The official result, however, did not prevent Abdullah from declaring himself the winner and forming his own government. Both presidents were sworn in on Monday at venues in Kabul a stone’s throw from each other after Khalilzad was unable to mediate a new power-sharing arrangement, despite shuttling between Ghani and Abdullah.

“We tried our best, we worked until 4.30am on the day of the twin inaugurations,” Khalilzad said in an interview with Afghan broadcaster Tolo News. “A meeting was also held between Ghani and Abdullah. Unfortunately, we could not manage to reach a conclusion.”

POW SWAP

Hopeful that it could later bring about a rapprochement, the US threw its weight behind Ghani after he backed down from his threat to block the release of 5,000 Taliban prisoners of war in exchange for 1,000 Afghan government soldiers held by the Taliban – a confidence-building measure that the insurgents had originally wanted to take place alongside the signing of the peace deal in Doha on February 29.

In the process, Ghani was able to secure US backing for his decision to stagger the release of Taliban prisoners and make it conditional upon a reduction of Taliban attacks on government forces, progress in intra-Afghan negotiations and, ultimately, a nationwide ceasefire.

Ghani’s presidential decree on March 11 called for the release of 1,500 Taliban prisoners within 15 days, at a rate of 100 per day, with talks between the Taliban and Kabul running parallel. If the talks made progress, the government would release a further 500 Taliban prisoners every two weeks until a total of 5,000 of the 14,000 in captivity were freed.

The Taliban rejected the conditions outright.

“The prisoners were taken by the Americans, the prisons were built and maintained by the Americans, so they are responsible for their release after the agreement,” Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said shortly after Ghani’s decree.

With that, efforts to kickstart talks between the Taliban and mainstream politicians ground to a halt, making a mockery of the March 10 target date set under the Doha deal.

WAR OF WILLS

For negotiations on a political settlement to begin, the US must first persuade Ghani and his domestic rivals, led by Abdullah, to end their war of wills. They must also agree on the participants of the government-appointed delegation to intra-Afghan peace talks, another serious bone of contention between them. Meanwhile, Ghani would have to soften the terms of the prisoner exchange to facilitate the Taliban’s participation, by agreeing to release more Taliban prisoners sooner.

But that is a very tall order, according to at least one veteran familiar with Kabul’s power politics.“Now that redlines have turned pink, let’s see how much mediation will be needed and what else will be traded,” Omar Samad, a former Afghan ambassador who is currently a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council in Washington, said in a tweet. “Some sides pursue domination and spoiler agendas that could easily derail the process to lead to an undesirable lopsided outcome. Peace is still far off.”

Until then, according to Khalilzad, Afghanistan stands precariously on the edge of a precipice.

The real reason China wants peace in Afghanistan

“We want a united independent Afghanistan that can stand on its own feet, not like, God forbid, the Taliban taking some territory, Ghani’s government taking some territory, and Abdullah’s government some territory. That’s a big danger, that’s a historic mistake,” he said during the television interview.

Marvin Weinbaum, director of Afghanistan and Pakistan studies at the Washington-based Middle East Institute, warned that an Afghanistan divided into rival emirates is “the great nightmare”.

“With a weakening of the state, we won’t have what we had in the 1990s – where the Taliban simply replaced the government, where one walked in and the other walked away,” Weinbaum said in an interview with Radio Liberty Gandhara. “This time there is every reason to believe that because there isn’t a unity of command on either side there will be a much more chaotic situation with the elements of a civil war that is much anarchic that anything seen previously.”

Regardless, US troops last week began to pull out of bases in southern Helmand and western Herat provinces. Under the first phase of the 14-month military withdrawal envisaged by the peace deal with the Taliban, US forces will be whittled down to 8,600 from the current 13,000 by the end of June. Depending on the Taliban’s adherence to the deal, the rest are scheduled to leave by the end of April next year.

LONG ROAD TO PEACE

Khalilzad even expressed optimism that the Afghan peace process would soon be back on track, and that a deal between the Taliban and Kabul-centric politicians could be reached within a matter of months.

“I personally hope that this issue [intra-Afghan talks] will be resolved within 100 days,” he said in the television interview. “We want this issue to be resolved during the first phase of the withdrawal of US forces from the country, and this will be in the interest of Afghanistan and the world.”

The US envoy’s prediction was greeted with derision by veteran Afghanistan watchers.

“That’s an election timetable, not a peace timetable,” tweeted Patricia Gossman, associate Asia director for Human Rights Watch.

Michael Kugelman, deputy director of the Asia programme at The Wilson Centre, a Washington-based think tank, cautioned that the Trump administration’s haste to pull out of Afghanistan would backfire.

“The peace process that ended the insurgency is Colombia, which is often cited as a close analogue for Afghanistan, took several decades. 100 days seems wildly optimistic,” Kugelman tweeted. “Once again, the US is telegraphing its rush to get a peace deal. This will enhance the Taliban’s leverage.”

With Khalilzad prioritising Trump’s re-election campaign, Ghani did the smart thing by attaching conditions to the prisoner release, Kugelman argued.

“By releasing 5,000 prisoners in one fell swoop, Ghani would be surrendering his most powerful tool of leverage. Given Kabul’s weak bargaining position, you can’t blame Ghani for opting for a more incremental approach,” Kugelman said.

A long, drawn-out political process of trying to reconcile the Taliban with Kabul’s power brokers is inevitable, during which political opportunists may switch sides if they see the US lose interest, analysts said. That could cause the Afghan security forces to splinter along ethnic and sectarian lines.

“The stakes were never this high, the politicking never so intense, the deception never so deep,” Samad, the former diplomat, said in another tweet.

“Problem is that trust is out of the window and Afghans – frustrated by war – don’t see an honest broker around. This pushes communities back to survival mode.”