The Afghan peace agreement.

There are two of these, a fact which missed notice as many in Pakistan and the region celebrated what Ashraf Ghani most ominously described as 'disrupting the status quo'. What was the status-quo? The 18-year-old war between the US, the Afghan forces and the Taliban; and the likes of Ghani and Karzai sitting atop an improvised political structure which held them aloft on American props. That was the status-quo.

The first of these was signed in Doha between the two warring sides, the Taliban and the US; it's essential aim: to bring closure to a 'long and unnecessary' war as President Trump calls it. The US has in all these years expended around a trillion dollars without much to show and would like to cut their losses. They want to leave and probably will. If that can be done with some finesse of an enduring political settlement it will only add to their credibility. But will the need for the latter inhibit their decision to exit, is unlikely; though it just might entail variations to the plan.

The second agreement between the US and the Afghan government was inked by Secretary of Defence Mark Esper in Kabul to commit the Afghan government to the essential elements of peace agreed in Doha. Ghani's re-election had preceded both the agreements as a possible quid pro quo for Ghani and his government's undertaking to conform to the agreements through additional protocols and assurances. If there is to be a show stopper to this entire scheme, the fight over Ghani's claim to the presidency would be central to it. Without the executive power fully known by all sides any attempt at dialogue between the Taliban and the Afghan government will be meaningless and fickle; hence the importance of the matter to be first settled before a larger peace construct can be engaged in.

But the small print in the Kabul agreement is most interesting because it weans the Afghan government ever so subtly into submitting to the plan of peace and America's exit as a done deal. As an example, on the issue of 'permanent' cease-fire and lasting 'political settlement' it links the exchange of prisoners as a conditional enabler even though America commits to playing the arbiter. The post-agreement ire of the US on Ghani's refusal to comply to the prisoners release is the case in point. The timeline of the withdrawal in particular assumes Afghan obeisance. Of course the agreement sugar-coats the conditions to appease Afghan sensitivity but to defy what should come next by...