The US Withdrawal,Peace Process And Its Underlaying Challenges In Afghanistan:An Analysis Of Post-2014 Era

Since 2014,war and unrest in Afghanistan has grown into its peak point and caused irreparable damages to the country and its people.Returning security initiatives to Afghan national forces,political divisions,continues rise of deadly terrorist attacks by different terrorist groups and lack of peace has put the security of the country into extreme danger.Peace and security are among the distinctive needs for the People of Afghanistan.Many years of war and unrest in Afghanistan have caused severe destructions to the country and its people.During the years of war in Afghanistan,achieving peace and security has become an unattainable dream.Undoubtedly,in this disastrous period of time,the people have been becoming the main victims of insecurity.The people had two options,whether to stay in the country and face the hardship or to sought refuge in neighboring countries and to suffer displacements.Despite all the challenges,Afghanistan has made significant political and economic progress since 2001;however,it remains in the front line in the fight against terrorism,drugs and organized crimes in the region.Since 2014,particularly following the peace negotiations,Afghanistan should have been closer to peace,but on the contrary,violence and civilian casualties have increased significantly.It also remained horrific,where a lot of innocent people,including women and children were killed and injured by continuous terrorist attacks on military and non-military establishments,on private and public institutions,in villages and towns.The peace talks which were facilitated by Qatar in Doha between US and Taliban,finally brought a peace deal between two sides on February 29,2020;the peace deal was titled as the “Agreement for Bringing Peace to Afghanistan”.Since2014,more particularly throughout the Trump administration,the US made a policy shift and the war in Afghanistan escalated,which put other major powers into concern.In fact,the policy shift by the administration of Trump toward Taliban and Kabul have significantly created a complex security and political challenges for Afghanistan,which have strengthened Taliban’s military and political influence in the country.This is hugely a sad price that the people of Afghanistan pay every day due to lack of regional and extra-regional consensus on Afghanistan’s long-term stability and sustainable development,which remains as a great challenge on the way of peace.The neighboring countries and all other international partners have failed to act on the basis of the fact that a stable Afghanistan guarantees and provides a stable region.Although consensus on the need to bring stability to Afghanistan often emerges in rhetoric,this can hardly lead to tangible outcomes for achieving a lasting peace that the Afghan people aspire.Unfortunately,the unfavorable regional and extra-regional consensus on Afghanistan is based on the preferences of state actors to advance their geo strategic goals.By using non-governmental actors as tools,they created divisions among Afghan ethnic groups and provided the opportunity for all the terrorist attributed groups,like Al-Qaida,Taliban and ISIS in the country,which enabled them to significantly advance their terrorist attacks and endanger the peace and security in Afghanistan.The research questions of this study were that why were the security situations in Afghanistan deteriorated in post 2014 era and what were the underlaying challenges in the way of restoration of peace and stability in Afghanistan.This study is divided in to five chapters.Chapter one presents the background of the study,research objective,research questions,literature review,theoretical framework and research methodology.Chapter two presents the historical background of peace process and the startup of US policy shift toward Afghanistan.The withdrawal announcement has put its significant effects on Afghanistan’s security situation and peace negotiations.The call for withdrawal has mainly played the role to ease the ways for talks between the conflict parties,contrastingly,since the withdrawal announcement the security situation has gradually worsen.The HPC was established to facilitate the ways for negotiations with Taliban to solve up the ongoing conflict between the government of Afghanistan and Taliban for peace reintegration.Chapter three explains the US policy shift and its consequences on post 2014 peace process.This Chapter is focusing over the important topics,which mainly starts form the struggles by US,Afghanistan and Taliban over the peace process and security stability.United States and Afghanistan have tried to communicate with Taliban in order to establish direct talks with them.The establishment of Qatar’s office has played its fundamental role through easing the way for the direct talks and exchange of prisoners between US and Taliban in May 2014.The signing of the Security and Defense Cooperation Agreement between Afghanistan and the United States(BSA)incorporated into the strategic agreement between the two sides,but remained ineffective on the ground.The policy shift by US during the Trump administration was highly noticeable,which was resulted to a peace deal with Taliban in February 29,2020.On the other side,since the peace deal was signed,the security situation has significantly deteriorated as compare to past years in Afghanistan due to the unfair and exclusive peace deal with Taliban.Chapter four enlightens the challenges hindering Afghanistan’s peace process,which is the main focus of this study.Several years after the establishment of the new political system and the widespread presence of the international partners,mainly since 2014,the issue of securing or establishing peace in the country is still an unresolved scenario.Undoubtedly,the establishment of peace in a country that has been in war and crisis for four decades is not something that can be realized immediately.The challenges which hinder Afghanistan’s peace process have been completely made it a deadlocked,which is all due to the spread of insecurity and the intensity of external and enteral challenges to the peace process.There are a number of major internal and external challenges to peace process in Afghanistan.The internal challenges are: competing interests of Afghanistan government and Taliban;intra Afghan dialogues;power sharing formula;political inconsistency,extremism,and poverty.The issue of the continuation of violence and its increasing number not only has caused numerous crises inside the country,but it has also questioned the policies and practices of some members of the international partners in the eyes of the public opinion of those countries and created tensions.Among them are political discussions and conflicts about the presence of U.S.forces in Afghanistan.More significantly,Afghanistan has become a place of conflict of interest for regional and extra-regional countries and the world,thus,achieving lasting peace and connecting points for all actors is not free of problems and challenges.As a result,the security situation has gradually begun to deteriorate in Afghanistan,especially since 2014.Consequently,Taliban has extended its sphere of influence in most parts of the country,which has posed a great threat for the existing government of Afghanistan.Chapter five of the study comprises of the conclusion and some recommendations.The study concludes that the US policy shift toward Afghanistan by creating bilateral relations with Taliban,which excluded the government of Afghanistan has played an important role in deteriorating the security conditions of Afghanistan and complicated the efforts of the peace process.The study provides important recommendations in the context of difficulties and challenges which Afghanistan’s peace and security had faced.