Afghan and US officials are engaged in negotiations which are described as last-minute attempt by the US to conclude a security deal with Afghanistan before Barack Obama’s October deadline ends. The unexpected visit of US Secretary of State John Kerry is seen as US frustration with the Afghan government over the delay in the much-awaited signing Bilateral Security Agreement between Afghanistan and the United States. US president Barack Obama has asked Afghan President Hamid Karzai to decide for signing a security agreement by this October. And, Karzai has persistently said that he would only sign a deal with the US if the agreement serves interests of Afghanistan tacitly referring to security and sovereignty concerns. Karzai has now ordered for arrangements of convening the Loya Jirga to discuss the fate of the security agreement with the US.

In recent weeks, media reports and tip-offs from both Afghanistan and US capitals have been suggesting that the negotiations have almost failed to resolve some key terms of the security deal that would allow presence of residual forces of the US and its allied nations in Afghanistan beyond 2014. Despite officials saying that most of the detailed negotiations are completed by the Afghan and US negotiators, those are the few unresolved sticking points that have put the negotiations virtually in a stalemate and are threatening the deal altogether. US officials have once again renewed the warnings that the country may consider pulling out all forces as the negotiations with the Afghan government is not making any progress.

The negotiations on the Bilateral Security Agreement have been stumbling from the beginning with distrusts between the two countries dominating relations between Kabul and Washington. However, the negotiations have been overshadowed even more with some hidden tensions boiling between the countries. According to Afghan officials, US forces recently approached an Afghan convoy and seized Pakistani Taliban leader Latif Mehsud who the Afghan Intelligence was trying to make deals with and use him as an interlocutor for peace efforts. Though the US has refrained to comment over the issue, but involvement of Pakistani Taliban – a militant group Mehsud belongs to – in the terrorist plot of New York’s Times Square somehow explains possible reasons for involvement of the US in seizing Mehsud from Afghan agents.

And recently, the Afghan Taliban claimed that Mullah Baradar, the once second-hand man to Mullah Omar, is not released from prison. Previously, Pakistan had announced his release after months of negotiations between Kabul and Islamabad over his release. Here too the Afghan government is suspicious of an American role and sees the hands of US behind Pakistan’s move to put Baradar back in detention or under surveillance like house arrest. The Americans have long been arguing that release of militants’ senior leaders threaten lives of US troops in Afghanistan as the released members of the Taliban may end up in the battlefields against Afghan and NATO forces. All these recent hidden tensions have built upon previous Karzia’s suspicions to US role in the peace efforts and negotiations with the Taliban. The culmination of the suspicions was the abrupt suspension of US-Afghan talks by Karzai in protest to US role in the opening of the Taliban Qatar office.

In return, Obama has also had his criticisms to Karzai. He always considered the Afghan president an unreliable partner. In fact, Obama and Karzai had never been able to establish a mutual understanding for jointly leading the mission of stabilizing Afghanistan. Their failure to do so considerably contributed to the past failures of the anti-insurgency campaign in Afghanistan. And here, another failure of that sort may come soon. Both the leaders miss a common ground on the post-2014 partnership of Afghanistan and the United States.

The cumulated suspicions and distrusts between the two sides have been creeping with the security negotiations between Afghan and US teams all along. On the other hand, it seems that the Afghan officials have misconceptions and flawed calculations about US commitment to Afghanistan’s future and the importance of US relies on its prolonged presence in post-2014 Afghanistan. Top Afghan officials have the firm belief that the US would never completely withdraw from Afghanistan. But the fact is that the Iraq experience has proved it otherwise. Iraq was important for the US and Washington wanted to keep forces in Iraq. But when the two sides failed to ensure immunity for US forces, the US abruptly pulled out all troops from the country and ended US presence there.

President Karzai’s calculations about importance of a post-2014 presence for US here in Afghanistan have played all along the negotiations on the security deal. These miscalculations could scuttle the deal entirely and put an end to US presence in Afghanistan too. However, failing to secure a deal between Afghanistan and US would not necessarily be with the same consequences as was for Iraq. For Afghanistan, it would be absolutely different. Unlike Iraq, Afghanistan will continue to rely on the aid packages provided by the US and its allies to keep up its government and security forces. Undeniably, a complete withdrawal of NATO forces would inevitably result to considerable decline in foreign assistance, something Afghanistan cannot afford to bear. On the other hand, Afghan security forces would only be able to effectively lead the campaign against the Taliban after 2014, if they are sustainably trained and equipped. Hence, a possible failure of the negotiations on US-Afghan security deal would simply be as a disaster for Afghanistan.

However, Afghanistan has its own legitimate demands in the negotiations with the US negotiators. Building capable army that could deal with both internal and external threats is a main concern for Afghanistan. And so is US commitment to protect Afghanistan from foreign aggressions if the US stays in Afghanistan beyond 2014. It seems that US agreeing of either building capable security forces that would be able to deal with the internal and external threats or protecting Afghanistan against possible foreign aggressions would appease the Afghan government. But the question is that will the Afghan government continue to remain inflexible and stick to its demands even if the talks fails or it manages for securing a deal along with Afghanistan’s interests?