News Analysis |
Afghan National Security Advisor Hamdullah Mohib, who is on an official tour to the United States of America, has blamed U.S special envoy for Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad of deliberately “delegitimizing” the Kabul government for its own personal interests. “Knowing Ambassador Khalilzad’s history, his own personal history, he has ambitions in Afghanistan.
He was wanting to run for president twice,” Mohib said hours before scheduled talks at the U.S. State Department. “The perception in Afghanistan and people in government think that perhaps, perhaps all this talk is to create a caretaker government of which he will then become the viceroy.”
In many ways, the anger and agitation of the Kabul regime are justified as they had been brought to power via U.S approval and given a hope that once beaten Northern Alliance would get to rule Afghanistan, a prospect which seems unlikely under current order.
“The reason he is delegitimizing the Afghan government and weakening it, and at the same time elevating the Taliban can only have one approach. It’s definitely not for peace,” he said.
So far the ongoing dialogue process between Afghan Taliban and the United States via designated special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad has been going smoothly, as per the U.S interest and objectives but not the same could be said about those sitting in the de facto Afghan government. They have been utterly sidelined with no representation whatsoever in the dialogue process on account of the Taliban’s inflexibility of accepting any legitimacy of the Afghan lawmakers.
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A broader agreement incorporating the U.S interest says that Afghanistan will not be allowed to be used against the United States in the future. However, the more pressing matter of how the post-U.S withdrawal Afghanistan would be governed, as the Taliban and the government forces tussle for the reins of power, remains unanswered.
Ghani disgruntled with the United States of America
U.S special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad could not be reached as of now to respond to these allegations; nonetheless, a state department representative speaking anonymously has said that Hamdullah Mohib’s remarks do not represent the working relations between both Kabul and Washington.
A jibe which Ashraf Ghani has taken on Zalmay Khalilzad is actually a punch to the U.S establishment which still wants to remain relevant in the matters pertaining to Afghanistan.
While it is imperative that a U.S official would obviously try to paint an all rosy picture for the state of affairs between the U.S and the Afghan government since the former is the godfather who has made the latter’s very existence possible. But Afghan National Security advisor’s comments are not “one-off, inaccurate and unhelpful” as the state department is trying to brush them under the carpet.
In the broader context, these words have come directly from the Afghan President Ashraf Ghani who wants to make a statement publicly for the world to bear witness that they are not an entity which would be allowed to run over for the sake of U.S strategic objectives.
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In many ways, the anger and agitation of the Kabul regime are justified as they had been brought to power via U.S approval and given a hope that once beaten Northern Alliance would get to rule Afghanistan, a prospect which seems unlikely under current order. Not only they have been ignored, but even they get updated about the developments of the ongoing dialogue process via media or U.S government like the rest of the world despite being a direct stakeholder in the crisis.
A jibe which Ashraf Ghani has taken on Zalmay Khalilzad is actually a punch to the U.S establishment which still wants to remain relevant in the matters pertaining to Afghanistan. What has worked for the United States so far might not work for Afghan people.
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Also, the U.S gains in the ongoing negations in many ways are nominal in nature since the contemporary world is much different in various aspects to the pre-9/11 era and the United States did not need a guarantee for its security from Taliban anyways. But it is critical and troublesome for those people in Afghanistan who are given hope of democracy in first place and now being pushed once again to an uncertain future.