Biden’s peace plan that leaked to Afghanistan explained: An “Ave Maria” attempt to bring Ghani and the Taliban to an agreement

After weeks of delicate deliberations and closed-door meetings, the Biden government this weekend watched two secret documents from Afghanistan leaking out to the public – revealing its backstage pressure for a peace deal between the Taliban and the Afghan government that would facilitate the withdrawal of US troops from the 20-year war.

Until the release of these documents, it was believed that the Biden government was discussing three major options on how to proceed in Afghanistan.

The first was to adhere to former President Donald Trump’s deal with the Taliban, which would require President Joe Biden to withdraw all 2,500 American troops remaining in the country by May 1. The second was to negotiate an extension with the insurgent group, allowing American forces to remain in the country after the beginning of May and likely to pressure the Taliban to reach a peace agreement with the Afghan government. And the third was to completely defy the Trump-Taliban pact and keep American troops in Afghanistan without a stated end date.

But two documents published by Afghanistan’s TOLONews show that the Biden government may be looking for a different path: one that pushes for accelerated peace and potentially sets the stage for a withdrawal of troops at the end of the president’s first term – a promise that he did during the campaign.

In an undated letter from Secretary of State Tony Blinken to Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, the top diplomat informs Ghani that the Biden government is “immediately seeking a high-level diplomatic effort” to “speed up peace negotiations” between the Afghan government and the Taliban. To this end, Blinken says that the government has prepared a “roadmap for the peace process”.

The second leaked document is this roadmap: an eight-page “draft discussion of a peace agreement” designed “to leverage the peace negotiations in Afghanistan between the Islamic Republic [of Afghanistan] and the Taliban. ”

The proposal has three sections: 1) guiding principles for the constitution of Afghanistan and the future of the Afghan state; 2) terms for governing the country during a transition period and a roadmap for making constitutional changes and addressing security and governance issues; and 3) terms of a permanent ceasefire.

“The draft reflects a variety of ideas and priorities for Afghans on both sides of the conflict and aims to focus negotiators on some of the most fundamental issues they will need to address,” says the US proposal. But, he adds, “Ultimately, the two sides will determine their own political future and the outlines of any political agreement.”

Zalmay Khalilzad, the US envoy to Afghanistan, reportedly presented this plan to the government in Kabul and the Taliban last week. “Ambassador Khalilzad’s trip represents a continuation of American diplomacy in the region,” said a State Department spokesman. However, they added: “We did not make any decisions about our strength posture in Afghanistan after May 1. All options remain on the table ”.

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Experts say the US may have two goals in mind with this move. Should both sides agree to this or a similar peace plan by May 1, Biden would have political space to withdraw all troops from the country. Or, if there was a genuine move towards an agreement, but no agreement, Washington would let the Taliban know it would stay until the group struck a deal.

“It gives them room to argue on both sides,” said Jonathan Schroden, a war expert at CNA, a non-profit research and analysis organization in Arlington, Virginia. But, he noted, the chances that the move will be successful are very small. “This is an Ave Maria pass.”

Simply put, it is hard to believe that lengthy negotiations will go into high gear with a few weeks to go before the deadline, and so far neither side has shown much appetite for the American proposal.

“They can make a decision about their troops, not about the people of Afghanistan,” Afghan First Vice President Amrullah Saleh said on Monday. “It is under discussion [and] after the discussion, we will have a position on that, ”said Mohammad Naeem, a spokesman for the Taliban political office in Doha, Qatar.

The Biden government is promoting a high-risk, high-reward option that may still result in keeping American troops in danger beyond the May 1 deadline. It is not clear whether it will be worth it.

What the two Biden documents on Afghanistan really say

The two documents written in the United States must be read together. The proposal presents a draft agreement that aims to stimulate negotiations between the Afghan government and the Taliban, while Blinken’s letter establishes an international diplomatic structure to support an agreement.

It is worth taking a quick look at the main elements of the documents.

Blinken’s letter establishes a framework for international diplomacy

In his letter, Blinken says the United States plans to ask the United Nations to bring together nations with interests in Afghanistan – the USA, Russia, China, Iran, Pakistan and India – to discuss what each party would like to see in a peace deal. “I believe these countries share a permanent common interest in a stable Afghanistan and must work together if we are to succeed,” writes the secretary.

It is a smart move that experts have been asking for a long time, analysts said, but they fear it is too late. It is a process that should have started years ago, and aligning so many disparate parts on such a complicated issue is unlikely to happen until May 1.

One issue highlights this point: Afghanistan is afraid to close any deal with Pakistan, as it has long supported the Taliban, and Pakistan prefers that Afghanistan remain unstable rather than approach India. Should Kabul and New Delhi become too friendly, Islamabad fears it will be surrounded by two antagonistic partners.

Then add how the United States, Iran and China feel about the situation, and it will be clear that these negotiations may take a while to complete.

Patrick Semansky / AFP via Getty Images

Organizing such a meeting, then, “is just the first step on a 1,000-step journey,” said Adam Weinstein, a former Marine who served in Afghanistan and is now at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, a Washington-based think tank that defenders for military containment in US foreign policy.

Blinken’s letter also says that the United States plans to ask Turkey to host “a high-level meeting on both sides in the coming weeks to finalize a peace agreement”. This sounds like a new version of the 2001 Bonn conference, mediated by the United States, which named a transitional government in Afghanistan, which is why some analysts have told me that they are already calling the proposal “Bonn 2”.

Here, again, the problem is the timetable, as the government in Kabul and the Taliban until May 1 to finalize a peace agreement.

Reaching an agreement during this period is possible, experts say, but it is not likely, considering all the complicated issues they must discuss. This is where America’s peace proposal comes into play.

The US-designed peace plan is specific, but full of difficult questions

The document that Khalilzad showed both parties is aimed at helping the conflicting sides to reach an agreement more quickly.

It begins by establishing a series of guiding principles designed to address the concerns and demands of the government in Kabul and the Taliban, including:

• Islam will be the official religion of Afghanistan
• The future Constitution will guarantee the protection of the rights of women and the rights of children in political, social, economic, educational and cultural matters.
• Afghanistan will be a safe home for all its ethnic groups, tribes and religious sects
• The future Constitution will provide free and fair elections for Afghanistan’s national political leadership, in which all Afghan citizens have the right to participate
• The future Constitution will establish a single, unified and sovereign Afghan state under a single national government, without parallel governments or parallel security forces.

The proposal also lays the foundations for the creation of a transitional “Government of Peace” to govern the country until a new constitution is adopted and national elections are held.

Critically, the Government of Peace would consist of officials appointed “according to the principle of fairness” between both parties, and “with special consideration for the significant inclusion of women and members of all ethnic groups in all government institutions”.

Johannes Simon / Getty Images

Finally, the agreement outlines the terms for both sides to reach a permanent ceasefire and how that ceasefire will be implemented and monitored. The agreement would seek to reduce violence in 90 days and then create a commission to oversee the continuation of the ceasefire throughout the peace process.

There is more to the plan, but that is the idea. What the United States has offered is a start – and in some areas, much more than that – but most expect it to take more than a few weeks to reach the end of the process.

Hanging over everything is what the US will do with its troops. It is important to note that none of the documents link the military presence of the United States to the diplomatic effort, which means that the United States could remove military personnel from the country and still pressure to negotiate an agreement.

Experts say the possibility risks weakening Kabul and American influence during the negotiations, giving the Taliban the advantage in the negotiations or the incentive to just take over the capital and the remaining parts of the country that it does not currently control by force.

But some also say that tying the presence of American troops to a highly complex process is also problematic, as it would leave the military in danger for an unknown period of time.

“A sustainable agreement cannot be based on the permanent presence of American troops,” said Weinstein. “The small chance that a political agreement will be reached exposes the Biden government to considerable risk. It is the equivalent of games of chance. “

Therefore, difficult decisions will be made not only in Afghanistan in the coming weeks, but also in Washington.