On Feb. 29, 2020, U.S. Special Envoy Zalmay Khalilzad signed an agreement with Taliban representatives to bring peace in Afghanistan. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s presence underscored the agreement’s importance to Washington.
To test Taliban sincerity, Khalilzad said the United States negotiated a pause in Taliban attacks on American forces. This was disingenuous: The pause occurred prior to the winter snow melt and the start of the traditional fighting season; it was akin to demanding a swimmer not use an outdoor pool during an ice storm.
At the signing ceremony, Pompeo sounded a note of caution. “We will closely watch the Taliban’s compliance with their commitments and calibrate the pace of our withdrawal to their actions,” he said.
The U.S. government, however, desperate not to acknowledge the failure of Khalilzad’s process, has responded by seeking to prevent any honest assessment of the metrics for success which Pompeo and Khalilzad put forward. According to the latest congressionally mandated report from the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction, “NATO Resolute Support (RS) restricted from public release data on the number of enemy-initiated attacks (EIA) that took place this quarter for the first time since SIGAR began using it in 2018 to track the levels and locations of violence. This EIA data was one of the last remaining metrics SIGAR was able to use to report publicly on the security situation in Afghanistan since RS discontinued its previous system of assessing district control in 2018.” NATO officials were honest about their motivation to withhold data. “EIA are now a critical part of deliberative interagency discussions regarding ongoing political negotiations between the U.S. and the Taliban,” they explained.
In other words, diplomats want to keep figures about Taliban compliance secret so reality does not interfere with an illusion. The ability to sustain that illusion, however, may be ending.
In recent days, Afghanistan has suffered devastating terror attacks. Afghanistan Vice President (and former intelligence chief) Amrullah Saleh reported evidence suggesting the Taliban was responsible for brutal terror attacks on both a funeral procession in Nangarhar and a maternity ward in Kabul. The evidence for Taliban culpability is solid, and the Taliban commander harbored a deep-seated grudge against many of the attendees. Some streams of intelligence also suggest the Taliban were responsible for shooting the newborns in their bassinets, although they remained silent on responsibility when popular revulsion about the attack became apparent.
Nor have the Taliban fulfilled their other commitments. They refused to accept the elected Afghan government’s delegation for intra-Afghan peace talks. And, while Pompeo sought to browbeat the Afghan government into full compliance with a deal to which they were not a party and into the planning of which Khalilzad consistently dismissed their input, the elected government did show good faith. They began releasing 5,000 Taliban fighters as the U.S. requested.
The Taliban, meanwhile, were committed to release 1,000 Afghan National Security Force prisoners. Rather than fulfill this commitment, they seized both civilian hostages and Afghan National Security Force retirees, tortured them, and then began offering them back. This makes a mockery of peace and makes clear that Khalilzad’s plan actually increased violence.
To give peace a chance and at the urging of diplomats from NATO countries, Kabul authorities agreed to adopt a defensive posture. That has now ended. The Afghan government will once again seek to target Taliban strongholds and bases before the Taliban can launch their attacks. That is wise. No peace process can turn a blind eye to bombings at funerals, slaughters in maternity wards, or kidnappings for ransom.
Pompeo promised that the U.S. would calibrate the withdrawal of its forces to Taliban compliance. If the facts on the ground matter, Pompeo should first withdraw Khalilzad — after negotiating Iranian noninterference in Iraq and now this, he is zero for two — and perhaps even augment American forces. This is not to bless “a forever war” but rather to preserve the meaning behind American diplomacy. U.S. and NATO authorities can then consider other strategies to compel the Taliban to stand down, first and foremost of which would be to hold the Taliban’s sponsors to account.
Michael Rubin (@Mrubin1971) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and a former Pentagon official.
