By: Mohammad Safari

Introduction
There is a consensus that Afghanistan’s crisis does not have a military solution and should ended through dialogue and negotiation. Following an agreement between the US government and the Taliban, the way was paved for the beginning of dialogue between Afghanistan's representatives and the Taliban group. During this time, the Qatar and Moscow talks were held and the Istanbul Conference is going to be held in near future. The importance of the Istanbul Conference is such that many analysts liken it to the historic Bonn Conference that shaped the post-Taliban political system. Such a comparison is not implausible because the Afghan political system is supposed to be revised during these negotiations.

Many researchers in Afghanistan believe that the Bonn Conference has had many deficiencies which have led to the continuation of the war in the past twenty years and, hence, these deficiencies should be addressed during the future talks with the Taliban group, especially in the Istanbul talks. In this article, we will have a brief review of the historical Bonn Conference. Then we will take a pathological look at it to use the lessons learned from it for the Istanbul Conference.

The Bonn Conference
Following the collapse of the Taliban political system, the Bonn conference was held on the basis of Lakhdar Brahimi’s the "light footprint" plan in order to hand over Afghanistan’s control to the Afghan people. The conference was attended by representatives of the Northern Alliance, the Peshawar Group under the leadership of Ahmed Gailani, the Cyprus Group under the leadership of Homayoun Jarir, and a group of the supporters of Zahir Shah, the former king, known as the Rome Group. The Taliban and the Hezb-e-Islami headed by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar were excluded from the meeting.
The participants signed an agreement, which included transitional arrangements for establishment of a democratic system as well as beginning of a sustained peace process, in the presence of the United Nations representative.

The political arrangements made in the Bonn summit were more effective than those of the Peshawar summit. During the meeting, there were a number of opponents who protested against the distribution of power. For example, Younes Qanuni refused to compromise and objected to the division of ministries, but finally, the current Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif persuaded him that this was the best thing he could achieve. After long negotiations, two candidates were introduced for the leadership of the interim government: Abdul Abdul Sattar Sirat and Hamid Karzai. Finally, Karzai was elected. In general, the Bonn Agreement had three main parts:

* Providing a road map for transition of the political power;
* Drafting the laws of the transitional government; and
* Designing the principles of Afghanistan’s security.

After two decades since the Bonn Conference, it has become clear that it has had numerous deficiencies, which have led to the continuation of political violence in Afghanistan.

Pathology of the Bonn Conference
Although the Bonn summit led to the creation of a democratic system that is and will be very necessary for the future of Afghanistan's political system, it had shortcomings that exacerbated the Afghan crisis two decades after the summit. Therefore, we must study the summit via a pathological approach in order to avoid repeating the previous faults in the Istanbul talks. In this section, the pathology of the Bonn Conference is briefly discussed:

1- One of the major gaps in the Bonn Conference was the absence of some key political forces. Seven years after the Bonn Conference, Lakhdar Brahimi, the UN special envoy at the conference and one of the drafters of the Bonn Agreement, admitted that the agreement was signed in a hurry. Those who signed the agreement did not represent all of Afghanistan's important political parties. The representatives of some of the country's most important political factions were absent and many significant political issues were neglected.

2- The second shortcoming was that the Conference and those who supported this process, somehow bypassed the then government of Afghanistan. At that time, Rabbani's government, which had a seat in the United Nations, did not want to accept the Bonn Agreement in that way, arguing that the agreement should have been signed in Kabul. That is why Rabbani had instructed Younes Qanuni not to sign any agreement. He believed that peace talks should be held in the Afghan capital and under the supervision of the Afghan government. He insisted that in the current situation, the Afghan government should not be bypassed and the position of the Afghan government should not be reduced to that of a group.

3- The third problem about the Bonn Conference was non-serious presence of the Afghan civil society. The participants who introduced as the representatives of the Afghan civil society were more present in a symbolic way. Even these symbolic representatives were not allowed to participate in most of the meetings. So, they could not enter into a bargaining process with other groups.

4- Another flaw and one of the most important criticisms regarding the Bonn Conference was that the Taliban was not considered as an opposition group to the future Afghan government and the representatives of this group were not present at the meeting. The envoys of foreign countries and even the warring sides with the Taliban did not consider them as part of Afghanistan's social body which must be involved in the power process. Fahmi Huwaidi, the author of the book “Taliban: God's Soldiers in a Wrong Battle” points out that the Taliban, with all their good and bad characteristics, have come out of the heart of the Pashtun community. Lakhdar Brahimi later acknowledged that the absence of Taliban in the Bonn Conference was the biggest mistake of the summit. In an interview with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Brahimi noted: “the Taliban were not present at the conference and even if we invite them, they would not accept our invitation. In that meeting, we had few people who could represent the South. I want to make it clear that we did not really had the representatives of the South at the summit and the political groups claiming to represent the South were actually the forces which were in exile.” Maulvi Ludin, a senior Taliban leader, also said that the Taliban, as a group that controlled 90 percent of Afghanistan's territory, was ignored at the summit.

5- Another problem with the Bonn Conference was ignoring the relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan, and in general, the relations of regional countries. In this conference, the foreign countries, especially the United States, turned a blind eye to the long-standing differences between Afghanistan and Pakistan, due to their hastiness to establish a political system. The Afghan government has always accused Pakistan of supporting terrorist groups and maintained that Pakistan is using the terrorist groups as a leverage to address its own concerns including the issue of the Durand Line and the Pakistani Pashtuns. Rangin Dadfar Spanta, the then foreign minister of Afghanistan, in his book "Afghanistan Politics: A Narrative from Within" mentions that one of the demands of the Pakistani chief of staff from the president of Afghanistan was that the Afghan Pashtuns should be separated from the Pakistani Pashtuns. Therefore, one of the main disagreements between the Afghan and Pakistani governments, which has caused these problems to spread to other areas – shch as the support of the Taliban and other terrorist groups - is the issue of the Durand Line and the Pashtuns on both sides of this line.

6- The sixth defect is related to the distribution of power. At the Bonn meeting, the presidential system was chosen as the future political system of Afghanistan, which has shown many deficiencies over the past two decades. Given the geographical and cultural situation of Afghanistan, other political systems can also be substituted for the current system. The political activists from different ethnic groups are critical of the current political structure and believe that they have not gained the necessary share of power. Most of the political and social dissatisfaction regarding the distribution of power stems from the presidential system. In the presidential system, power is concentrated in the hands of the president. Various political forces have repeatedly expressed dissatisfaction with the way power is distributed in the existing system. So far, three plans have been put forward by various political factions to redistribute the power: The plan to decentralize the system and create a balance of power between the center and the provinces, the plan to form a parliamentary system, and the plan of a federal system.

7- Another problem that emerged after the Bonn Agreement was the US model for state-building in Afghanistan. According to the American model, state-building should be carried out from above. Unlike the European model, it is not rooted in the body of society. In this model, first the government is created and then the nation goes out of the executive process of government. The inefficiency of such a model has become apparent over the last two decades, and its obvious manifestation is the continuing presence of former and even new jihadi commanders. Moreover, due to the existence of parallel private institutions, most of which were foreign organizations, the role and legitimacy of the government in providing public services over the past two decades have always been facing numerous challenges.

Lessons learned from the Bonn conference
As mentioned earlier, the Bonn meeting had some drawbacks that should be obviated in the future meetings, especially in the important talks of Istanbul:
 

First, the real representatives of the people must take part in the peace meetings. The absence of any political faction would mean that the violence will continue in Afghanistan.

Second, the government must stand up for the democratic values of the two past decades so that women's rights, freedom of expression and the rights of minorities do not be ignored. Brushing aside the Afghan government in the Istanbul negotiations would mean undermining all the efforts that have been done over the last two decades to institutionalize democracy and its underlying values.

Third, the presence of representatives of Afghan civil society, who are known as the true defenders of the democratic values in Afghanistan, is essential.

The fourth point is about the presence of the opposition groups in negotiations. Given the Bonn Conference's historical experience, the opponents who can pose a challenge to Afghanistan's political future should be involved in the negotiation process.

The fifth point, which is very important, is the issue of Pakistan. Negotiations should be held between Afghanistan and Pakistan over the key issues such as the Durand Line, presence of the Pashtuns on the both sides of the line, and India's presence in Afghanistan, in order to address the both countries’ concerns.

The sixth point is about the distribution of power. This process should be in a way that satisfies all the ethnic groups via granting a fair share of power to them. It must be noted that any idea which ​​leads to the domination of one ethnic group over another one is doomed to failure. For example, there is an important point in the US plan for peace in Afghanistan regarding the distribution of power. The plan states that power should be divided equally between the Afghan government and the Taliban, with the Taliban holding 50 percent of the power and the Afghan government 50 percent. This comes as the majority of the Taliban members as well as the main body of the current government are Pashtuns. Therefore, the US plan would leave other ethnic groups out of the political power structure, which would aggravate the crisis. Therefore, in these negotiations, the distribution of power must be done in a fairly manner and based on the demographic composition of each ethnic group. Moreover, the future of Afghanistan's political system should be reviewed, and the talking sides should make decision based on the cultural, historical and social reality of Afghanistan.

The seventh point is the issue of state-building. In the Istanbul Conference, the issue of state-building should receive a double attention, because Afghanistan has suffered greatly from the government’s inefficiency in providing security and public services in recent two decades. This issue has reduced the legitimacy of the government among the masses and created a half-dead state.

Conclusion
Many analysts consider the forthcoming talks in Istanbul as reminiscent of the Bonn Conference, and so believe that the future of the Afghan crisis is tied to the fate of these negotiations. The historical experience of the Bonn Conference proved that this summit had drawbacks that led to the continuation of war in Afghanistan. The absence of some groups, ignoring the then government of Burhanuddin Rabbani, the absence of the Afghan civil society as the true defender of the democratic values, ignoring the long-standing differences between Afghanistan and Pakistan, rushing to choose a political system regardless of Afghanistan's historical and cultural circumstances, and finally the lack of attention to the state-building process are among the main shortcomings of this summit.

We should learn from the Bonn in order to avoid such deficiencies in the Istanbul Conference and prevent Afghanistan from facing another attrition war.

Mohammad Safari, is a master student of political science