Today marks the completion of 19 full years since the terrorists struck America. Our fight against the Taliban in Afghanistan has drifted for almost two decades without attainable military objectives, without strategic success, and without even the chance for ultimate military victory.
This futility must end, and before the 20th anniversary of Sept. 11, all U.S. combat troops should be withdrawn.
In February of this year, U.S. and Taliban representatives signed an agreement stipulating that American forces would leave the country entirely within 14 months. Implied in the agreement was that the Taliban and Afghan government would first have to end their war through a peace agreement. Instead, U.S. national security objectives should dictate when we withdraw.
At present, U.S. military operations in Afghanistan have only the thinnest of relations with our security. Making sure the Taliban and Kabul come to an understanding has no bearing on our country’s vital interests. Under the best of circumstances, negotiations between warring parties is a painstaking, frustrating, and drawn-out affair. We’ve already seen in this current situation how delays complicate the process.
The February deal signed between the United States and the Taliban leadership established March as the date when direct negotiations would begin between Kabul and the Taliban. The prerequisite for those discussions was that the Afghan government would release 5,000 Taliban prisoners.
Almost six months later, Kabul still has not released all the prisoners and direct talks have yet to begin. Moreover, just days before Taliban and government representatives are set to begin direct talks in Doha, Afghan First Vice President Amrullah Saleh was attacked in Kabul on Wednesday and was almost killed, potentially derailing the talks before they even begin. U.S. National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien called Afghan President Ashraf Ghani last week to urge him to resolve the prisoner issue and begin negotiations “without delay.” Yet the war has continued to rage between Taliban and Afghan troops.
Kate Clark, a long-time member of the Afghanistan Analysts Network out of Kabul, published an assessment last month pointing out that casualty rates of the Afghan national security forces remain at historic highs. But she also noted that since February, the U.S. has essentially gotten out of the direct combat role in the war and that the Afghan security forces are conducting almost all the fighting.
The war is now essentially “an intra-Afghan war,” Clark wrote, and while “all Afghan parties to the conflict are supported by foreign countries, those doing the killing and those being killed are now almost all Afghan.” The assumption among most in the U.S. is that if Trump withdrew the American military, the Afghan government would collapse in short order. However, as Clark noted, the Afghan military is already shouldering almost all of the combat against the Taliban. Our withdrawal would not change that dynamic.
In a conversation I had last month in Washington with Hasibullah Kalemzai, chairman of the International Affairs Committee of the upper house of the Afghan Parliament, he reiterated that the Afghan army would be capable of defending his country without the help of the U.S. military. Kabul would prefer, he told me, for an extension of logistic and intelligence support, but that as long as Western powers continue to provide financial aid for the sustenance of the Afghan forces, they could stand on their own.
It is a hard truth that there is no guarantee that the current Afghan government would be able to stand. Even if that turns out to be the case, the U.S. must end its combat role in Afghanistan and withdraw. As has now been painfully proven over nearly two full decades, our military presence is unable to solve Afghanistan’s political problems. It is time for the Afghan government, the Afghan people, and the Taliban to make the hard choices about their own future and ultimately be responsible for their success or failure. It’s the only way this war can be resolved.
American security will continue to be guaranteed by our unparalleled ability to project power and strike any direct threats to our security with our global intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance assets. With or without a final and lasting peace settlement, however, it is time to end our participation in America’s longest war and withdraw all our troops.
Daniel L. Davis is a Senior Fellow for Defense Priorities and a former Lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army who retired in 2015 after 21 years, including four combat deployments. Follow him @DanielLDavis1.
