In a primetime speech Monday night, President Trump offered his plan for the war in Afghanistan. The president did not articulate his new war strategy in full, and it is doubtful that the modest troop increase will lead to “victory,” which the president said is his goal.
Trump did, however, provide a candid description of the Taliban, which remains closely allied with al Qaeda and is the primary threat to Afghanistan’s future. Trump also signaled his willingness to make some significant policy changes, especially with respect to America’s putative ally, Pakistan.
Most importantly, President Trump offered a realistic appraisal of the prospects for peace with the Taliban – a far more straightforward assessment than one often hears in Washington.
“Someday, after an effective military effort, perhaps it will be possible to have a political settlement that includes elements of the Taliban and Afghanistan, but nobody knows if or when that will ever happen,” Trump said. “America will continue its support for the Afghan government and the Afghan military as they confront the Taliban in the field.”
Trump’s assessment was refreshingly candid.
Officials in the State Department and elsewhere in government are heavily invested in the idea that the Taliban is a legitimate, albeit noxious, political faction that must be reconciled with the Afghan government. This policy goal has been betrayed by reality at every turn. The Taliban is fighting to restore its “Islamic emirate” to power. It doesn’t want to be merely part of a broader government. The Taliban wants to implement its totalitarian rule, based on radical Sharia law, across the whole of Afghanistan. That isn’t a reconcilable ambition.
The Obama administration pursued negotiations with the Taliban’s senior leadership even though a policy review in 2009 concluded that the effort wouldn’t work. The talks were a fiasco. The U.S. and its allies were first lured into talks by imposters. When a legitimate Taliban representative finally came forward, the State Department granted a series of concessions in a desperate attempt to push for more meaningful peace talks. None of this worked.
Yet many officials in Washington are hooked on the idea of negotiating with the Taliban, regardless of the actual prospects for peace.
Shortly after the president’s speech, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson offered to enter talks “without preconditions.”
“The Taliban has a path to peace and political legitimacy through a negotiated political settlement to end the war,” Tillerson’s statement reads. “We stand ready to support peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban without preconditions. We look to the international community, particularly Afghanistan’s neighbors, to join us in supporting an Afghan peace process.”
There is no evidence that the Taliban’s current leadership would consider a peace deal. The son of the group’s current overall leader, Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada, carried out a suicide bombing in July. Good luck negotiating with Akhundzada. While individual commanders and fighters may be reconcilable, the idea of a grand bargain with the Taliban has always been a fantasy.
The Taliban regularly employs terrorist tactics, such as suicide bombings, in Afghanistan’s civilian areas. The United Nations has concluded that the group’s violence is the leading cause of civilian casualties. It is a terrorist organization, even if Washington often pretends otherwise.
Proponents of the peace talks claim that the Taliban and al Qaeda are separable. But the two remain close allies to this day, and the Taliban has never renounced Ayman al-Zawahiri’s international network of terrorists and guerrilla fighters. Indeed, the Taliban openly celebrates its partnership with al Qaeda.
When the Obama administration initially pursued diplomacy with the Taliban, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton set forth several preconditions. These were abandoned after it became clear that the Taliban wouldn’t agree to any of them. Clinton transformed these preconditions into goals, thereby signaling a weak negotiating position from the start.
One of the original preconditions called for the Taliban to forswear al Qaeda before negotiating. Tillerson’s State Department should place this and other preconditions on the table before talking with the Taliban.
Ayman Zawahiri has sworn a bayat (oath of allegiance) to the Taliban’s emir. And al Qaeda isn’t just a terrorist organization focused on plotting against the West. Al Qaeda’s guerrilla fighters are deeply embedded within the Taliban-led insurgency and share the goal of restoring the Taliban’s “Islamic emirate”—in fact, it’s their top priority in the region.
If the Taliban won’t publicly and unambiguously distance itself from al Qaeda and Zawahiri, then the U.S. should stop pretending there is any real chance for peace.
The president also signaled a new willingness to deal with Pakistan’s sponsorship of the Taliban and other jihadist organizations. He warned the Pakistani government about its duplicity and said America would “further develop its strategic partnership with India,” Pakistan’s longtime rival.
“We can no longer be silent about Pakistan’s safe havens for terrorist organizations, the Taliban, and other groups that pose a threat to the region and beyond,” Trump said.
The president offered Pakistan the opportunity to change its behavior, but he clearly doesn’t think that is going to happen. Indeed, there is no reason to think it will. Trump threatened to cut off American aid to Pakistan because of its perfidy.
“We have been paying Pakistan billions and billions of dollars, at the same time they are housing the same terrorists that we are fighting,” Trump said. “But that will have to change. And that will change immediately. No partnership can survive a country’s harboring of militants and terrorists who target U.S. service members and officials.”
It is well-known that the Pakistanis sponsor the Afghan Taliban. The State Department, Defense Department and other branches of the U.S. government have repeatedly made this clear. But American policy has often rewarded Pakistan for harboring some of our worst jihadist enemies. It is true that the U.S. and its allies have received some benefits from the relationship with Pakistan, including supply routes into Afghanistan and occasional cooperation against some high-profile terrorists. But Pakistan often supports the other side in this fight.
Trump is obviously outraged by the terms of this deal, and he has every reason to be.
There are no easy solutions for Afghanistan. And the current strategy appears to have some significant holes in it. But President Trump is willing to rethink the basic tenets of America’s long failed policies—and that is a positive step forward.
