A sensible, accommodating man, Ashraf Ghani, was elected Afghanistan's president, and he has since dedicated considerable time to national political reconciliation. He formed a national unity government. He also reached out to Pakistan to end a pointless blame game and lure the Taliban into talks. Afghanistan assumed responsibility for its national security as Nato withdrew.
The conflict persisted, as the Taliban probed for an advantage they could use as political leverage. In July, Afghan Taliban, US and Chinese officials gathered in Islamabad for negotiations. There was good reason for optimism. The spirit of compromise was in the air.
However, Abdullah Abdullah and his powerful lobby within the Afghan government were determined not to cede any power to the Taliban. Without conferring with Mr Ghani, the National Directorate of Security, Afghanistan’s spy agency, chose July 31 to announce Mullah Mohammed Omar, the Taliban founder, had died two years previously in a hospital in Karachi.
Conceivably, the tactical thinking behind the announcement may have been to weaken the Taliban’s bargaining position. Mr Ghani certainly bought into such thinking when, that day, he said that the Taliban should accept that they could not win the war. But it is far more probable that the objective was to scuttle the peace process altogether. Predictably, the Taliban withdrew from the talks and a dispute ensued over the hurried appointment of Mullah Akhtar Mansoor as its new chief.
That is when Mansoor stole the show. He unleashed the biggest wave of car bombings ever seen in the Afghan capital. Then, to mark the first anniversary of the Afghan national unity government on September 28, the Taliban seized the strategic northern city of Kunduz, which suffered the indignity of becoming the first major urban centre to fall since the US-led invasion of 2001. Since then, the Taliban have launched attack after attack in northern Afghanistan. The residents of two provincial capitals are packing their bags to avoid becoming trapped like those in Kunduz. The future of a third hangs in the balance.
The developments have been greeted with dismay by opposition Republicans in the US, who have called for Barack Obama to rethink his planned withdrawal of the 14,000-strong residual force still present in Afghanistan. They have compared the fall of Kunduz – retaken by Afghan forces only after they received support from Nato – with the fall of Mosul to ISIL and have likened the situation in Afghanistan to those in Iraq and Syria.
That comparison is as appropriate as it is disingenuous.
While there can be little doubt that the recent escalation of the Afghan war is the handiwork of hardliners, the Taliban surge has been inevitable since 2003, when the US invaded Iraq. Had the Bush administration stayed focused on Afghanistan, the Taliban would not have had the opportunity to regroup and restart the war in 2006.
As in Iraq, the US and its 51 international partners chose to back a government with dubious credentials. Their anointed president, Hamid Karzai, proved to be as much of a liability as Nouri Al Maliki in Iraq. Both men have since been replaced by leaders with a far more constructive mindset.
As in Iraq and Syria, Washington and its allies are faced with another difficult choice. With a US presidential election looming, the Republicans are beating the drums of the war. Mr Obama may be persuaded to tinker with the schedule of the planned Nato military pull-out from Afghanistan to prevent the collapse of the government. If that is the choice he makes, Nato forces would have to be committed to another surge, if only to even the political odds for the Ghani administration for when and if negotiations with the Taliban resume.
If that does not happen, the Afghan government is likely to walk into the trap the insurgents have set : they want the government to reinforce northern Afghanistan with troops from the south, the Taliban’s spiritual homeland. If that gap is created, the Taliban will launch a massive offensive on Kandahar.
Nonetheless, it is obvious that Nato cannot stay in Afghanistan indefinitely. Ultimately, Afghanistan’s problems are its own and for its political factions to resolve or otherwise. If the country’s history is anything to go by, Afghanistan will be beset with Iraq-style violence unless the world’s two top powers, the US and China, can prevail upon troublemakers in Kabul and Islamabad to behave more responsibly.
Tom Hussain is a journalist and political analyst based in Islamabad
Twitter:@tomthehack
