US President Donald Trump terminated talks with Afghanistan’s Taliban leaders calling them “dead” on September 09. “They’re dead. They’re dead. As far as I’m concerned, they’re dead,” he told reporters. Trump had planned to cap months of negotiations with the Taliban on the eve of 9/11 anniversary, through a secret meeting at Camp David that would have included the Taliban leadership and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani. Trump had said he would like to reduce US troops in the country to about 8,600.
The reason to call off the talks is quite flimsy, such or even worse attacks by Taliban throughout the length and breadth of Afghanistan have been a matter of routine for quite some time. The Taliban also had unrestricted liberty to choose the places and timings of such attacks even during Obama’s surge days. One wonders whether Trump ever planned to withdraw his boys. In brothers Narendra Modi and Benjamin Netanyahu’s footsteps, Trump just pulled out of the talks when it was time for him to deliver.
President Ghani was side-lined from the negotiations between US officials and Taliban representatives, he had been deeply suspicious of the talks. However, soon after scrapping off of the talks by Trump, he made a renewed call for peace insisting that the Taliban must observe a ceasefire, which they have so far refused to do. “Peace without a ceasefire is impossible,” Ghani said. The growing tension on the ground in Afghanistan adds to the uncertainty about the future course for American forces, many of whom must now simultaneously brace for an increase in fighting while also awaiting potential orders to withdraw.
Trump scrapped his talks after an American soldier was killed by a suicide bomber in Kabul’s diplomatic enclave. Trump had hoped having both parties at the presidential retreat could produce a deal. The Taliban had stepped up attacks even as the talks were taking place in recent weeks. Bringing US troops home from Afghanistan has been one of Trump’s main campaign promises, and Trump said his administration was still thinking about a draw down of the 14,000 US soldiers in the country. “We’d like to get out but we’ll get out at the right time,” he said.
Combatant Commander US Central Command General Kenneth McKenzie, the head of US, said the US military is likely to accelerate the pace of its operations in Afghanistan to counter the Taliban upsurge. McKenzie said during a visit to Afghanistan that the Taliban “overplayed their hand” in peace negotiations by carrying out a spate of high profile attacks. “We’re certainly not going to sit still and let them carry out some self-described race to victory. That’s not going to happen,” McKenzie told a group of reporters travelling with him during a stop at Bagram Airfield. Asked whether increasing operations against the Taliban could include air strikes and raids by US and Afghan commandos, McKenzie responded: “I think we’re talking a total spectrum. We’re going to make some decisions, I think, back in our nation’s capital over the next few days and that will give us increased guidance going ahead,” he added, without elaborating. He also visited Islamabad to discuss the situation with Pakistan’s military leadership.
The Taliban said on September 10 that they would continue fighting against US forces in Afghanistan. “We had two ways to end the occupation in Afghanistan, one was fighting, the other was talks and negotiations,” Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid told AFP. “If Trump wants to stop talks, we will take the first way and they will soon regret it.” The Taliban said that more American lives would be lost as a result of Trump’s decision to cancel talks.
If implemented, draft accord agreed between the US and Taliban would have seen about 5,800 American troops withdrawn over the coming months and vacation of five American military bases in Afghanistan over next 135 days in exchange for guarantees that Afghan soil would not be used as a base for militant attacks on the United States or its allies.
The US and Taliban representatives had claimed that they were at the threshold of a peace agreement “that will reduce violence and open the door for Afghans to sit together to negotiate an honourable and sustainable peace”, according to US chief negotiator Zalmay Khalilzad. Suhail Shaheen, a spokesman for the Taliban’s Doha, had also shared similar optimism: “We are on the verge of ending the invasion”.
Erstwhile prospective deal centred on US troop reductions in return for several security guarantees from the Taliban, as well as broader peace talks between the insurgents and the Afghan government and an eventual ceasefire.“We have agreed that if the conditions proceed according to the agreement, we will leave within 135 days five bases in which we are present now,” Zalmay Khalilzad told Tolo News on September 02.
A ceasefire in Afghanistan and exchange of prisoners was also in the offing. The US had pledged to give a road map for phases-wise withdrawal of their troops from Afghanistan. Both sides had agreed for total prisoner swap. “In the first phase, they agreed to withdraw a bigger number of troops, approximately 8000-10,000. And the remaining forces were to be withdrawn as per agreement in more than a year,” the Taliban side had claimed. And soon after prisoners’ swap, Taliban were to join the intra Afghan dialogue. The meeting between Taliban and Afghan leaders was to be held in Oslo, Norway most likely at the end of September. About the intra Afghan dialogue the Taliban had clarified saying they would not involve the Afghan government in the peace talks. “We made it clear that people sitting in the Afghan government can participate in the intra-Afghan dialogue but they would not represent the government.”
Also, about the ceasefire Taliban said they had made it clear to the US in the peace talks that it would mean only between US and Taliban. “What they (US side) had agreed with us is they would not stop our fighting against the Afghan government and its armed forces. Also, we made it clear to them that we would immediately break the ceasefire if US forces came to the rescue of Afghan forces in their clashes with Taliban,” the Taliban leader claimed. Similarly, Taliban sources said they informed the US negotiating team that they would neither participate in the Afghan presidential election nor let that happen.
Reportedly, the US wanted to avoid documenting some of the decisions mentioned in the peace accord. However, Taliban wanted all the decisions made in the peace talks to be part of the written agreement.
As deal making approached the finish, misgivings grew among some Trump administration officials and lawmakers that “it will erode the United States’ ability to thwart attacks from there”, Reuters reported on August 31. To allay these apprehensions, President Donald Trump said he planned to keep 8,600 troops in Afghanistan for the foreseeable future. “We’re going down to 8,600 and then we make a determination from there as to what happens,” Trump told Fox News radio repeating that the US “could win that war so fast, if I wanted to kill 10 million people which I don’t.”
General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff had told Pentagon reporters: “I’m not using the withdraw word right now.” “It’s our judgment that the Afghans need support to deal with the level of violence in the country today”. He said it’s too early to talk about a full American troop withdrawal from Afghanistan.
A meeting of Taliban leadership reviewed the draft agreement. Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid tweeted: “All the Shura (consultation) members have received the draft and they are reading it carefully, yet no go-ahead signal has been given to the Taliban negotiating team in Doha,” the Taliban official said. The US and the Taliban began ninth round of their parleys in Doha on August 22. The American side thinks that potentially decisive talks would allow draw down of occupation troop from Afghanistan. Perceptions of both sides about the outcome of talks had narrowed down quite remarkably; Taliban’s Doha spokesperson Suhail Shaheen said: “We have made progress and are now discussing the implementation mechanism and some technical points.” “The agreement will be completed after we agree on these points,” he said. Any deal would be announced before the media as well as representatives from neighbouring countries and China, Russia, and the United Nations, he added.
The US planned to bring home some but not all of the US military forces from Afghanistan. President Donald Trump had confirmed reports that US officials were discussing withdrawal plans with both the Taliban and Afghanistan government officials. He had expressed satisfaction over talks. Trump hoped that a ‘quick deal’ will allow the coalition troops, at least a significant number, to withdraw from Afghanistan before the next US elections. He said the US would seek to get troop levels below 13,000 but leave very significant intelligence capabilities behind. Trump pledged to end the military mission in Afghanistan during his presidential campaign but increased the number of troops deployed there after taking office on the advice of Pentagon. He has also said that Defence Department leaders had opposed his plans to bring more troops home. However, Trump made it clear that the United States “cannot allow Afghanistan to be made a laboratory for terrorism”. “That does seem to be the Harvard University of terrorism. “We’ll always have intelligence and we’ll always have someone there,” Trump said on August 20.
In what became the deadliest attack in Afghanistan this year, a suicide-bomb blast had killed at least 63 and injured over 180 at a wedding party in Kabul on August 17. Taliban were quick in denying responsibility for the attack and condemning it. This time presumably the Daesh boys did it. The Afghan government vowed to crush Daesh havens as Afghans mourned the dead, including children. The attack came at a difficult and complicated time for the country, keeping in view the US-Taliban peace talks. Zalmay Khalilzad also condemned the attack and hoped that the Afghan Peace Process will now be accelerated. “We condemn ISIS and yesterday’s heinous attack on a Kabul wedding hall that killed scores of innocent Afghan families who had gathered to celebrate what was meant to be a joyous occasion. We must accelerate the #Afghan Peace Process including intra-Afghan negotiations. Success here will put Afghans in a much stronger position to defeat ISIS”, Khalilzad tweeted.
The US government hoped that the peace deal will only be signed if ‘certain security goals and conditions’ are met by the Taliban back to condition based withdrawal. The Daesh attack did not only highlight the US failures in Afghanistan in terms of failing to defeat the Taliban, but also in terms of allowing other terrorist and militant groups, such as Daesh, to flourish in the country.
Recent spate of terror attacks in Afghanistan has raised concerns and fears over the future security landscape of the country. The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) in its report had also warned that the “Afghan government had weak oversight of security force units & their commanders in peripheral areas of Afghanistan”. In his recent report to the United Nations its Secretary General Antonio Guterres had said that “the lull in IS directed international attacks “may be temporary” and that “Afghanistan remained the best-established conflict zone among those attracting foreign extremist fighters from within the region”.
According to Leo Shane III, Trump signalled that his preference would be a full withdrawal of American [military] personnel from the country, but “it’s a dangerous place, and we have to keep an eye on it.” However, he termed open-ended US military mission there “ridiculous”.“We’re not really fighting, we’re more of a police force and we’re not supposed to be a police force,” Trump said. He added: “As I’ve said several times, not using nuclear, we could win that war in a week if we wanted to fight it. But I’m not looking to kill 10 million people. I’m not looking to kill 10 million Afghans, because that’s what would happen.” Asked if Taliban negotiators will honour any agreement, the US president responded “nobody can be trusted” but added that “the Taliban would like to stop fighting us” because of the casualties they have suffered.“The Taliban does not respect the Afghan government,” he said. “They haven’t been exactly getting along for a long time. But we’ve been a peacekeeper there for 19 years, and at a certain point you have to say ‘That’s long enough.’” After briefing Trump on status of negotiations with the Taliban on August 16, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had said “led by the president, we are working diligently on the path forward.” Earlier in response to concerns from critics that the president may adopt too aggressive a withdrawal schedule, Pompeo said that the goal of the talks is to find “a comprehensive peace agreement, including a reduction in violence and a ceasefire, ensuring that Afghan soil is never again used to threaten the United States or her allies.”
Jim Golby in his August 17 analysis for The Atlantic captioned: “It Matters If Americans Call Afghanistan a Defeat”, aptly commented: “The public’s judgment about whether the United States won or lost the war will affect civilian-military relations for years to come”. Golby went on to say:
“The answer depends partly on the terms of a potential deal, but also on the public narrative that forms around it. A negotiated peace normally involves concessions by both sides, and can therefore be characterized in multiple ways; critics of the deal now taking shape are describing it as a US surrender, while proponents will likely portray it as an honourable end to America’s longest war.” “Following the Vietnam War, a narrative developed among the US military officer corps that civilian leaders had stabbed military leaders in the back by cutting a deal to withdraw US troops, rather than allowing them to win. A broader literature suggests that a “stabbed in the back” narrative is a common cultural response among militaries that have failed to achieve their wartime goals. Many of these frames have staying power”. The legacy of the Afghan War now in its 18th year will similarly depend on whether civilians, veterans, and current military personnel believe the United States won or lost Americans don’t think the war in Afghanistan is a mistake, they’re probably ready for it to end. In our survey, only 29 percent of respondents told us they believed the Afghan War was a mistake; 45 percent believed it wasn’t a mistake, while 26 percent were unsure opinions on the war in Afghanistan showed few partisan or civil-military gaps. Only 31 percent of Democrats and 21 percent of Republicans told us the war in Afghanistan was a mistake; just 30 percent of veterans and 29 percent of nonveterans said the war was an error”. “Even though most Americans don’t think the war was a mistake, they appear ready for American troops to come home. When asked whether they would support the decision if Trump authorized the withdrawal of US troops, 55 percent said yes, and only 23 percent said no. Sixty-seven percent of Republicans would back a troop withdrawal by Trump, but Democrats were not far behind, 57 percent of them would approve. Approximately 55 percent of both veterans and non-veterans told us they would support a troop withdrawal, along with an overwhelming 72 percent of those on active duty whether or not troops come home might not be the only thing that matters. The terms of an agreement with the Taliban and how that agreement is framednas a victory or defeat will influence public support for the deal, especially among veterans and active-duty troops A final deal has remained elusive because the Taliban has allegedly not yet agreed to denounce al-Qaeda or provide all the counterterrorism assurances US negotiators have requested. The terms of a potential deal likely will shape how civilians and military will view the end of the Afghan War”.
Liz Cheney in her Gulf News opinion piece, captioned “Why Trump should reject the Afghan deal” recommends that:
“The group [Taliban] has conducted daily attacks resulting in the deaths of Afghan civilians, US soldiers and our allies. It has dispatched suicide bombers throughout the country. Its men have terrorised the Afghan population, targeting women and girls Despite all of this and more, special representative Zalmay Khalilzad says he is satisfied with the Taliban’s supposed counter terrorism assurances Given the Taliban’s sordid history and ongoing violence, it strains credulity to believe it can be a partner for peace. The American people deserve to see the full text of any agreement the State Department is negotiating, including supposed counter terrorism assurances Indeed, the Daesh remains a global threat and has a prolific branch inside Afghanistan The group (Daesh) is already exporting its terror to Afghanistan’s neighbouring countries and may also have ambitions to strike in the West. America’s brave men and women in uniform fight the Daesh, Al Qaida and other terror groups over there so that we are never again forced to confront them at home We should not withdraw US forces based on a political timetable that grants concessions to the Taliban and allows the terrorists to maintain safe havens from which they can plan and train for future attacks in the West. We cannot accept a deal that places America’s security in the hands of the Taliban. Agreeing to such a deal would not be ending a war, it would be losing it to Al Qaida, the Taliban and the Daesh”.
The signals emanating from various quarters were indeed confusing. Probably Americans may have had a plan up in the sleeve to just put up a token façade of withdrawal while retaining or even enhancing the military potential in Afghanistan. If that was the case, then the US was certainly grossly under estimating the acumen of Taliban.
Apparently, the most powerful person in the World the US President is yet on a steep learning curve to comprehend the limits of a national or coalition military power even though having the advantage of resource preponderance striving to cope up with a fourth generation war while itself remaining within the confines of a third generation war fighting strategy.
