By David Rohde
Afghanistan, in the foreign imagination, has never been associated with certainty. For centuries, visitors and invaders alike have applied conflicting stereotypes to the country—that Afghans are simultaneously courageous and treacherous, honorable and corrupt, courteous and warlike. This week, Afghans themselves face an uncertainty of their own: Donald Trump’s intentions.
On Monday, Trump’s Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation, Zalmay Khalilzad, announced that, after six days of negotiations, he had achieved a “framework” for a peace deal with the Taliban—something that has eluded American diplomats for more than a decade. The Taliban pledged not to allow any organization to carry out an international terrorist attack from the territory of Afghanistan, in exchange for a full withdrawal of foreign troops from the country. The news sparked surprise—and applause—from American diplomats who have tried and failed to negotiate with the Taliban in the past. “I think this is the beginning of a credible process for the first time in ten years,” Dan Feldman, who served as the Obama Administration’s Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, told me.
The moment represents an opportunity for Trump to produce a breakthrough foreign-policy achievement that would both appeal to his base and achieve something that he relishes: outdoing Barack Obama and George W. Bush. It would also end a conflict that has become an abattoir for poorly paid and equipped Afghan soldiers and police. Last week, the Afghan President, Ashraf Ghani, revealed that forty-five thousand of them have died since 2014, when Afghan forces took over the responsibility for securing the country from American and nato forces. During the same period, Ghani said, seventy-two foreign soldiers have died. On average, five hundred Afghan security forces have died for every American. “It shows you who is doing the fighting,” Ghani said.
A variety of factors—some serendipitous, some the result of Trump’s repeated calls for an American withdrawal from the conflict—have come together to create this opportunity. “The next several months are critical,” Rick Olson, a retired American diplomat who negotiated with the Taliban during the Obama Administration, told me. The surest way for the President to capitalize on the opportunity, diplomats say, is for him to embrace what is, for him, an uncharacteristic approach: restraint. Trump deserves credit for his willingness to take a risk. He has, apparently, dismissed the concerns of the Bush and Obama Administrations that abandoning Afghanistan could prompt the country to again become a base for terrorist attacks on the United States. But, for peace talks to proceed successfully, he should resist tweeting a demand for an immediate agreement or publicly threatening the unilateral withdrawal of American troops. Dan Feldman argues that this is a moment for Trump to act as a conventional leader. “A traditional, strategic, disciplined President could help quite a bit, by empowering his Special Representative in negotiations, by assuring the Afghan government that we won’t precipitously withdraw and leave a security vacuum . . . and by engaging allies and partners in the region on how to adequately resource and guarantee any settlement,” he said.
Feldman and Olson both said that a genuine chance for peace exists. Olson said that a central dynamic that has changed is the posture of the U.S. military. American generals are no longer arguing that they need more time to create military pressure on the Taliban. “The D.O.D. wants out,” Olson told me. “This is something they were never really willing to do under Obama.” He added that the Defense Department has shifted its focus to the strategic threats posed by China, Russia, and others. “The world has moved on,” he said. “D.O.D. is now thinking about great-power competition.”
For now, leaders across the region are also embracing the talks. After years of thwarting American efforts, Pakistan’s military, at the request of the United States, recently released Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, a founder of the Taliban, and allowed him to lead the peace talks with American diplomats in Qatar. Iran, Russia, and China, meanwhile, see a chance to achieve a long-running goal: getting American forces out of their back yard. And the Taliban, who are militarily strong but unpopular in Afghanistan’s cities, may sense an opportunity as well.
Former diplomats warn that confusing and contradictory messaging from Trump will derail the talks. Last month, the President tweeted, without having informed America’s allies, that he was withdrawing all U.S. forces from Syria. Days later, news leaked that the White House had ordered the Pentagon to withdraw half of the fourteen thousand troops currently serving in Afghanistan. But the Syria announcement—which provoked the resignation of Defense Secretary James Mattis—was later walked back. And this week Pentagon officials said that they have received no orders to withdraw the seven thousand troops from Afghanistan.
Trump, in publicly telegraphing his desire to pull out all American troops, Feldman told me, weakens the hands of American negotiators. The Taliban may, in fact, conclude that they could simply wait for U.S. forces to withdraw and then take control of the country. “The Taliban recognize that the U.S. commitment is waning,” Feldman said. “By announcing that precipitously, you take off the table our best leverage.” Young people, women, and city-dwellers in Afghanistan fear that Trump will hastily abandon them and the country’s vast, post-2001 improvements in education, health care, and basic human rights.
At a Senate hearing on Tuesday, senior American intelligence officials expressed concern about Afghanistan and hope for the talks. Dan Coats, the director of National Intelligence, predicted that, if the talks fail, the county’s bloody stalemate will simply drag on. “The current effort to achieve an agreement with the Taliban could play a key role in shaping the direction of the country,” he said. Gina Haspel, the director of the C.I.A., added that, even if a peace deal is reached, the United States will still need to closely monitor whether terrorist organizations begin to regroup. “All of us sitting at this table would agree that it’s very important that we maintain pressure,” she said. “A very robust monitoring regime would be needed.”
Feldman emphasized that an assurance from Trump that the U.S. will not “cut and run,” as well as a display of consistency and patience, would aid the talks. “This President has done the opposite of all those things,” he told me. If Trump is unwilling to adopt a new approach it’s best that he stay silent and leave the diplomacy to Special Envoy Zalmay Khalilzad. “Then I hope he says nothing at all,” Feldman said, “and let Zal be Zal, and continue his efforts.”
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