JESSICA DESVARIEUX: Welcome to the Real News Network. I'm Jessica Desvarieux in Baltimore.
President Barack Obama has decided to leave some 5,500 U.S. troops in Afghanistan beyond
the end of his second term. Many do not see this news as much of a surprise given recent
advances by the Taliban in Northern Afghanistan cities like Kunduz. But what path is President
Obama putting America on? And after 14 years in this conflict, are we looking at endless
war?
Here to help us answer some of these questions is our guest Anand Gopal. He is a writer covering
Afghanistan and the author of the book No Good Men Among the Living: America, the Taliban,
and the War Through Afghan Eyes. Thank you so much for joining us, Anand.
ANAND GOPAL: Thanks for having me.
DESVARIEUX: So Anand, I love your book title. I mean, I think we are going to kind of have
the interview go through those different perspectives that you mention. Let's start off with America.
Do you feel that right now America has a clear objective? And if so, what is that objective?
GOPAL: No, the U.S. doesn't really have a clear objective. Starting out in 2001 the
objective was to defeat Al-Qaeda, and actually they achieved that objective very quickly.
Within six months of the invasion Al-Qaeda was essentially no more in Afghanistan. And
to this day Al-Qaeda barely exists in the country. But what started as a war against
Al-Qaeda quickly morphed into a war against local farmers, local Afghans, many of whom
know nothing about 9/11. In fact when you talk to Afghans and you ask them why is the
U.S. in your country, very often they don't know the answer to that.
And so for the last 13-14 years, this has been a war essentially against a local insurgency.
And it's almost like a sunk cost. People are, they're sort of pouring money into this war
just because they've already poured so much money into the war, not because there's a
clear objective to it.
DESVARIEUX: What do you make of the argument that now that the United States has sort of
renewed engagement in Afghanistan that they can actually get all the players to the table?
We're talking about Pakistan, the Taliban, warlords, et cetera. What do you make of that
argument?
GOPAL: Well, it's going to be difficult just because all of these players have interests
that aren't necessarily aligned with peace. For example, you mentioned warlords. Warlords
are only warlords if there's a war to fight. And the moment there's peace they will lose
their money, they will lose their weapons, and they will cease to be powerful.
And so this is a major problem. It's also a problem with the Afghan government. The
Afghan government is being supported almost entirely by international funds. And government
officials in Afghanistan know that if there's no fighting, if there's no Taliban and if
there's no ISIS in Afghanistan, then the international community's not going to fund it. If the international
community doesn't fund them, then the state will collapse. So there are entrenched interests
that want to see the perpetuation of this conflict, unfortunately.
DESVARIEUX: The American media has also portrayed this conflict, at least when it comes to the
Taliban, as not really wanting to engage in a political solution. How accurate is that
portrayal, Anand, and is the Taliban ready to negotiate a peace settlement?
GOPAL: Well, the thing we have to keep in mind when we talk about the Taliban is that
they're not--there's no single entity called the Taliban. It's not a monolithic entity.
In fact it's so many different currents and factions and tendencies that really are only
united by one fact, and that fact is that they oppose foreign occupation, foreign troops.
So you know, there are elements within the Taliban who realize that really they're never
going to take the country again and are never going to see a 1990s regime again, and therefore
they think that a peacefully negotiated settlement is the best path. There are other elements
of the Taliban who think that, you know what, the U.S. only have 5,000 troops on the ground.,
and maybe they're going to leave in 2017, so we should just stick it out and fight.
So there's no coherence between those two sides, unfortunately.
DESVARIEUX: And they also have an office in Doha, is that correct, where they're starting
to negotiate some terms?
GOPAL: So this is an example of the sort of, the factionalism of the Taliban. They have
a political office in Doha, and the people who are based there want to negotiate. But
then there are people on the ground in places like Kunduz who are fighting and risking their
lives and dying, who are saying we don't want to negotiate, you know, we just took a major
city, we want to keep fighting.
DESVARIEUX: And we can't talk about the Taliban without talking about the role of Pakistan
in all of this. Some may not know this but the Taliban was actually created by the Pakistani
government back in the '90s. And there are some sections of the Pakistani government
that have been really loyal supporters of the Taliban in Afghanistan. Anand, can you
just talk about this? Because President Obama will have an opportunity to discuss all of
this with the Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif during his upcoming visit to Washington.
Explain, why is Pakistan so reluctant to get on board with pressuring the Taliban to call
for a ceasefire, at the very least?
GOPAL: Well, you know, right now Pakistan has changed its tack a little bit from previous
years, where they are trying to get elements of the Taliban into peace talks. But the thing
is that Pakistan wants to [make] control over that process. So the biggest nightmare for
Pakistanis is if the Taliban were to go and strike a peace deal with the Afghan government
and leave the Pakistanis out. So they view the Taliban as sort of their insurance policy
to ensure their interest in Afghanistan. And so they are very reluctant to have any sort
of independent politics taking place in Afghanistan.
And so that's been a major problem, that's been a roadblock to peace over the years.
There's been cases where Taliban leaders and commanders have tried to initiate peace talks,
and Pakistan didn't like the fact that they were doing it on their own. They got arrested,
in some cases they got killed. So this is sort of a very nefarious game that Pakistan
is playing, it has essentially played for the last 30 years in Afghanistan.
DESVARIEUX: Can you just quickly outline some of those interests that Pakistan has in Afghanistan?
GOPAL: Well, the biggest interest stems from the post-2001 regime, the Karzai government,
which tilted very heavily towards India. And so Pakistan wanted a counterweight to what
it saw was increasing Indian influence in Pakistan. So India was closely allied with
the Northern Alliance. If you remember, they were the force that was fighting against the
Taliban in the '90s. So they were, India was also allied with Karzai. And so Pakistan saw
the Taliban insurgency as a way to at least pressure the Afghan government, and to see
if Pakistani interests could be maintained vis-a-vis India, Indian influence. That's
the main sort of interest.
The second is that there's many, many millions of Pashtuns that are living in Pakistan. In
fact, more Pashtuns live in Pakistan than Afghanistan. And one of the reasons why Pakistan
likes the Taliban is because the Taliban is not a Pashtun nationalist force. They're not
calling for, sort of, the ending of the Durand Line, which is the boundary between Pakistan
and Afghanistan, and a united Pashtunistan. Instead they are calling for Islamic State
in Afghanistan. So it's something that's very safe from the point of view of Pakistani elites,
compared to what existed before in the '60s and '70s, which were strong Pashtun nationalist
movements that actually were looking to break Pakistan apart and absorb the large Pashtun
population into Afghanistan.
DESVARIEUX: All right, Anand. Let's pause the conversation here. In Part 2 we'll look
at the war from the Afghan perspective and understand what the interests are on the ground.
Thank you so much for joining us, Anand.
GOPAL: Thank you.
DESVARIEUX: And thank you for joining us on the Real News Network.