And sellout Biden has asked us to suck it up and make a peace deal with Pakistan, and we did.
US & UAE as
this article seems to suggest and the Americans are racing the clock- which also explains this contrived détente in Indo-China-Pak context. The US focus is to somehow get the hell out of AFG whilst also ensuring it is functional enough to not cede space to al-qaeda for another 9/11. Recording some events of interest in chronological order:
2/2020 U.S. agreed to withdraw all its forces; in exchange, the Taliban promised to sever its ties with al-Qaeda and end its attacks on American forces
7/11 JB wins presidential election
25/11 Indian EAM SJ met bin Zayed and the crown prince on a two-day visit to Abu Dhabi
18/12 Pakistan FM SMQ met bin Zayed
20/1/21 JB inauguration
19/2 India-China complete disengagement at Pangong Tso
25/2 DGsMO smoke peace pipe
26/2 UAE FM meets Indian counterpart SJ in New Delhi
1-4/3 Khalilzad in Kabul hand-delivers a letter from the secretary of state to top Afghan leadership including India on the table
10/3 India to buy 30 Predator UCAVs from US
13/3 UAE demands $1b back from bankrupt Pakis (possibly to speed things up)
19/3 QJB's "bury the past" offer
20/3 NaMo wishes IK speedy recovery from covid
...
1/5 The US-Taliban agreement stipulates that there should be no US troops left on Afghan soil
1 May is only 39 days away & total American withdrawal by then looks very
iffy right now. May happen some months later if at all..
"The American people have wanted us out of Afghanistan probably for the last decade," said Rep. Ro Khanna, a leading progressive in Congress and member of the House Armed Services Committee, adding that the issue cuts across party lines.
"The president's goal is very, very clear," Blinken told members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee in March 1 testimony. "It's to bring our troops home, and it's to ensure that Afghanistan does not become a haven for terrorism and an ongoing threat to the United States."
Paul Pillar, a former U.S. intelligence officer for the Near East and South Asia, said the lingering trauma of the Sept. 11 attacks makes any debate about Afghanistan particularly fraught.
There's a "reluctance on the part of any U.S. administration to pull the plug on the Afghanistan endeavor," lest it be followed by another terrorist attack connected to the country, he said during
a March 11 forum.
"Then the administration that did the pull out would be taking the political heat for it,"
Indian PoV:
The Afghan polity is highly divided, with each side trying to ensure their political survival – but New Delhi believes that they won’t go beyond a certain bottom line in allowing Pakistani influence over the power-sharing architecture.
“Their goal and our goal are pretty much the same. They cannot tolerate the idea of an Afghanistan strategically subservient to Pakistan,” explained an Indian official.
In the Afghan chess board all players from the AFG leadership to Taliban to countries part of the negotiations are all fighting to save their interests- the Great Game is well and truly underway!
