Editor in Chief: Moh. Reza Huwaida Thursday, March 28th, 2024

No Arbitrary Shift or Handover

Afghanistan is relying on the U.S. and NATO military and political support to maintain its status quo and struggle to bring security and peace to the country. This is because there is a real need for international military and political support as the Taliban militants and other insurgent groups linked with broader network of terrorists in the region attempt to challenge the government and stymie the development and reconstruction efforts in different parts of the country.

The process that began from Bonn conference to build a prosperous and stable Afghanistan has already taken a decade but it is yet to get to success. Over the decade, international community stood by Afghan people to traverse the path of democratization and peace-building, for which the people here will remain grateful to the international community.

But in the meanwhile Afghan people also remain critic of international community for not doing enough to get their country rid of lunatic fringes that continue to kill innocent people, burn schools, pour acid on schoolchildren and destroy roads and bridges.

Now that more than ten years have passed and Afghan people continue to suffer, they expect international community to begin to redress the past lackluster and unsatisfactory performance and efforts to bring security and stability to the country.

The NATO-led military mission has decided to begin handing Afghan forces the lead in the battle against Taliban rebels with the aim of giving them full responsibility across the nation by 2014. It is not clear whether international community is able to hit the goal of handing over the lead to Afghan forces or not because the handover must be premised on peace for Afghan people, which continues to remain elusive given the ineffective strategy of international community and insurgents' strength. In fact, the shift or handover must not be arbitrary; a reliable and endurable peace must precede it.