely to come from Pakistan, but from a Pentagon mindset in which the projection of U.S. power is viewed as a desirable end in of itself. Some of the 74 U.S. bases in Afghanistan, including airfields, are designed solely for counterinsurgency operations and might be expendable in a neutralization accord. But the mammoth airfields at Bagram and Kandahar are projected to grow in the years ahead -- ambitious new construction projects continue at both bases, despite Obama's pledge to begin withdrawing troops from the country in the summer of 2011. Furthermore, Congress is considering funding requests, totaling $300 million, to establish new bases at Camp Dwyer and Shindand, close to the Iranian border, and Mazar-e-Sharif, near Central Asia and Russia. Aware of Afghan opposition to "permanent bases," Pentagon and White House officials now speak of "permanent access," which would guarantee the use of these bases for intelligence surveillance operations.
The underlying issue that the President has yet to address is the future of the air bases, and the larger question of whether the Pentagon will still be using Afghanistan to further its global power projection goals long after the Taliban and Al Qaeda are a distant memory. Until he faces up to this issue, no diplomatic cover for U.S. disengagement will be possible.
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