The Obama administration’s decision in 2014 to trade five imprisoned Taliban fighters for Bowe Bergdahl, the deserter captured by Afghan insurgents, continues to bear ill consequences. The “Taliban Five,” as they’re known, now sit across the negotiating table from U.S. officials, figuratively and perhaps literally, and they hold the diplomatic advantage.
A quick review: The Five were U.S. detainees, held in the U.S. military facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, until 2014. All five had been high-ranking members of the pre-9/11 Afghan government that protected Osama bin Laden. All five had direct ties to al Qaeda and other terror groups. All were deeply committed to the cause of destroying American interests inside and outside Afghanistan. And all were considered by U.S. intelligence agencies as risks to the United States and its interests—several considered “high” risk. Against the pleas of top officials in the Pentagon and the CIA, President Obama opted to release the Taliban Five from detention in exchange for Bergdahl. With the exchange made, the five were delivered to Doha, Qatar.
A year earlier, the Obama administration agreed to recognize the Taliban’s political office in Doha. Among the administration’s stipulations: The office was not to be called the “Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,” since that was the name of the government the U.S. overthrew in late 2001. So when the Taliban’s Doha office opened in 2013 and called itself the “Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,” it was clear—as if further clarity were needed—that the Taliban had no interest in good-faith negotiations with the United States.
It’s now five years later, and the Trump administration appears as eager as its predecessor to exit Afghanistan without winning the war. The Pentagon speaks of “ending” the war rather than winning it, and the president himself shows no interest in final victory in that theater. Accordingly the administration recently appointed Zalmay Khalilzad as envoy to broker a peace between the Afghan government and the Taliban.
That’s the Taliban—the criminal junta the U.S. toppled in 2001 because it had aided and harbored Osama bin Laden. The Taliban that enforced sharia law, barred girls from attending school, terrorized the Afghan populace and routinely executed political opponents and those deemed insufficiently pious.
There will be no meaningful peaceful settlement with the Taliban, especially when the Taliban control vast swaths of territory in Afghanistan. And there is little indication that Taliban leaders want peace. In October, a meeting between American and Afghan military officials was attacked by Taliban gunmen in Kandahar. Afghan General Abdul Raziq was killed in the attack, as were two other Afghans; American personnel were injured as well. The Taliban immediately and enthusiastically claimed responsibility. Such attacks are common. This is the faction with which the Trump administration expects Afghanistan’s democratically elected government to negotiate.
Now the final insulting irony: Last week a Taliban spokesman announced that the Taliban Five were joining the group’s political office in Doha, Qatar. The Taliban already has the upper hand in these negotiations, realizing as it does how desperate the Americans are to leave. That means the U.S. must treat formerly captured enemy combatants as coequal negotiating partners. Even before this development it was clear to most observers that the Taliban was not interested in real peace negotiations. But the fact that their political office now includes these five terrorists removes any doubt.
A little more than a year ago, President Trump announced an aggressive and realistic plan to win the war in Afghanistan without leaving precipitously and creating a “vacuum” for terrorist insurgencies to fill. That is what the U.S. did in Iraq in 2011, he warned, and “we cannot repeat in Afghanistan the mistake our leaders made in Iraq,” for the consequences would be catastrophic.
He was right.
