Agreement for Bringing Peace to Afghanistan: A Comprehensive Peace Agreement or a Mere Withdrawal Deal?

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Abstract

The United States and the Taliban have recently signed a peace agreement aimed at bringing the nineteen-year-long war in Afghanistan to an end. Negotiations between the two parties were broadly based on the exchange of a timeline for the withdrawal of foreign forces stationed in Afghanistan against an assurance from the Taliban on preventing the use of Afghan soil for any future attacks against the United States and its allies (US Department of State, 2020). However, the peace agreement left most issues concerning the future of the Afghan polity and society unresolved - to be taken up later by an intra-Afghan negotiation process between the Afghan government and the Taliban. The crucial issue concerns whether the ‘Agreement for bringing peace to Afghanistan’ signed between the US and the Taliban will help bring about the intended peace and stability in Afghanistan - or whether it will merely act as a withdrawal agreement allowing the United States to pull out troops from a long-stretched battle in a war-torn country. […]