Trump’s Secret Games with the Taliban

The president needs to deliver a win to his voters, but the attacks have forced him to step on the brakes

The car bomb explosion near the U.S. Embassy in Kabul last Thursday, which killed a U.S. soldier, a Romanian soldier and 10 Afghan civilians, exposed the secret meeting Donald Trump had planned with the Taliban at Camp David on Sunday. After an 18-year war, the death of about 20,000 Afghans per year − according to the Brookings Institution − and hundreds of billions of dollars spent, the U.S. accepted the Taliban’s offer to withdraw from Afghanistan. The agreement “in principle,” announced on Sept. 2, did not guarantee peace in the battered country, but aimed to reduce violence as foreign troops left Afghan soil.

Trump himself announced via tweet on Saturday that he had canceled the visit of the Afghan insurgents, which would have preceded the signing of the agreement arranged by Zalmay Khalilzad, an American of Afghan origin and former ambassador in Iraq and Afghanistan, and special envoy from the White House since 2018 for the peace talks. The Taliban prevented the Kabul government − which they consider an “American puppet” − from participating in the talks.

The heirs of Mullah Mohammed Omar − who control almost half of the country, although no big cities − believe they have the upper hand. While they are in no hurry, Trump is, because the election to the White House is approaching and he needs to show some “foreign success” after the failures of the wall with Mexico [and] the peace plan for the Middle East; storm clouds are also gathering over the economy due to his trade war with China. Going against the [wishes of the] Pentagon and doing it unilaterally, the president said last December that he would soon reduce the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan to 50%, which triggered the resignation of then-Secretary of Defense James Mattis.

George W. Bush rejected any communication with the Taliban − who were ruling Kabul at the time of the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001 − and invaded the Asian country with the promise of freeing women from the burka and bringing democracy to a near-feudal nation that is a jigsaw puzzle of tribal and ethnic loyalties. It was Barack Obama who initiated contacts with the insurgents, but severed them due to the stubborn opposition of his ally, the Afghan government. Trump, who had always opposed this war, was willing to accept the surrender disguised as a “deal” to deliver it to his voters, who reject foreign conflict as much as they support the wall on the Mexican border.

The Conditions

What is known of the agreement is what was said by Khalilzad after he showed a copy of the text to Afghan President Ashraf Ghani. Apparently, some 5,000 American soldiers were to withdraw from Afghanistan within five months, as well as another 3,000 NATO soldiers, and five military bases were to be vacated. This would entail reducing by 40% the 20,0000 foreign troops currently deployed there, of which 14,000 are from the U.S., thereby returning to the numbers Obama left at the end of his term.

Two out of the three conditions required by the U.S. to initiate peace talks − brokered by Qatar and with the support of Pakistan and China − were not met, which were that there would be no withdrawal of troops until a ceasefire was signed and that the Kabul government would need to be one of the negotiating parties. The Taliban would have only agreed that Afghanistan would not be used again as a base for terrorist organizations that wish to attack the U.S. and to contain the violence to ensure a peaceful withdrawal.

“If they cannot agree to a ceasefire during these very important peace talks, and would even kill 12 innocent people, then they probably don’t have the power to negotiate a meaningful agreement anyway,” said Trump in one of his tweets. On the same day that the agreement “in principle” was announced, a truck bomb killed more than 30 and wounded at least 100 near the Kabul area where foreigners live.

The U.S. needs to become more firmly engaged if it wants to achieve a ceasefire between the Afghan government and their Taliban archenemies, and support it by having both sides share power, to prevent the country from immersing itself in a deeper civil war as soon as the NATO troops are gone. While the Afghan people continue to wait for their long-desired peace, a large part of Kabul’s political class is focused on the presidential election scheduled for Sept. 28, in which Ghani seeks a second five-year term. Another delay in the election cannot be ruled out, already postponed twice by a reform of the electoral law and a lack of preparation for holding elections.