As the US prepares to exit sooner, India must step up consultations with all stakeholders in Kabul
Military retreats are never pretty and can rarely stick to a plan. Washington’s signal that it might end the combat role of US forces in Afghanistan sooner than the earlier deadline of 2014 reflects the inevitable confusion surrounding the Western retreat from the prolonged war in the northwestern parts of the subcontinent. US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta announced international forces might shift to training and supportive roles in 2013. The US move comes after French President Nicolas Sarkozy declared he would pull out of Afghanistan in 2013. Both US President Barack Obama and Sarkozy are up for re-election this year and are responding to the growing disenchantment with the decade-long intervention in Afghanistan. While Washington plans to retain a small residual force, the ground realities are likely to evolve rather fast in the coming months.
Until now, all domestic and international stakeholders in Afghanistan have been working with the 2014 deadline for handing over security responsibilities. The US military leadership wanted to backload the process by proposing US forces retain a fighting role until the very end. That the military had been overruled by the White House is the new political message. Afghan President Hamid Karzai, his coalition partners representing non-Pashtun ethnic minorities, and the Taliban will all scramble to secure their own interests. So will Pakistan and Afghanistan’s other neighbours.
India has little reason to be surprised at the US rush to the exits. It must now prepare for an accelerated endgame in Afghanistan and step up its own consultations with all the major forces that have the potential to shape Kabul’s uncertain future.
