America May Completely Withdraw from Afghanistan

Recently, the situation in Afghanistan has been unpredictable. The Taliban stated that the United States faces the same fate as what happened the year the Soviet Union withdrew from Afghanistan. Also, Obama urged the Pentagon to make preparations for a probable complete withdrawal. The majority of Afghan presidential candidates are advocating an alliance with the United States in order to ensure the smooth progress of postwar reconstruction of Afghanistan. Will the United States really withdraw completely from Afghanistan? Given that the Afghanistan issue involves China’s economic and territorial security interests, these questions deserve Chinese attention.

America’s two big choices for withdrawal from Afghanistan are to completely withdraw or not to completely withdraw. Considering what is necessary for America’s global strategy, when deciding to withdraw from Afghanistan, the Obama administration chose not to fully withdraw but rather to maintain a limited military presence in Afghanistan.

To achieve this aim, America decided to ally with Afghanistan by signing a bilateral security agreement. The security agreement would make it legal for NATO coalition forces to remain in Afghanistan. After arduous negotiations, both sides established the U.S.-Afghanistan relationship as long-lasting strategic partnership. Only the Afghan president did not sign the U.S.-Afghanistan security agreement. Provided Karzai signs it without a hitch, then the United States will have achieved its strategic goals to have a creditable withdrawal by the end of 2014 and to maintain a limited military presence in Afghanistan. However, at the last minute, the outgoing president of Afghanistan has refused to sign and left the issue to the next president of Afghanistan. By doing this, Karzai is obviously kicking back the hard choice to the United States. Hereafter, the wonderful game between the U.S. and Afghanistan continues.

In the U.S.-Afghanistan game, America’s stance is this: If Karzai does not sign, then NATO coalition forces have no choice but to completely withdraw. This sounds like a threat from the Obama administration aimed at forcing Karzai to sign. But actually, even if Karzai signs, if the Taliban refuse peace talks, then America should not completely withdraw. Why is that? Let us look at the difficulties and challenges America faces.

First, the Taliban are not willing to cooperate with America. The Bush administration overthrew the Taliban under the banner of anti-terrorism efforts and supported the establishment of the Karzai government. Thus, although the Karzai government received recognition by the international community, the Taliban views it as America’s puppet and has vowed war with the United States until the very end. Accordingly, the U.S.-led war on terror continues today. Now, although the Obama administration announced the initiative to withdraw from Afghanistan, this is a victory for the Taliban and al-Qaida insurgents fighting the U.S. When their victory is in sight, why wouldn’t the Taliban follow it in hot pursuit and pressure the United States to completely withdraw? Recently, the Taliban have not only refused to participate in peace talks but have also continued violent behavior such as planning terrorist attacks and planting explosive devices. They are intentionally disturbing the situation and forcing NATO coalition forces to withdraw as early as possible. To be precise, the Taliban dared to say: They will let America repeat the same fate as the year the Soviet Union withdrew from Afghanistan. The Taliban vowed to completely get rid of the Americans. With this in mind, the White House must consider not fully withdrawing.

Secondly, the United States will have difficulty finding a “cooperative partner” in Afghanistan’s presidential elections. Currently, Afghanistan’s presidential elections are in full swing and the candidates are ready to go. But who can become America’s loyal “cooperative partner”? Of the few candidates who could get elected, Abdullah Abdullah fully supports allying with NATO, but unfortunately the Taliban strongly oppose him. Although Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai, Abdul Qayum Karzai and Ahmad Zia Massoud all come from well-known Pashtun families, they are at risk for not obeying America’s beck and call. The current president, Karzai, is a good example. Moreover, the Taliban have clearly expressed that they refuse to participate in peace talks. So, no matter which candidate the White House supports taking office, they will have to sign the bilateral U.S.-Afghanistan security agreement. Both sides have no way of avoiding the Taliban problem. Thus, the choices America faces are to either continue to support the Afghan government as usual to combat terrorism and violence, or go completely hands-free in Afghanistan, inevitably allowing the region to sink into civil war. America cannot repeat past policies. Therefore, Washington needs to consider completely withdrawing from Afghanistan.

Thirdly, the U.S. faces Afghanistan-Pakistan border issues. According to international law, Afghanistan and Pakistan use the Durand line as the border, but in real life local Pashtun people don’t recognize it. This disparity between theory and reality led to Soviet soldiers being powerless as they saw anti-Soviet guerrillas cross the Durand line into Pakistani territory. Eventually, this evolved into the rise of the Taliban and completely got rid of the Russians. Today, America could follow the same disastrous course as the Soviet Union. Drawing from the lessons of the Soviet Union, although the United States formulated an Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy, in reality the Afghan and Pakistani governments have little real control over the Afghanistan-Pakistan border regions, which makes implementing America’s massive strategic plan difficult. Not only that, a Pakistani Taliban is rising up. This means that regardless of how much the United States invests it still will be difficult to win this war. Rather than enter an unwinnable war long-term, why not completely withdraw in a timely manner?

In the face of these difficulties and challenges, although the U.S. had decided to partially withdraw, with the changing situation in Afghanistan, the White House and Pentagon must promptly make policy adjustments. The Taliban refuse to cooperate. Accordingly, even if the United States got the Afghan president to sign the agreement to obtain a legal basis for stationing troops in Afghanistan, the complexities of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border allow the Taliban the possibility of coming back. This makes it necessary for the White House and the Pentagon to ponder whether or not there is a need to continue sinking into Afghanistan. However, America does not make the final decision to completely withdraw. Rather, it depends on the new Afghan government’s ability to achieve peace talks with the Taliban. If the White House’s “zero option” is to promote awareness of the severity of the situation to the Afghans and surrounding countries’ citizens and to get them to work together to maintain social stability in Afghanistan, then this is the Obama administration’s hope.