Three months after President Trump pulled the plug on peace talks with the Taliban in response to the group’s killing of a US soldier in a suicide bombing, negotiations are back on. Ambassador Zal Khalilzad recently sat down with Taliban representatives in Doha, Qatar, for what the White House hopes will be the beginning of a serious process that leads to a deal.
During a visit with US troops in Afghanistan on Thanksgiving, Trump claimed that the talks were not only back on track, but that the Taliban was even open to a ceasefire. The president’s comments generated a fair degree of confusion, particularly among the Taliban leadership, which reiterated its old position: A ceasefire will only occur when a deal with Washington is signed. And if Kabul is expecting a nationwide truce between Taliban and Afghan government forces, they can keep on dreaming.
Trump’s words aside, the dynamics of the 18-year conflict have not changed all that considerably. In the roughly 10 weeks since talks broke off, the war has continued to be one of the world’s longest meat grinders. US airstrikes increased by over 35% from August to September, the month negotiations fell apart. Taliban-initiated attacks have become more effective. And Afghan civilians are bearing the brunt of the violence. The escalation of US military operations has been met with an escalation of Taliban resistance. The cycle has done nothing to force the Taliban into softening its position that no peace talks with Kabul are possible until US forces withdraw entirely. Given the Taliban’s relatively strong position on the battlefield and the Afghan security forces’ systemic weaknesses, the group has shown as much willingness to compromise today as it did three months ago.
The final product is an Afghanistan trapped in a vicious deadlock, with roughly 13,000 US service members deployed in a war that will only end when Afghans themselves find a way to coexist peacefully.
Roughly $132 billion in US reconstruction costs, $77 billion in US funding to the Afghan security forces, and tens of thousands of US casualties over nearly 20 years have created a situation Americans want out of. According to a November 2019 survey of foreign policy attitudes from the Eurasia Group Foundation, less than one-third of Americans believe the United States should stay in Afghanistan “until all enemies are defeated.” The consensus is clear: US troops have done everything they could achieve, and they shouldn’t be put into the impossible position of finding a military solution to an ideological problem.
This is divorced from the original mission which was achievable and had nothing to do with constructing a democratic political order out of whole cloth, advising Afghan politicians on the drafting of a new constitution, refereeing between fractious Afghan politicians whenever a dispute arose or defending the post-Taliban Afghan government in perpetuity from a raging insurgency. Rather, the objective was to annihilate al Qaeda for conducting the worst terrorist attack in US history and punishing the Taliban for hosting Osama bin Laden’s network. The mission was one of justifiable retaliation and self-defense — and by the first few months of 2002, those goals were accomplished with flying colors.
More than 16 years later, thousands of American troops remain stationed on Afghan soil, being used as human bargaining chips to exchange for counterterrorism assurances the Taliban have a self-interest in fulfilling regardless. Taliban leaders have learned a lot over the last two decades, like how fierce the blowback can be for sheltering a transnational terrorist organization intent on attacking Americans. It’s highly unlikely the movement wants to go through the same experience again.
Afghanistan was a mess before the US invaded the country. It has been a mess in the years since. And it will remain a mess as long as Afghan power brokers continue to believe they can win power and squelch their enemies through brute force. None of this will change if there are 1,000, 5,000, or 100,000 US troops in Afghanistan.
An Afghan peace deal would serve the interests of the Afghan people first and foremost. But a deal is still very much an open question, and for the Trump administration to link a US troop withdrawal to the ability of Afghans to reconcile is a recipe for an endless American presence at an obscene cost in lives, money, and bureaucratic resources.
Washington shouldn’t spend another life or taxpayer dollar on a mission set that may prove to be beyond Afghanistan’s capacity to meet. The sooner Trump implements his campaign vow and ends US military involvement in Afghanistan’s unending political struggles, the better off the US will be.
