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Peace Deal

Bumpy Ride

The success of the American peace deal in Afghanistan is
closely tied to Trump’s win in the U.S. presidential elections.
The picture is grim and the road ahead is bumpy.

By Imran Jan | July 2020

For many years, the central debate was regarding the best way to end the war in Afghanistan. There was no question that the American people were tired of it and wanted the war to come to an end. The American war in Afghanistan has been its longest military engagement in history. Now the real worry is not about how to end it but rather does anyone even care?

President Trump has been working towards ending this war. His aim has been to end America’s longest war so as to tout his deal-making credentials for the coming presidential election. Zalmay Khalilzad, the US special diplomat, has been in charge of working out the nitty gritty of the peace deal between the Taliban and the United States. The peace deal was signed this year right before the coronavirus invaded the newsrooms worldwide and captured people’s imagination.

Nobody could have seen this coming. Just as one of the symptoms of the coronavirus is the loss of the sense of taste and smell, the virus is doing the same to the peace deal. It is absolutely a great achievement to end America’s longest war, a goal that eluded other presidents before Trump. However, the coronavirus consuming the daily news cycle and affecting people’s lives in unforeseen ways has rendered the peace deal between the United States and the Taliban tasteless. Americans are not paying attention to what is happening in Afghanistan or how soon the American troops would come home from that battlefield. They are more worried about the more than a 100 thousand corona deaths and the grim predictions of another 100 thousand deaths before the presidential election.

The year 2020 has been quite an eventful year in many ways. It started with calls for Trump’s impeachment, followed by the peace deal between the United States and the Taliban. Then came the virus and it has not left us yet. Massive changes in lifestyles and work became the norm within days. Worshipping, shopping, working, parenting, everything changed and the shift was extremely sudden. Then came the death of a black man named George Floyd. He was killed when a white police officer pressed his knee over his neck. He pressed so hard despite the repeated pleas from George Floyd, that he ended up killing him.

The news cycle briefly shifted from the virus to the death of George Floyd. Protests broke out all across the US and parts of Europe. People demanded major police reforms in the US and an end to systemic racism. The deserted American streets of Covid-19 lockdown turned into heavily crowded ones where massive crowds protested against police brutality. After that brief break, the virus is back in the news.

Amid all this, what nobody, however, is talking about is ending America’s longest war. Impeachment couldn’t remove President Trump. The late response to the virus, which has been the major argument of his opponents may or may not affect his re-election campaign. What could perhaps truly affect his re-election campaign would be his behaviour in the wake of the protests truly unbecoming of a president. With the nation seething with anger over the police brutality, Trump has continuously refusaed to acknowledge racism. He touts good job numbers and has said that the better than expected job numbers meant that it was “a great day” for George Floyd.

He has called for the harshest measures to deal with the protests. He even considered bringing the US Army to American streets. Chemical agents were used to suppress and drive away the protesters near the White House just so that President Trump could have a photo-op where he held a Bible in his hand catering to the ultra-whilte nationalists and Republican supporters. He continues to paint himself as the “Law & Order” president. The only other times one heard of the chemical agents being used were in different war zones of the Middle East and Asia.

At the time of writing this, Trump’s poll numbers are as low as they were around this time in the presidencies of George H.W. Bush and Jimmy Carter. Even impeachment moves couldn’t affect Trump’s poll numbers as much as the death of George Floyd and his reaction toward the protests.

Given this context of President Trump struggling to keep his support alive, Americans are scared of the virus more than they were of the terrorists, and the loss of jobs and income. These would all become major issues defining the coming presidential election. It doesn’t appear that peace in Afghanistan is going to be even an issue of major concern.

What is dangerous though is that if President Trump ends up not ending the war because it wouldn’t be a sellable argument for the election, then it can become a cold case with no interest left in it. Moreover, if Biden wins the election, which is quite likely, the peace deal will face the same fate that the Iran nuclear deal faced when Trump came into office. Biden belongs to the smiling war criminals club. The war will continue if the Oval Office is occupied by Biden in 2021.

If Trump goes on to win the election, the future of peace in Afghanistan would look no less disturbing. Because after winning the election, President Trump would forget about Afghanistan and the peace deal because the only purpose for which Trump signed that peace deal with the Taliban is to win the election. Once that purpose is no more to be achieved, Trump would lose any interest in Afghanistan and his country’s commitment to the peace deal.

If Trump ends the war and goes on to win the election, Afghanistan would not be a fairy tale in that scenario either. America would be out of town within minutes, without even leaving a callback number. This happened in the early 90s. It would be deja vu all over again.

In any simulation of peace in Afghanistan, the picture is grim and the road ahead is bumpy at best.

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