 Good afternoon. My name is Scott Worden and I am the director of the Afghanistan and Central Asia program for the US Institute of Peace. I'm delighted to welcome all of you here today on this Friday afternoon for an important and timely discussion on the Afghan peace process and prospects for its success. For those that don't know USIP, we were founded by Congress in 1984 as an independent National Institute dedicated to the proposition that peace is possible, peace is practical, and peace is essential for US security. USIP pursues this vision of a world without violent conflict by working on the ground with local partners. We provide people, organizations, and governments with the tools, knowledge, and training to manage conflicts so that it does not become violent and to resolve it when it does. This discussion couldn't come at a better time because the peace process is very active right now. In Kabul, they have just concluded a consultative lawyer, Jerga, assessing priorities for peace process by the Afghan people and currently, investors on like Khalil Zad is negotiating with the Taliban in the series of discussions they have had on protecting US national security interests from terrorism in Afghanistan. The USIP has been deeply involved in Afghanistan since 2002. We've had an office in Kabul since 2008. We work closely with the Afghan government as well as with civil society organizations in Afghanistan on programs, research, and ideas to reduce the violence in the country and to improve stability going forward. The support to the Afghan peace process is USIP's highest priority right now. We are working closely with the US government and the Afghan government, but we are also mindful that peace processes don't succeed and they don't last if the people in a country are not behind it. And therefore, it is essential to have civil society, women, youth, and other groups included in the process so that it will be successful. We have a great panel here this morning. It will be led and moderated by Johnny Walsh. He's worked for the last two years with USIP as a senior expert on peace processes in Afghanistan. He has a long career in the State Department, both working with the SRAP, the Special Representative for Afghanistan, as well as on Iraq and Middle East issues. I'll turn it over to him for introductions and thank you for joining us. Thank you very much Scott and thank you to you all for coming. Welcome to USIP and thank you to everyone on C-SPAN for joining us as well. Just to set the stage very briefly, I think it's a particularly interesting moment at which to be having this conversation due to three very recent developments that are still very much underway. Right as we speak, Zal, Ambassador Khalilzad, is in Doha for a fresh round of talks with the Taliban. This week also in Kabul, as Scott mentioned, over 2,500 people gathered in a Loya Jergo, which has been considered one of President Ghani's signature initiatives for this moment in the peace process. And only, I think, less than two weeks ago, there was a very near miss in Doha at what would have been the first gathering among the Taliban, the Afghan government and other Afghans to have a serious discussion of the political issues that could potentially end this war. And I think what brings these three developments together is there's a long-standing vital question that's finally coming to a head, which is how can we collectively turn positive movement on U.S.-Taliban discussions into a serious peace negotiation among Afghans that would actually have a chance of ending the war? Because it's not something I think all would agree that just the U.S. and Taliban can negotiate by themselves. And so as we all grapple with this question, the challenges overlaid are enormous. In the United States, both parties, I think, are impatient to ultimately get out of Afghanistan. There's an insurgency that remains extremely strong and is at least tempted to attempt to wait the U.S. out. The Afghan political class, I think it's fair to say pretty uniformly wants peace but is deeply divided, including on how to achieve peace. And that's to say nothing of upcoming presidential elections in both Afghanistan and the United States that make everything in this space just a little more complicated. And meanwhile the war is really more horrible than ever. I think it looks quite likely that the 2019 fighting season will be a very, very bloody one despite efforts by many parties to achieve a near-term ceasefire. The 2018 fighting season reclaimed Afghanistan's sorry place as, I think, the most violent conflict in the world. And so it shows the urgency, not just the political logic, but the urgency of trying to find a way out of this war. And a final comment before I introduce the panelists themselves is, I hope that conversations like this can help advance the larger thinking about what compromises actually can end a war of this kind. Because at root, a peace process is not about achieving what any one of us, any one party wants. It's about what they can potentially give or do to accommodate the other side. And that goes for all of them. So for every side it means on some level abandoning the dream of ultimately, of comprehensively winning the war. It means accepting that if there is a peace agreement it will involve some amount of legitimacy for one's enemy. It might involve political power for one's enemy, a degree of it anyway. So this is not to be defeatist, but it's that no peace process has ever succeeded without working through these issues. And I hope discussions among panelists of the caliber we have today, discussions of the sorts going on in Kabul and Doha can help advance that question. And so moving from my immediate left, our panelists include Lutfala Najafizada. He's the head of Tolo News TV, itself one of the finest products of post-2001 Afghanistan truly a gifted journalist, one of the keenest observers of Afghan politics that I've ever dealt with. Jarrett Blanc is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He was previously the deputy special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, among other jobs. And he played a leading role in some really important U.S. efforts on the Afghan peace process during very difficult years when I too was working there at the State Department. Belki Sakhmadi is a senior officer here at the U.S. Institute of Peace. Over 20 years of experience on Afghanistan, very deep networks, especially among Afghan civil society, women's groups. She's just returned from Kabul to speak with many of these groups about where we stand in the peace process. I hope we hear a little more about that later on. And Scott Smith is a senior fellow here at USIP and recently returned as the political director for UNAMA, which is to say the United Nations mission inside Afghanistan. He was the lead on all political issues. So I thank each of you for joining us. I look forward to hearing what you have to say. I'd ask maybe each of you give five to 10 minutes of opening thoughts about we stand where we stand in the peace process. I may fire a question or two at you after that and then I look forward to a discussion with the room. So I look forward to perhaps you open. Thank you. We were about to go to Doha but the plane didn't come. So I thought I should probably take a plane go to DC and I'm glad that I'm here today and great to see a lot of friends thanks to USIP for arranging this event. I think there is a very strong sense of urgency at the moment for Afghanistan to reach some sort of political settlement. I'm carefully not using the word peace because it has different meanings to a lot of people. But one should probably put a step back and see if the peace process in Afghanistan is a new thing or not. And who wants peace in Afghanistan and who is against peace? The earliest memory I have from my childhood is when the rocket landed at our house in Kabul and we left, I think it was in 1993, we left for Mazar Sharif in the north. So that was associated with war and conflict and civil war and all sorts of war. But at the same time in the past four decades that we witnessed conflict in Afghanistan, there has been on and off efforts for peace as well. Some of us, like Lise, was here remember and cover some of those developments for so many years and decades. So talking about peace is not necessarily a very, very new thing. And it's not just today we wake up and trying to come to a political settlement. And that's why it's important to learn from the lessons of the past few decades. Also, I think we shouldn't waste time in Afghanistan to identify who is for peace and who is against peace. There is such a unanimous consensus on peace. All Afghans want peace. This is such a desperate desire for all of us as Afghans and for our international partners. At Tolo News alone we have lost 11 colleagues in just the past three years. So this is personal. And that has to come to an end. I think all Afghans want peace. Why the peace processes in the past have not delivered and failed? I think it would be a fundamental mistake if today we try to draw a zero sum game to define who's going to win, who's going to lose. Are we going to lose and Kabul the Taliban are going to win? Are the Taliban going to lose? Or are we going to win? I think that would be a strategic mistake if we start thinking like that. So there has to be, as Johnny you said, some sort of compromise on both fronts. And that was the fundamental reason why the efforts of the 90s didn't really deliver because that produces winners and losers for short terms. And then subsequently it resulted in continuation of conflict throughout the country. I think a zero sum game approach would be a fundamental mistake. Coming to today's efforts, I think Ambassador Khalilzad has clearly defined that there are two areas for the peace process, the American-centric approach and then the Afghan-centric approach. The American-centric approach focused on counterterrorism and drawdown is fundamentally important for the United States, but it's deeply linked its success and failure to the Afghan components of the deal, which are ceasefire and an ultimate Afghan settlement. The question is, how are we going to get to that settlement? If there is no winner and loser, are we sitting in Kabul, in the media, in the private sector, in the government? As you said, the gains of the past 18 years, how much of a compromise are we going to make? What are at stake? I personally believe that any political settlement is one step back, hopefully tactically, for some of us. And then it should be a step forward for the Taliban. So we can tell the Taliban that this Afghanistan of today has come a long way that it can absorb all parties, including the Taliban. I think the common grounds for the Taliban and the rest of the Afghan society is an Islamic Republic. I fundamentally believe that that is the solution. I asked Ambassador Khalilzad in a similar town hall meeting last week in Kabul that what can we make out of, what if we put the Islamic Emirates and the Islamic Republic in a mixer? What do we get out of it? And he said, well, the word Islam, we can find in both. And then in terms of an Emirate system or a Republic system, that would be a difficult debate. But I think it's critical for us to engage with the Taliban. And also in the interests of the United States and our international partners to engage with the Taliban in a strategic dialogue to ensure that we keep the trajectory of the past 18 years. And then we built on that. Why I emphasize so much on this, it's not just a name. I think a setback on a Republic system would mean a huge victory, not just for the Taliban, but for so many other groups like the Taliban who carry this Islamic ambitions throughout the world. So this might pose national security risks to the U.S. and to many other countries throughout the world. So I believe that in the next 18 months or two years, there are four fundamental elements to a political settlement if we're going to get one. First, there has to be ceasefire. Without ceasefire, you can't really continue talking. The momentum will be lost. If there is ongoing talks in Doha and ongoing fighting in Kabul, the one in Kabul is going to take the headlines. And efforts like Doha, maybe elsewhere, Norway, Germany, Indonesia, who else, Uzbekistan, they have all shown interest to host Afghan dialogues. So ceasefire will fundamentally overshadow the peace process. So ceasefire is critical as first step. Second step, I think, is an agreement on a transitional government. I'm not saying necessarily an interim setup or interim government, but a government to implement the details of a political agreement is very, very important. And I believe it's inevitable. Not necessarily that I support it or I think this is the best decision for Afghanistan, but I really don't think that the Taliban would jump on a running train. So the train must stop at some point. And then the new people get on board and then continue the journey. So some sort of a transitional setup, I believe, is critical. Third is changing the constitution. Changing the constitution of Afghanistan is something that the lawyer, which concludes today, also suggested. So all of us agree to an extent that there are amendments needed. The question is to what degree? I think that's not what I think that there is in such a such a great consensus over what the Taliban want or what changes we want. And then fourth is, as I said earlier, is agreeing on a political system, on what kind of a political system Afghanistan might have post-deal. And then my last point is even if all four happens, are we going to get to peace or not? Even if we get the Taliban come to Kabul, run half of the government, if not more, does that mean peace or not? The very recent attack in Kabul, which took the entire city of five million people hostage for more than half a day, was claimed by Daesh. Taliban said they had no role in it. So does it really mean Afghanistan is putting steps towards peace? One argument is that, of course, the Taliban is the underlying reason for instability in Afghanistan. So this is the biggest step towards peace. But this is not the only step that Afghanistan requires towards getting a lasting and sustainable inclusive peace. There are so many factors, being social factors, being regional factors, and being political factors, not necessarily linked to the Taliban, which contribute to the ongoing conflict in Afghanistan. So talking about peace in Afghanistan is not just talking about the Taliban, but I think this is just one step forward. I'll stop here. Thank you. Thank you. Scott, Johnny, thank you so much for having me. It's always a pleasure to be at USIP, and it's a particular privilege to be on this, the least distinguished of this distinguished panel. I've been asked to provide a justification and defense and apology for the US-led peace process. And asking me to defend the current administration's policy is odd, but I actually believe it and tend to do it. And I think that the beginning of that defense is quite simple. The reason that this peace process makes sense is that it's plausible. As difficult as it is, as many ways in which it might fail, its success is plausible. There is a way to envision going from the current recent steps to a reasonable, decent outcome in Afghanistan. And in fact, it is more plausible, I would suggest, than any other policy that's available to us on the table. It's not as if we are slowly winning the war in Afghanistan. And if only the United States were willing to make the current level of commitment or triple the level of commitment, or 100 times the level of commitment for the next 40 years, we would get to the end state in Afghanistan that we would all sort of ideally want in a perfect world. That's just not what's happening right now. If you compare the Afghanistan that I arrived in in early 2002 to the Afghanistan today, there's obviously been immense economic development. There's been immense social development. You can't make a credible, plausible case that our intervention over the course of the last two decades has really moved us in sort of an appreciable, positive direction in terms of the political resolution of the underlying conflicts which led us there to begin with. And so the core reason for this peace process is simply choosing the most plausible of a variety of exceptionally difficult, all quite possible to fail policy options. But because Johnny asked me to talk for five to 10 minutes, I won't stop there. I'll very, very briefly identify what I think a plausible, a potentially successful peace process from the current moment could look like. And I'm not going to get into the level of detail. I'm not going to talk about sort of what the Afghan settlement might look like in detail, but rather the process. I really think that the settlement in Afghanistan is actually the end state of three separate, somewhat linked peace processes, somewhat linked in the sense that they all have to end together in order to be sustainable, but they don't really need to start together and they don't necessarily need to move in parallel. The first of the three processes is essentially the U.S. Taliban bilateral process, the one that Ambassador Khaledzad very wisely, and after far too much delay on our part in the Obama administration, on the Bush administration's part, on the Trump administration's part, after far too much delay, Ambassador Khaledzad has gotten started. And that's this one that that's the tradeoff that people have alluded to, where the United States agrees to the troop drawdown, and the Taliban agree essentially to police the territory that they influence and control against internationally focused terrorist groups. Sadly, that's the easiest of the three peace processes in question. I say sadly because it's really hard. I mean, there are a lot of divisions on both sides on both of these questions, right? What is a terrorist? What's good enough in terms of Taliban adherence to this deal? What's the timeline for drawdown? There are a lot of divisions on both sides of the question and getting to some kind of actual agreement as opposed to sort of the greed framework that I think not surprisingly was achievable on fairly short order, that's going to be extremely difficult, but still the easiest part. The second part, the one that I imagine we're going to spend most of our time today talking about, is the intra-Afghan peace process. And I just say a couple of words of introduction about this. The first thing I'd say about the intra-Afghan peace process is that it matters to us Americans as Americans simply because it matters to us as Americans. This is not a grad school seminar. It's not bloodless. A lot of American blood has been shed over the question of Afghanistan's future. And it is inconceivable for the United States to simply walk away without due consideration to what kind of arrangement we're making means for Afghans. It also matters to us, because it is a core part, I think as you've correctly identified, it is a core part of the sustainability of any security arrangement that we might make with the Taliban. If what we leave behind is simply phase X of the Afghan Civil War, then we'll be right back from a security perspective to where we were in the late 1990s, where the chaos in the country almost forces some side, I can't tell you for sure which side it's going to be, but some side to invite in and accept the support of internationally focused terrorist groups. So chaos in Afghanistan is the enemy of the sustainable security solution that we are seeking. And I do want to say a parenthetical here, which is that one of the things that curses peace processes in general, this peace process in particular, is inflated expectations. Afghanistan is going to be a violent, poor and poorly governed place for the foreseeable future. The peace process is not going to end that. So you can't say that we're going to walk away from the table if Afghanistan is not fully at peace and every part of the territory is governed from the center. That's not a reasonable expectation. It's too high a bar. Setting that as the bar will ensure failure and some suboptimal outcome. But some more bodestly realistic expectation about minimizing the political violence of the Civil War that is both achievable and is also necessary for the United States to achieve our security aims. Now what does that mean? First of all, it means kind of an equilibrium political solution in Afghanistan. There is a real division of power on the ground. The Taliban are not 10 feet tall. They are not the only people in Afghanistan who control military and economic forces. There is some genuine equilibrium on the ground between the Taliban and non-Taliban forces, the government, the old Northern Alliance, et cetera. A political solution in Afghanistan is one which recognizes that genuine division of powers and creates a political system which in some ways reflects it. So that the cost and the risk to any party from defecting from that solution from deciding that they are going to seek maximal victory is so high that it's just less likely that any party chooses to do so. It's easier to accept the imperfect compromise solution than it is to run the risk and pay the cost of defecting from that solution. So that's kind of the nature of the political outcome that Afghans need to try to work out amongst themselves. I would argue that the United States and our international partners have a fair amount of leverage, quite a bit leverage actually, to use in trying to help Afghans reach that outcome. The leverage comes mainly from two things. The first thing it comes from is the U.S. troop presence. Now that might seem ironic given that I've just said that there's sort of the most rapid progress on the negotiated drawdown. But here's the thing. I actually think that the leverage that the U.S. troops give us doesn't have much to do with whether we're talking about 100,000 or 14,000 or 7,000 or quite frankly 700 troops. The military force that matters to the Taliban is the counterterrorism force that successfully targets and kills their leadership. And that is not a lot of guys. Depending on, won't give me the exact answer, but it's not a lot of guys. And the difference between the 14,000-ish that we have right there now and that last core that would come out at the very end of a drawdown in terms of the political leverage on the process is, I think, very close to zero. Our military leverage does not come from the troop-intensive tasks of, for example, training and equipping the Afghan army, which has been largely a failure. So our leverage with the troops stays throughout the drawdown process, I think. And the second thing that our leverage comes from is money. No central government of Afghanistan in modern era has ever resourced itself internally. The function of a central government in Afghanistan is to take external resources and distribute it to the barons in the field. And so long as the United States and our allies or partners are willing and able to continue to provide much less money than we do now, but much more money than we do to anybody who doesn't have U.S. troops on the ground, so long as we're willing to do that, we have substantial leverage both to get to and to sustain political settlements in Afghanistan. I'll say, by the way, parenthetically, here that one of the areas in which I think the State Department has really fallen down is consultation with Congress. Zhao hasn't briefed. I don't think that's his fault. And consultation with our allies and partners, because at some point in the not too distant future, if this comes together, those are the two people you're going to have to go and ask for money. And asking them on when the train's already moving rather than, you know, when you're stopped at a station is just, in my experience, much more difficult. And I'll speak most briefly about the last piece of this, which is the regional piece. Every civil war is fundamentally a regional war. Civil wars don't get fought unless the actors have support from abroad. I have this weird sort of atom of optimism in the back of my brain that many of the actors in the region, more so than they have in the past, are willing to accept sort of suboptimal outcomes from their maximalist perspectives in Afghanistan because they're afraid of the potential chaos of a U.S. troop withdrawal. They want to see some kind of outcome. That said, I have the other sort of louder concern in the back of my head, which is, are the regional actors going to make their Afghanistan policy qua their interests in Afghanistan? Or will their Afghanistan policy be driven by their conflict with us? In other words, will Iran say, yeah, we could actually work with this settlement in Afghanistan, but it better for us to stick the United States in the eye on the way out. Same with Russia, same with, you know, these countries that are not adversaries, but China and India, which we've decided this would be a great time to pick trade wars with. So the question of whether or not it is possible for the administration to prioritize things so that we can not invite the regional parties to take advantage of kind of a moment of weakness. I think that's a big one. I'm going to say one last word and then hand over, which is you're exactly right that throughout the sorry history of this conflict, this is not the first moment where people have tried to make peace. At almost every moment somebody has been trying to make peace. If you go back through all of those episodes and you replay the story of the offers that were on the table from the perspective of the United States, from the perspective of Afghans, and ask yourself, has the offer ever gotten better? Has the the offers that we turned down and we turned them down in 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, were those offers better or worse than what we were then able to get in 2009, 2010? In turn, were those offers better or worse than what we were able to get in 2015, 2016? It always gets worse. Our position in this conflict is deteriorating. This is the best moment that we've had since the last moment and it is better than any moment we will have in the future to try to come to a political settlement. Thank you very much. Thank you. To avoid repeating what was said before me, I'm going to focus on two issues. One is the invisible impact of the ongoing war in Afghanistan and then Afghan women's efforts to ensure that their rights are protected and not compromised during the peace process. But before getting into that, I would like to discuss or add to Lutfala's opening remarks by reminding us all that this week makes 41 years of political turmoil, violent conflict, mass displacements, and economic instability in Afghanistan that has affected the lives of three generations. Over the years, there have been lots of talks, rightfully so, about the visible impact of the four decades of war in Afghanistan and the need for a peaceful political settlement. It's clear that Afghan people want peace and we all want peace and stability in Afghanistan. My papers are stuck here. So what's missing in the mainstream conversation is that of the invisible impact of war and how we must look at ways to deal with it now and after a peace agreement is reached. The trauma of war and conflict leaves an oftentimes invisible but lasting effect on people's emotional and mental well-being. Last month I was in Afghanistan and I spoke with a diverse number of Afghans, men and women, youth included, about their hopes for peace and also their fears. I kept hearing about the invisible impact of the prolonged war. Many Afghans I talked to told me that they or their family members suffer from anxiety, depression, personality and behavior problems, having witnessed and being exposed to horrific stories of the aftermath of explosions and bombings. The ongoing war in Afghanistan has not only affected human biology but it has led to deep and prolonged complications on people's psychological health. We the international community must be willing to provide the necessary assistance to help Afghan men and women and children to deal with both the visible and the invisible impact of war. That brings me to my next point which was also raised by Lutfula and that's the need for an immediate ceasefire. While the Afghan government opposition political leaders and Taliban debate about the number of delegates who should be on the list, who should not be on the list, when and where the talks should take place, Afghans are being killed on daily basis. Every day more and more women become widows, children become orphans and properties are destroyed. So the Taliban and the Afghan government must demonstrate by their actions that they are serious about ending the war and declare a ceasefire. A prolonged ceasefire will boost the public moral and result in unprecedented support for the peace process. Now on women's issues and concerns, there are concerns about the perceived consequences of a peace agreement by women and the fear that Taliban might impose restrictions on women's employment, education, mobility and so on. I think women's concerns are and should be men's concern too and I believe a significant number of Afghan men sympathize with and advocate to preserve the gains of the past 18 years and women's rights. Women's concerns are legit and we should listen to them and address and alleviate their concerns to the extent we can. After all they live through it, they experience discriminatory practices and unjust and inhuman treatment by different groups and parties in the past many many years. So what have women done? They have organized in Kabul and also in the provinces and in many cases have taken personal risk to voice their concerns. They have made it clear over and over about their red lines and the international community and particularly Americans must use whatever leverage is left there and we have with the Afghan government, with the opposition leaders and with the Taliban to make sure that Afghan's basic rights that are guaranteed in their constitution are upheld and if the constitution is to be amended, which is likely, I think it must be done in a way that people's rights are improved and not limited. I will end here. Thanks. Jared before made the case for our policy, I thought I might try to explain a little bit what the position of the Afghan government is and particularly President Ghani because these positions are not necessarily aligned. A few days ago there was an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal sort of pointing out the seriality of the way it was described us coddling our enemies and chiding our allies and part of the one of the examples that was used was this incident that happened about six weeks ago here in Washington when President Ghani's National Security Advisor Hamdullah Mohib came, made some public comments that were basically very critical of Ambassador Khadilzad. Our reaction was swift and quite severe and to this day our diplomats in Kabul are not supposed to attend any meetings or meet with the National Security Advisor. So we're in a bit of a strange position here where while supporting Afghanistan's military forces we're not allowed to speak with Afghanistan's National Security Advisor. The dissonance here points to a divergence of strategies regarding the peace process which could come to a point of collision in the near future. What President Ghani believes, I think he is committed to a peace process. In February of last year he made this unconditional offer for talks with the Taliban that I think helped lead to the moment that we are now that helped lead to the appointment of Ambassador Khadilzad but he has a fundamentally different view of how that should happen. He wants I think to be fundamentally to be able to negotiate from a position of strength the Afghan government with the Taliban. I think he would rather see the Taliban negotiate their way into the Afghan constitution than to see a new constitution or more of an even split when it comes out of the blender. And he wants the Afghan population, the Afghan government to be more prepared. Hence, for example, the loyal jerker that just happened where there's a large round of consultation with Afghans from all over the country to decide well what are our red lines? What should our approach be? Who should we be? Who should be on our negotiating team? And so forth. So fundamentally there's a difference of time. Ambassador Khadilzad feels that he's under quite a degree of urgency. President Ghani does not feel the same degree of urgency and I think that President Ghani is gambling on two things. First, he's gambling on the fact that there will not be a sudden withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan as has been threatened. So he rejects the idea that there's a near deadline under which some kind of an agreement needs to be made. And I think this is why the comments that were made by his national security advisor were allowed to be made. If he was not confident that there was still a long-term commitment to Afghanistan, I don't think these comments would have been made. And if they had been made and he didn't want them to be made, I don't think that his national security advisor would still be in place. The second issue is that President Ghani faces reelection in September. And you can see why it would be or how it would be in his interest to sort of play for time, go to an election, at least win in the first round or be among the two finalists in the first round if there's no clear winner. And then basically turn to the US government and say this is the moment that you're going to withdraw troops. This is the moment that you're going to withdraw your commitment from the government. I'm about to be re-elected. I'm the best reformer you'll ever see. I've just got five more years of legitimacy by the Afghan people and basically gamble on that moment to then buy himself more time and then hope at that moment to negotiate from a position of strength. I think that's the strategy, but there are two downsides to the bets that he's made. The first one is about the elections and my experience, especially having gone through the October parliamentary elections last year, is that President Ghani tends to overestimate what can be done in what period of time to make an election happen. And right now preparations for the presidential elections, which is scheduled for the 28th of September, are far behind. In fact, the parliamentary elections are still not resolved. There's still the 33 seats out of 250 for Kabul province that have not been finalized. The parliamentary election was such a disaster last year that the entire electoral commission was replaced. The new commission doesn't have a lot of experience. They still have to make a number of key decisions about registration, about what kind of elections to happen. And we're now less than five months from when these elections are supposed to happen and we're moving into both the fighting season and Ramadan. So there's not a lot of time to get a lot done. And there's a real possibility, again speaking to experts who are in Kabul and following this closely, that these elections will not happen. That sets up a bit of a crisis, because according to the Constitution, President Ghani's term ends on the 22nd of May. If people believe that elections will be held in September, he can probably buy himself a bit of a grace period. If it becomes clear that elections will not happen in September and they can't happen until next spring, then that would be an extra year of his mandate with a lot of opposition to him and a lot of discontent. And I think that could create a sort of a problem such that we've never seen before. We've always seen delayed presidential elections, but we've never seen a presidential election that did not happen in the year that it was supposed to happen. And opposition politicians are already planning, I understand, big demonstrations for the 22nd of May and we'll see what sort of effect that has, but this would undermine his legitimacy. And the second downside is what if President Ghani has miscalculated about the reaction in the U.S. and about our willingness to stay, no matter what? Somebody wrote an article towards the end of last year saying, in September of 2019, every American journalist in Afghanistan is going to be looking for the first U.S. soldier who's fighting in Afghanistan who was not born when 9-11 happened. I think there's a lot of frustration in the U.S. on both sides. Somebody pointed out it's maybe the only bipartisan issue in Washington right now. A lot of consensus on trying to unwind our commitment in Afghanistan. Frankly, I would say a lot of frustration as well with the way that our Afghan politician partners have been, perhaps, wasted a lot of resources that have been provided on a lot of unnecessary internal squabbles. So there is a kind of a sense that time is running out and a certain fragility of the position here for supporting another sort of second term with President Ghani and with significant resources. So the next few months we'll see whether this bet pays off. We'll see which process has more dynamism. All conclude just by saying that I agree with Jared on where we are. I think this is sort of the only real plausible policy option that we have. And I think that I referred earlier to this Wall Street Journal and the surreal aspect of us being nice to our enemies and not nice to our friends. But there's something else which is surreal and that's what Belkis pointed to. The hidden cost and the real cost of this war, the UN just came out with its civilian casualty figures for the first quarter. 580 killed, 1,192 injured. This is a lot of civilian casualties and it's 23% down from the same period last year, perhaps as a result of some of these movements on the peace process. But it's still very, very high. And I imagine a lot of Afghans themselves are thinking that it may be a bit surreal that while this destruction is happening, we're talking about where we should meet, what the venue should be, what the format should be, and so forth. So I think that fact alone puts me on the side of urgency in trying to move this peace process forward rather than a consolidation of the second term and the Constitution. Thank you. Great. Thank you all. That was truly impressive on all counts. I'd say we've gone fairly deep on the United States perspective, on the Afghan government perspective. Maybe we could talk about the Taliban a little bit. And so much of this hinges on whether we're looking at a meaningfully different Taliban than we saw in the 1990s, whether it's on women's rights, on democracy, on sharing of power, on terrorism. And so I like very short questions and in the interest of setting a positive example to any of your interrogators among the audience, have the Taliban changed and what kind of deal do they want? And maybe I could start with Belkis. Have the Taliban changed? I have been asked this question so many times, especially in the recent months. I think the Taliban have been consistent with their views and attitudes, at least toward women and women's rights. Since their formation in 1994, they have been saying that they are committed to guaranteeing women's rights according to Sharia and Afghan traditions. Or now the question is, nowadays when they say, repeat the same statement, if they mean a different interpretation of Sharia or is it the same interpretation as they had in 1994, 1996, where they enforced that interpretation to physical violence, intimidation and the humiliation of countless of women and girls. So I just want to focus on Taliban's views on women for now. Anyone else care to weigh in? If you talk about individuals within the Taliban, you may have a different conclusion. There are people that we in the press talk to, some of them relatively accommodating, taking criticism, being open to questions and some of them are pretty straightforward. So this is about people within the Taliban group. But I think the main question is what defines Taliban as a brand? And that is the fundamental question because when you try to make a political settlement with the Taliban as a group, I think the dilemma for the Taliban is how to change from a military group, which sees things black and white, to a political group, to have a white range of issues, to deal with so many issues. And then I think it would be very difficult for the Taliban to make that transition, especially overnight, which I believe is going to come with serious costs to the Taliban. So I'd actually challenge the question. Two things can change to get a different outcome. One thing that can change is the Taliban, and one thing that can change is the situation in which the Taliban find themselves. So I would hypothesize that if the Taliban face a situation as they did in the mid-1990s of a collapsing alternative order that essentially creates a vacuum that sucks them into every part of the country, they'll probably behave more or less as they did in the 1990s. If they do not face a collapsing, in this instance, bond order, if they face a more organized opposition, and again, with the use of international leverage, you're able to get to a kind of equilibrium political solution which reflects the changed circumstances on the ground, then their decision point is very different. And they might want a maximalist victory if they see it that way that looks like 1996, but they can't have it and so they'll live with something else. The biggest, from my perspective, there are lots of things to be afraid about for Afghans. There are a lot of things to be afraid about for Afghan women. The thing to be most afraid of is the implosive collapse of the bond order, which basically comes if the United States pulls the plug with nothing else organized. And so that's why, and I agree with Scott, we probably agree too much up here, it's not that interesting. I mean, I agree with Scott. I think that President Ghani is throwing the dice on a couple of issues, and boy, I wouldn't be throwing the dice, right? Because you're gambling a lot in terms of your ability to sustain this political order and negotiate a better outcome than the mid-1990s. Maybe just add quickly that part of the change that we need to be asking ourselves regarding the Taliban is why would they stop fighting when they appear to be having the momentum? And when you speak to those who are close to the Taliban movement, maybe not part of it right now, one of the more interesting answers I've heard is because we're tired. And the fact is for all of the problems that we have on the Afghan National Security Forces, for all of the attrition that is happening on that side, in most of these battles, the Taliban are being killed more than Afghan National Army soldiers. They're able to replenish easier, but I think we've sort of forget that side of the picture that it's also debilitating for them, and it's not the nicest way to live if you could come to some sort of agreement where, as one of them put it to me, we just want to go back and live in a land which is familiar to us, and that land is not full of US soldiers. That land may have other elements that are maybe unfortunately familiar, but that's sort of a case for perhaps why they might make this engagement and look for real compromises, not just a maximalist position. So a lot has happened in the past 18, 20 years, and I think the Taliban needs to be brought up to speed. And what practical way, what all the practical ways to bring them up to speed is, one is to, Ambassador Khalilzad, to explain to them what has changed in the past 18, 20 years. But I think a more practical way would be to bring them up to speed is to facilitate formal as well as informal dialogue between Afghan women and the Taliban. Today, women are active participants in politics, justice, security, health, education, art and culture. They are active in private sector, and millions of women are now breadwinners of their families. Unlike 20 years ago, when they were in power, when female professional engineers, scientists, teachers and lawyers were forced to beg on the streets in Kabul because employment was not allowed. And today they're earning their income through hard work and gaining an ever increasing sense of personal dignity. So they need to be brought up to speed that things have changed. Thank you. Thank you all. I'm tempted to monopolize the mic a little longer, but maybe I will open it to the crowd. I can't remember if I mentioned, but I like short questions. So, if we could go to the gentleman over here, my colleague Matt will be passing microphones around and we'll start with one at a time and maybe soon. Hi. Trying to make it short, yeah. Phil Schrafer, first quick comment. Holly Sout, I think is doing a great job, born in Afghanistan, of course, in Osgami, and I think he's doing a great job. Mark raised two points, which I wanted to just get feedback on. One, the U.S. Army. Yes, you're absolutely right, special forces are doing a job, but they're not passive. I think General McDonald is, after 17 years, he's ready to move out, assuming the Taliban will hold Qaeda and the Daesh in control. So, I mean, the Secretary of Defense is doing nothing. So, okay. The other thing is, on the regional powers, Moscow has had at least three meetings, okay? And I think Russia, Moscow participated, the Pakistanis had pushed it, and they might have invited the, well, anyway, they did invite us eventually, and we turned it down. Warlords, okay? Nobody mentions warlords. Maybe that's the Northern Alliance, but 20% of the country is controlled by warlords, and one of the governors was a warlord, and he was fired. So, comments, please. Volunteers? So, I'll take a, I'll just say a very brief thing, which is, I think you have accurately described the kind of messy situation that exists on the ground right now, and that you'd have to bear that in mind when contrasting it with what comes next. You've got a messy situation, the situation that follows is also going to be messy and imperfect. Part of this involves getting your head straight in terms of what the expectations are, but also, to be clear, it can be a little bit easier to negotiate from messy situation to messy situation, right? Like, there is already a 20-year pathway in Afghanistan of dealing with local military powers, and it needs to be taken advantage of. Just a quick point on the warlords, because it reminded me of another reason why there's an incentive also for the Taliban to negotiate, which is, if there were, and again, I don't think it's likely, but if there were a rapid sudden U.S. withdrawal, and we were back to a situation in the 90s where the Taliban had to fight a civil war, they would be fighting it against sort of resurrected warlords directly, as opposed to right now, where they fight against a national army, which is sort of being supported by us. And that, in the end, could be a much nastier fight than the one they're doing right now. The gentleman over here. Thank you, Athanasip, former USIP. I was supposed to be on the same plane to Doha as Lithuania Najifizala, but we got stood up. My question is to Najifizala as well. It goes back to your second point about transitional setup. I know you clearly didn't say interim government, but I frankly find that as a little confusing. You also mentioned that peace is not a new phenomenon in Afghanistan. So is transitional setup. We're not going back two or three steps back. We're going back to 1992. We saw this movie played out before, and we saw how that ended up. So I wanted a little bit of clarification on that point as well from you. I think there's a huge risk, as you may suggest, that we try to go back to square one without having a clear vision of which direction we're going. I totally understand that. But there are, look, there are three scenarios, right? The best deal. The best deal is you get the Taliban talk to the Afghan government. Not the very best deal is to get the Taliban talk to all Afghans, mostly those outside the government. And then probably not a deal, probably a deal, but certainly not peace, is to transfer power to the Taliban, which is going to result into civil war. So my understanding is that the United States policy at the moment is to engage with the government of Afghanistan as a group among other groups to talk to the Taliban. You may have noticed President Trump's State of the Union speech in which he said that in Afghanistan, all political groups, including the government, as a group, are talking to the Taliban. So if that is the policy of the U.S., then I would say if they make progress with the Taliban, then my understanding is some sort of a transitional setup is inevitable, is part of the package. But I wish that we get a deal in which the Taliban come and talk to our legitimate elected government and then accept all our gains. And then they can join the elections and then become our president and become the chief executive in case we couldn't agree on who the president to be. Or be as many ministers as they can. I really don't think this is the case at the moment. I don't think we're talking about the best deal option. We go down to the front. At least to set BBC. Thank you very much. After Doha, no Doha. There are some Afghans, as you know, who say better not to hold them in Qatar, Qatar's part of the problem. Many other countries want to host the talk. So some are saying perhaps best move them back to Bonn to get them out of the regional rivalries. Is that an option? Or because of the Taliban relationship to Qatar, do they have to stay in Qatar? Secondly, today Ashraf Ghani has said what I want is not a negotiating army, i.e. 250 people. I want a negotiating team. What is the best negotiating team for Afghanistan? As you saw all the old war lords of the past are wanting to be on the negotiating team. Does that mean there's no space for the young educated Afghans, for the women, who can help to move the country forward? Because it's the other war in Afghanistan between the Afghans of the past and the Afghans of the future that seems to also be creating problems in this trying to talk to the Taliban. On the first question, to be perfectly honest, I think people get spun around the axle of Doha somewhere else. The people who the United States and Afghans need to speak to, the Taliban team they need to speak to are just going to be the same people, whether they're sitting in Doha or sitting in Bonn. My guess is that if this process gets underway, it probably ends up being a little bit of a movable feast. I mean, they've already done it once in Moscow. They tried to do it in Doha. If it goes to Bonn, that's fine. I think the idea that the Qataris are a baleful influence on this just vastly overstates their role. I think that I would bracket that question. I'd just like to say a word about this question of negotiating teams. Maybe you'll refer back also to some of the points that Scott made. I think that in many ways President Ghani is an inspiring figure. He has also been dealt a very bad hand and he's played it very badly. He's really made two, I think, tremendous mistakes which have undermined his and the government's position in trying to set this up. The first mistake that he made was to publicly advertise division with the United States. The government of Afghanistan's main source of strength is its relationship with the United States. Even if President Ghani was dissatisfied with the way that the United States was proceeding, that was something to be sorted out in quiet. As soon as he made it public that Zal wasn't listening to him, I think he exaggerated it by the way, but as soon as he made that public, he vastly diminished his own and his government's role in this process. And then the second mistake that he's made is to try from that relatively weakened position to demand full ownership of it. Having this 250-person delegation come and sit at his feet in Kabul and instructing them that they were to go and represent the Afghan government when the Taliban had said they wouldn't meet, they would meet with members but not representatives of the Afghan government. Going ahead with this, Loya Jurga, despite the boycott of essentially every non-Ghani political figure, none of these are not displays of unity and strength. They're displays of Ghani's own weakness in the process. And I think we need to recognize that where that leaves anybody trying to assist the Afghan dialogue is that whether or not it needed to be this way, the Afghan government really is one of many non-Taliban forces. It is a powerful one. It has a military. It's got a variety of structures that no other force has. But it is only one. And I think it's unlikely at this stage with legitimacy sort of three weeks away from disappearing. And I think it's very unlikely that you can recover that. Last thing I would say, just on this point, is that from the perspective of kind of that legitimation, I think almost the only thing that would be worse than not having an election in September would be having an election in September. Because, I mean, again, just look at the history of this. There has not been an election since the first bond cycle that has enhanced the legitimacy of the bond order. Every single election has weakened the bond order. If you go to this election in September in the current situation, what emerges from it, I think just the puzzle pieces become that much more difficult. I think they are trying to organize another meeting in Qatar. Ambassador Khalidzal said last week on the record that we're not going to humiliate a nation for making a mistake. So my understanding is that they are really trying to organize a conference probably not for 250 people, but 150 people or less. On the negotiating team, there are two ideas. One idea is that you have this pool of 100 people, 200 people. And then based on the topic you pick, let's say if it's about ceasefire, you send the military experts. If it's about women's rights, you send a dominant group of woman activists. If it's about the political system and then you send the political leaders or the Islamic scholars. So that's one idea. But the government is more pro-specific team of hand-picked 7 to 15 people who can be permanent, like the Taliban team. And then they go and discuss A to Z with the Taliban. My understanding is that there is no agreement on which model is best or should be accepted. Please. I think the composition of the Afghan government's list of delegates on negotiation team has been and continues to be an issue. In addition to government representatives or officials, I believe in order for that to be an inclusive list, civil society has to be presented as well as the private sector. But men and women from these sectors, civil society, private sector, as well as victims, it seems that the Taliban delegation includes former detainees and prisoners, which they label as victim. So it's important that the delegation does not only include government ministers and officials, but also other sectors within the Afghan society who have been affected by the past two decades of war. And we must also not forget that minorities, both religious minorities as well as other groups who have been marginalized over the years. And then very quickly, I think at these stages of peace processes, there's a tendency to be overly prescriptive. We don't really know what's on the Taliban agenda. So we don't know how we would divide if we went with a model of a sort of specialist, what kinds of specialists would have to be recruited for this sort of thing. And that was what's a bit unfortunate about this opportunity that was missed in Doha was it would have been the first time where you begin to have this substantive discussion, after which you could then begin deciding what model is most appropriate. That doesn't get us past the fundamental problem or one of the fundamental problems, which is a huge lack of distrust among the Kabul Afghans, which is why they all need to be included. And you had this paradox when this famous team of 250 people has been referred to. And on the one hand, people say 250 people, this is way too big. And on the other hand, you have another 2,500 people saying, but we should have been included. So it's hard to wrap our heads around that dilemma. I think we'll start with Tom. And then after that, maybe we'll take a few at a time. Hi, Tom West. I had a question about the list of presidential candidates who've declared so far. I just wondered if the panel had views on whether any of the tickets that currently exist will produce or is capable of producing a kind of government that, in Jared's word, acknowledges the genuine distribution of power within Afghanistan. If not, are we inexorably headed toward another mediated outcome post-September? Scott. Yeah, I mean, first, once again, I agree with Jared that probably having an election is worse than not having one. The curious thing about this election is it was supposed to be held in April and then it was postponed to July. Before it was postponed, the candidate lists were consolidated. So normally you would have a period of several months between finalizing your candidate list and then going to the election. Now we have almost nine months in which there can be either candidates dropping out, perhaps consolidation of certain tickets. This is all sort of uncharted territory. But to your point specifically, I think that it would not be a bad opposition strategy to actually try to do exactly that, to try and have a team that goes up against an incumbent president with a very specific agenda opposed by a team that might have a more amorphous agenda, but is clearly representative of the nation and the various political tendencies. But it goes back to the point I just made, whether they can overcome their amount of distrust to sort of figure out who would be on that team is an open question. And they didn't when there was a chance in the first sort of formulation of candidates. There had been a movement to try to get behind a single team and they proved unable to do that. Anyone else care to? All right, maybe there was a forest of hands last time, so maybe we'll go to a lightning round. We'll go here and then to the gentleman here, second, and the gentleman next to our first question or third. We'll try and do another one. Thank you very much. I'm an African-American journalist, Marina Fassel. Nice to see you, Mr. Najif Izoda. A few questions for you. I understand that the access to this meeting was not as open as our colleagues would have wished if you could comment on that for the loyagerga. And what in terms of Afghanistan's neighbors and the foreign dynamic we just spoke about, there are worse and worse scenarios. If we had taken the potential piece offer in 2002, it would have been better than later on once and perhaps this is the best we can get before it deteriorates further. You have dealt or some of your colleagues in Afghanistan have dealt with the Taliban. It seems that we're all sitting and guessing about who are the Taliban, what are their demands, if they finally work through- Forgive me, your question, please. Yes, if they work through these details of what they want out of a negotiated piece, what might they spell out? In terms of women's rights and freedom of press and what kind of Islam they want for Afghanistan, could you please comment, Mr. Najif Izoda? We'll take a second and third beforehand. My first question is from Najif Izoda. So what do you think really the Afghan side, like the government and the political parties are really ready and are willing to go to peace talks and do they came to agreement with the procedure to go to peace talks? And then my second question from Mr. Scott. So do you guys feel that the U.S. is rushing to make a deal in a couple of months and get out of Afghanistan? Do you get just feeling? I'm not, I'm just one thing. And then? Hello everybody, my name is Abdul Najrabi. So my question is from Bilqis Ahmadiyy. Afghan diaspora in Moscow, the meeting that they initiated into Afghan Dalek. It was a good move. So just a quick question that what role do you see Afghan diaspora playing in peace negotiations, Afghan diaspora in Washington DC? Thank you. We'll start with Lutfila, because you got two. I think I agree that Lujerga, in terms of its media coverage could have been planned and executed better. But this government in Kabul, you know, I criticize it a lot in Kabul. So I tend not to do so here, but I agree that there were difficulties for media to go there. But there was live coverage of the opening sessions and the concluding sessions yesterday. What Taliban's views are on women and media? We've heard a lot, but one thing that I heard out of Moscow, I think that was said publicly, that the Taliban said three things are not acceptable for us, for women. One, women cannot be president. Second, women cannot be judged to, you know, issue an execution order or a verdict. Third, women cannot be a mom. So this was discussed privately in Moscow as the Taliban's reading of Islam. And if you talk to other Islamic scholars, I debated it a couple of weeks ago with Osta Sayaf in Kabul, and he had, you know, a totally different look at it. So I think it is important for people like Sayaf, you know, who has a totally different view and then the Taliban to set together and then we come to a common understanding of what Islam says about women. On media, I think the Taliban have used the privilege of free media in Afghanistan for the past 18 years, probably sometimes too much. And we've always been criticized by our government in Afghanistan for giving Taliban too much coverage. But that was entirely an editorial decision by Free Press in Afghanistan. So I think on the political side, to be honest, it really depends on what kind of deal we get. If we get, let's say, I'm just guessing, if the future political system in Afghanistan includes a body above the government, which is untouchable, let's say, then it would be difficult for us, it would be difficult for the future of media in Afghanistan to really talk about them. I'm not saying that's coming. I'm not saying I've heard it from credible sources, but I'm just guessing what kind of a mixture a Taliban setup and an Islamic Republic setup would look like. On entertainment and social programs, on, let's say, singing competitions, music shows, I think the Taliban, we need to engage with them. We need to sit down with them. I think one of the reasons that some of the media representatives who are interested to attend the Doha talks as participants were to discuss some of these issues with the Taliban to see if there are common grounds. Scott, would you like to take it? Yeah, I think it may not be so much there's a rush to remove troops. I think there's a rush to determine some sort of clarity about our engagement in Afghanistan and particularly about how that can be unwound. Given that the state building model, heavily resourced that we've been pursuing for the last 20 years, has reached the end of its usefulness, some sort of disengagement is the only remaining option. Ambassador Khalilzad has spoken of a need to get an agreement quickly. I actually think if we can get a process which is established that has an agenda where the two sides are actually speaking to each other, that possibly has a third party mediator, then that would buy more time and the process would require time to go through some of the many complicated issues such as the ones that were just mentioned. So I think establishment of a process would be sufficient and would ease things down. If it can be done also in an atmosphere of a reduction of violence or even better a ceasefire, then that's probably the best outcome for now and that would probably allow a continuing rational engagement. And Belkis? What can the Afghans do? Well, first of all, when I talk to Afghans inside Afghanistan, when I go there, they appreciate and they saw the Moscow meeting as a first step to open the doors for further Afghan dialogue. So that was a good initiative. But what can Afghans do? My simple answer would be, and that goes not only for Afghans, but also for Americans because peace and stability in Afghanistan is linked to our national interest, national security here in the U.S. as well. Do whatever you can to social media, promote and support peaceful resolution to conflict in Afghanistan and to the extent possible, avoid not to the extent possible, avoid stirring ethnic tensions. I see that unfortunately a lot by Afghans in diaspora sitting in the comfortable places in the West and they are the ones who are stirring ethnic tension to hate speeches and so on on social media. So with deep regrets, I want to be respectful of everyone's time and I'm going to cut it off there. I think before we go, just footstop something Jared in particular said, which is that as hard as this is, this is possible. It's plausible. It's actually the most plausible of any of the remotely favorable outcomes that could come to this country. And that applies equally for the interests of every party to this conflict. And so I hope they all see it that way. I think they're coming too. Could you please join me in thanking our four outstanding panelists and thank you all for coming.