Dr. Omar Zakhilwal’s views before the fall of Kabul to Taliban
Dr. Omar Zakhilwal
Afghanistan once again is at a cross roads of a struggle between state survival and a deeper crisis. Over the past 7 years Dr. Ashraf Ghani ran the Afghan State like a private fiefdom. He spent enormous government resources, both on mainstream and social media, to elevate his image to the “Greatest Leader” Afghanistan ever had in addition to being “the second most intellectual person of the world”. He tried to make his face alone that of the State & the Republic. With untrue or exaggerated narratives, gross mismanagement, misuse of power, excessive repeated violation of the constitution, nepotism, instilling political and national divisiveness, deliberate politicization & demoralization of state institutions, political conspiracies, sabotaging of successive opportunities for peace and extension of his
rule by another 5-years by fraudulent means, he instead reduced the State & the Republic to his face. As a result, the Afghan national security forces are faced with the confusion whether they are fighting for the survival of the State or the continuation in power of
Dr. Ghani. The latter they don’t find worth fighting for. The fall of dozens of districts and provincial capitals to Taliban across Afghanistan every week without much of a fight lately is largely resulted of that confusion.
The Status Quo, with no change in management of the situation, points to one direction: continued killings and destruction for Afghans and a certain collapse of the entire State-the consequences of which for Afghans are well-known but for regional, neighbouring countries and the rest of the world will also be monumental.
The current tough circumstances – stalled peace talks and rapid melting down of the state require simultaneous two-pronged approach – one safeguarding the state from a collapse and another enhanced and authoritative management of peace talks that leads to a definite settlement. Neither is possible under Ashraf Ghani, one, because he has been the main cause of both wasting the opportunities for peace, and also of the rapid decline of the State both in terms of gravitas, authority and geographical control, and second, he has exhausted his entire credibility. He, therefore, has to go and spare what is left of the Afghan State from the ills of his management. Moving forward (without-Ghani), there is still an opportunity for the main national and international actors to get their act together for peace and stability in Afghanistan, however, the window of opportunity for that has been shrinking rapidly and the margin of error is at its absolute minimum.
Histories of our own & also that of other nations have shown that countries in such critical and difficult situations have come out of crisis only with broader political consensus, unity and national solidarity. It, therefore, falls on the rest of the political leadership to come out of its prevailing paralysis, acknowledge the severity of the situation and become part of a broader political management of the crisis.
The Taliban also need to make good on their statement that they would prefer a peace settlement and power sharing to a military victory and therefore a collapse of the state even if the latter was possible. They know that the collapse of the state will be as disastrous to them as it would be to the country just like it was to the “victorious” Mujahideen after the collapse of the communist regime in 1992.
If the Taliban are ready to conclude a peace settlement with the broader Afghan politcal leadership in a Bonn type of internationally backed UN-facilitated Intra-Afghan negotiation within two to three weeks then then the latter, minus Dr Ghani, also seem to be ready. Then the preferred option would be to move directly to an inclusive interim government through a peace settlement.
However, if it takes longer then the urgent safeguarding of the state and more genuine management of peace talks would require an immediate resignation of Dr. Ghani & replacing him with a Caretaker Government. The current apolitical Chief Justice of the country could be an easier option for the Caretaker Head of the State. The needed deliverables for the latter option would be appointing a Caretaker Government with specified power to stabilize and run the State.
Note: The above is a compilation of several tweets by Dr. Zakhilwal on the recent developments in Afghanistan.
Dr Omar Zakhilwal is a Former special envoy, Ambassador to Pakistan, Former Finance Minister & Former President’s Srep.
