Talks with the Taliban may see U.S. and allied forces leaving Afghanistan over the next 14 months or so. An agreement has just been signed. Via the BBC:
The US and the Taliban have signed an agreement aimed at paving the way towards peace in Afghanistan after more than 18 years of conflict.
The US and its Nato allies have agreed to withdraw all their troops from the country within 14 months if the militants uphold the deal.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Taliban leaders attended the signing ceremony in Doha in Qatar.
Talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban are due to follow.
Under the agreement signed in Doha, the militants also agreed not to allow al-Qaeda or any other extremist group to operate in the areas they control.
This has gotten surprisingly little coverage — between the coronavirus and the Democratic primaries, the news cycle has paid very little attention to developments in Afghanistan. The initial response to the 911 attacks had us invade the country, but the pivot by Bush and the NeoCons to lie us into invading Iraq led to Afghanistan being put on the back burner. Per the BBC, “More than 2,400 US troops have been killed during the conflict. About 12,000 are still stationed in the country.”
(*disclosure — one of them is a member of my family. Another has deployed there in the past.)
There are still numerous uncertainties ahead. The New York Times reports:
American efforts to instill a democratic system in the country, and to improve opportunities for women and minorities, are at risk if the Taliban, which banned girls from schools and women from public life, become dominant again. Corruption is still rampant, the country’s institutions are feeble, and the economy is heavily dependent on American and other international aid.
The signing of the agreement in Doha, Qatar, which followed more than a year of stop-and-start negotiations and conspicuously excluded the American-backed Afghanistan government, is not a final peace deal and could still unravel.
But it is seen as a step toward negotiating a more sweeping agreement that some hope could eventually end the insurgency of the Taliban, the group that once ruled Afghanistan under a severe Islamic code.
The Times also puts a slightly higher cost on the war: “...The war cost $2 trillion and took the lives of more than 3,500 American and coalition troops and tens of thousands of Afghans since the U.S. invasion in aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks...”
What does this mean?
I’m neither a political scientist, a historian, or a military analyst. Here’s my take on some of the implications coming out of this: YMMV.
The negotiations with the Taliban are a de facto recognition that ultimately they could not be beaten on the battlefield, not with the conditions on the ground, not with the level of forces we were willing to commit, not with the historical, cultural, and geopolitical considerations that apply. Vietnam references are inevitable.
It should be noted that the Russian experience in Afghanistan is one of the factors that led to the collapse of the Soviet Union. It began as an attempt to seize territory via a favorable regime. The U.S. entry into Afghanistan had a somewhat more justifiable motivation — responding to the attack on the U.S. by Al Qaeda. The U.S. had its own comeuppance with the hubris of the invasion of Iraq, launched on the pretext that Saddam Hussein was somehow involved with Al Qaeda and had weapons of mass destruction. It was also seen as unfinished business after Gulf War One.
The consequences for both Russia and America from their Afghanistan involvement has had some disturbing parallels. In both countries authoritarian regimes have taken power and the old institutions that governed them have proven to have flaws. There is a desire for a return to former national glories, imagined or otherwise. The collapse of the Soviet Empire left the U.S. as the last Superpower. The collapse of confidence in the U.S. as a reliable partner with Donald Trump in charge has effectively crippled the international alliances that made the U.S. a Superpower. While we still have vast military might, the influence that backed it has been decimated.
The hopes for democratic reforms in the Soviet Union following its break up have instead seen a corrupt oligarchy taking power. In the U.S. the rejection of the Bush administration and the NeoCons was followed by the Obama administration and hopes that America had finally become post-racial. The election of Donald Trump put paid to those dreams, and we now have oligarchs openly trying to turn the country into a de facto plutocracy.
More immediately, this agreement will be seized upon by the Trump administration as proof that Donald Trump is the genius who ‘won’ in Afghanistan where Obama could not. (There will be no mention of George W. Bush — or that Obama got Osama bin Laden.) In the absence of achievable goals, getting our troops out of the country is perhaps the best that could be hoped for. However, as this is Donald Trump, the exit from Afghanistan will likely see others stuck with the bills and broken dreams, much like his repeated bankruptcies. Any allies we had in the country who were counting on our support will be written off.
The Trump administration is likely gambling they can claim victory in Afghanistan at least till November; after that whatever happens there will be irrelevant to Trump, win or lose. Given the track record in Iraq and Syria, the use of military power to change the world for the better seems to have some limitations.