Even as the US is withdrawing, its leaders insist that they are not going to abandon Afghanistan, that they will maintain their long term commitment to it and not allow any single country to dominate Afghan affairs. The US is already discussing a long term strategic accord with President Karzai and a Status of Forces Agreement. It is widely accepted that the US will retain a sizable military contingent in Afghanistan beyond 2014 and probably four or five bases.

The West is describing the current situation in Afghanistan as one of transition. This assumes that the situation is moving from one state of things to another in a planned and controlled manner. It is clear that US and NATO want to reduce their military presence and commitment to Afghanistan. President Obama has announced a draw-down of US forces, limited in number this year, but bigger in scope next year. US forces will declaredly withdraw from an active combat role by 2014, shifting to a supportive role as the responsibility for providing security to the country devolves on the Afghan National Security Forces.

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Transition should not be looked at from the security perspective alone. In that regard too the situation lacks clarity. Even as the US is withdrawing, its leaders insist that they are not going to abandon Afghanistan, that they will maintain their long term commitment to it and not allow any single country to dominate Afghan affairs. The US is already discussing a long term strategic accord with President Karzai and a Status of Forces Agreement. It is widely accepted that the US will retain a sizable military contingent in Afghanistan beyond 2014 and probably four or five bases. This has implications for regional countries, as well as Russia. President Karzai will have to allay their concerns by seeking some sovereign control over the US presence and operations in the longer term perspective, especially as US’s continued presence in Afghanistan will be integral to its Central Asian policy.

US will and finances to sustain its Afghan engagement have been visibly depleting. America has already publicly conceded that a military solution in Afghanistan is not realisable...

The political and economic dimension of transition is equally important. Here there is even more uncertainty. While the military transition takes place will the political situation in Afghanistan stabilize? If not, how to handle the disconnect between the military and the political situation? President Karzai is politically weak even if he has survived all these years. He is distrusted by other ethnic groups, although he has struck political bargains with some notable non-Pashtun figures. He has surrounded himself with Pashtuns, including Hizb-e-Islami elements. His policy of reconciliation is contested by powerful non-Pashtuns.

The relationship between President Karzai and the Afghan parliament remains blocked; half of his cabinet has not been approved by the parliament. In 2014 President Karzai theoretically gives up office. Who will replace him? Just when the reduced US forces would be ending their combat role, a political crisis would be surfacing within the Afghan polity.

It is well accepted that the writ of the Karzai government does not run in most parts of the country. The warlords enjoy immense power in their respective regions. There are serious questions about the viability of the form of centralized government that Afghanistan has been constitutionally saddled with.

Taliban activity has now spread beyond the eastern and southern parts of the country... the policy of reintegration does not seem to have achieved any spectacular result.

While the plan to hand over security responsibilities to the ANSF may look good on paper, can the ANSF effectively assume this responsibility? How motivated are they? Reports persist that the desertion rate amongst them remains high. Will they adequately equipped, including with air power? The Pashtun representation in the Afghan National Army, especially in the officer corps, remains inadequate, which would seem to detract from its status as a national army. The creation of militias at the service of regional leaders introduces a dangerous element into the overall security situation.

The economic situation in the country remains critical. It is hardly likely that, as the West withdraws militarily from Afghanistan, it will maintain the levels of its economic assistance. Afghanistan will need very considerable budgetary support for running the government and for sustaining the size of its security forces. With the western economies in recession, the likelihood of maintaining the needed aid flows to Afghanistan remains doubtful. Afghanistan no doubt has enormous natural resources, but in the time frames under consideration these cannot be developed to provide requisite revenues to the government.

In reality, Taliban activity has now spread beyond the eastern and southern parts of the country, infecting the western and northern parts too, with some non-Pashtun reportedly joining the Taliban ranks. The policy of reintegration does not seem to have achieved any spectacular result.

The Afghan insurgents are not monolithic. There is the Quetta Shura, the Haqqani group, and those belonging to the Hekmatyar group. Supporting them are the Pakistani Taliban and the non-Afghan organisations like the LeT.

Reconciliation as a policy is now openly embraced by the US and NATO countries. Germany and the UK have been pro-active visibly, but there are other intermediaries in the fray such as Turkey, Abu Dhabi, Saudi Arabia etc. At what levels conversations are taking place is not clear. While Mullah Omar in a recent speech seemed to endorse some opening to the West, doubts persist about Taliban’s willingness to compromise on some of the red-lines the West has drawn.

The Afghan insurgents are not monolithic. There is the Quetta Shura, the Haqqani group, and those belonging to the Hekmatyar group. Supporting them are the Pakistani Taliban and the non-Afghan organisations like the LeT. How do you promote reconciliation with multiple power centres within the insurgents? There is of course the obvious contradiction between talking to the Taliban and simultaneously wanting to eliminate their leaders.

The brutal assassination of the former Afghan President Burhanuddin Rabbani who was chairing the High Peace Council set up to bring about internal reconciliation in Afghanistan has dramatised the precariousness of the situation facing the country.

President Karzai, having reached the conclusion that a solution to the Afghan imbroglio cannot be found through external intervention, has leaned towards finding an internal way out through an intra-Afghan reconciliation process. US will and finances to sustain its Afghan engagement have been visibly depleting. America has already publicly conceded that a military solution in Afghanistan is not realisable; its allies are suffering from political exhaustion there. This is hardly propitious for a successful outcome of the Afghan war from the western perspective.

President Karzai’s relationship with the Americans is tense and distrustful even though his survival depends on them. The US has a low opinion of Karzai because of his perceived inadequacies and failings, but sticks with him for lack of a viable alternative. To survive as the end game in Afghanistan nears, Karzai has tried to explore some entente with the Taliban—his fellow Pashtuns.

The US now realizes that the military defeat of the Taliban would require a heavy commitment of manpower and resources over too long a period of time.

Some success in the reconciliation process would transfer the political initiative to Karzai and make him less dependent on the Americans. But his freedom of manoeuvre is limited so long as US/NATO forces occupy Afghanistan, conduct military operations there and train and equip the Afghan National Security Forces. Karzai’s bargaining power with the Taliban, in fact, derives from US military deployment in Afghanistan.

If reconciliation serves Karzai’s interests, it serves that of the US and NATO too as they are looking for a political way out of the Afghanistan conflict, and this would require talking to their principal adversary, the Taliban. For them, reconciliation is a political tool with multiple functions: it signals a scope for power sharing with the adversary, it can serve to divide the Taliban by persuading those willing to compromise to respond to western overtures, it can keep the negotiating track open even if progress is slow, and it provides a platform for some important Islamic countries to intervene as intermediaries.

Rabbani’s assassination is a powerful rebuff to the reconciliation strategy. The 79-member strong High Peace Council that Rabbani presided was Karzai’s conspicuous investment in this strategy. Rabbani as a Tajik and a former head the Northern Alliance gave the reconciliation strategy an ostensible intra-Afghan rather than an intra-Pashtun stamp. With several powerful non-Pashtuns elements within the Afghan polity opposing reconciliation this was important. With his assassination, President Karzai has been weakened politically. It would also be difficult to find an adequate replacement for Rabbani.

While it is not clear how much breadth and depth the reconciliation process had developed in reality, the outlook now has become heavily clouded. The reconciliation process cannot proceed with any great sense of hope in the face of Taliban elements stepping up their attacks against key regime figures and penetrating well protected areas to demonstrate their reach and daring, probably in collusion with elements within the regime’s security apparatus. President Karzai’s half-brother has been killed, a NATO base has been truck-bombed, the British Council office has come under attack, and, much more provocatively, the US Embassy and the NATO HQs in Kabul have been struck. These acts of defiance not only call into question the premises of the reconciliation policy, they also expose the weakness of the western strategy of a controlled and graduated withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Rabbani’s assassination and the attack on the US Embassy magnify the resilience and the determination of the Taliban.

The US now realizes that the military defeat of the Taliban would require a heavy commitment of manpower and resources over too long a period of time. It is aware that this option is not only no longer available politically, exercising it to protect any non-negotiable US national interest is no longer necessary. The aim is to degrade the fighting capacity of the Taliban sufficiently either to induce it to negotiate a political settlement that respects certain botttom-lines, or allow the US/NATO to reduce the level of their engagement to politically and financially manageable proportions through a policy of Afghanisation of the conflict.

The psychological aspect of the war being conducted in Afghanistan is important too. Public perceptions can be shaped by some dramatic acts that may not be militarily too significant but which may highlight the problems on the ground, with political repercussions. In the asymmetrical war being fought, the Taliban do not have to match the tally of US/NATO successes on the ground. A few spectacular actions by them can have a political and psychological resonance far beyond their actual import. Rabbani’s assassination and the attack on the US Embassy magnify the resilience and the determination of the Taliban. Even if the person of Rabbani is replaced, the promise of the reconciliation process has already been etiolated.