- There still too many unknowns to decide that the crisis is over
The Doha talks between the USA and the Taliban are supposed to be close to a settlement which will lead to the Taliban talking directly to the Kabul government and to an ending of the crisis. But before that agreement, it seems that the Taliban are still jockeying for position, trying to make territorial gains before the agreement, as witness their attack on Kunduz, repulsed as it was by Afghan government forces. However, that would assume that the Taliban have a unity of command that allows the coordination of military and diplomatic action. The alternative, much more chaotic, is that the Taliban negotiators do not necessarily have the ability to deliver on their promises, because the field commanders do not feel bound by them.
There is a parallel problem developing on the US side, where the inside circles of the Administration, close to US President Donald Trump, are also said to be advising him that there are no guarantees that the Taliban will fulfil their commitments. That leaves as the sole motive for making a settlement the withdrawal of US troops before the 2020 election. Again, this may be just jockeying for position, and may be a reaction to the attack on Kunduz. At the same time, a US Thinktank, the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, has said in its report on Kashmir that Pakistan might try to leverage its position in Afghanistan into pressuring the USA into making India come to the negotiating table.
This it should not do, for it must not take any action that will jeopardise peace in the region, and it should not forget that it will benefit as much as anyone from a peace agreement at this juncture. The pressure it seems to have been using is that of being a nuclear-armed country neighbouring another. That does not seem to have worked, with President Trump having said at Biarritz that the two countries could solve their problems together. Pakistan must be unreserved in its commitment to the current Afghan peace process. It should remember that the last time it made the USA bring India to the negotiating table, for the 1962 Bhutto-Swaran Singh talks, it did not get anything for its efforts.
