The Taliban have announced a three-day cease-fire beginning Sunday and lasting into the middle of next week. The United States should observe that cease-fire with its Afghan allies but launch a significant air campaign against Taliban targets once the Taliban recommence attacks on the Afghan government.
That air campaign proposal might seem precipitous and unnecessarily aggressive, but it is actually just the opposite.
It is the cause of peace rather than the perpetuation of war, which will most benefit from this American action. The key here is that the U.S.-Taliban peace accord is dying a fast and painful death. Painful, that is, for our allies in Afghanistan and American credibility at large. Since the U.S. and the Taliban signed their early March peace deal, the Taliban has been relentlessly attacking Afghan forces. These attacks are taking place even as the Taliban demands Kabul release thousands of prisoners.
Showing an unfortunate Obama administration style disregard for warfront allies, the Trump administration is exerting major pressure on the Afghans to release those prisoners without the Taliban even suspending its attacks. Even, that is, as hundreds of Afghan soldiers are gunned down each month.
This is a truly ridiculous state of affairs. It serves no one but the Taliban’s most hard-line elements and those that support it from Pakistan. It lays the foundation only for Afghanistan’s return as a safe haven for global Salafist groups.
This was predictable, of course. The Taliban was always going to challenge America’s commitment to hold it to its obligations. And where, as now, that challenge has found no serious American response, the Taliban have no serious reason to alter their strategy.
It needn’t be this way.
The U.S. military deployment to Afghanistan is now restricted to a few thousand personnel and to logistics, training, aviation, and intelligence operations in support of government security forces, aside from special operation activities against the Islamic State, necessary in that ISIS is reconstituting its international operations and doing standard fare ISIS stuff, such as massacring newborn babies. As of May 24, four U.S. citizens have been killed in Afghan combat operations in 2020. A tragic number, yes, but nowhere near the dark days of 2010-2011, nor so extreme as to precipitate our abandonment of an ally and mission which more than 2,300 U.S. citizens have given their lives for since 2001. A war that tens of thousands more U.S. citizens have been seriously wounded in.
That mission can still be achieved in a way that is compatible with Taliban conformity to peace.
The Taliban only agreed to sit down with the Trump administration because they feared that President Trump, unlike President Barack Obama, would hold to his word that their failure to negotiate would mean American escalation. And when the Taliban tested that thesis back in September 2019, they found their original conclusion correct.
But a true peace that sustains Afghan government authority over major cities, the protection of human rights, and the development of a growing economy will only happen if America shows the Taliban that we’re not leaving absent its compliance with the peace accords. If the Taliban know they must compromise, they will do so. But only when they know they must. And presently, they sense that Trump is ready to cut and run.
That speaks to the U.S.-credibility concern.
Some say this credibility-in-foreign-policy factor doesn’t matter. But, as proved by the contrast between Obama’s appeasement-centric foreign policy and Trump’s deterrent-centric foreign policy, it does matter. A lot. Adversarial actors look to American security actions in one area as good indicators of how America might act in another area. And if America cuts and runs from Afghanistan, China and Russia will pay notice and take inspiration.
So, yes, the U.S. should support the Eid cease-fire. But the moment it concludes and the Taliban returns to violence, which it will, Trump should order a short but sharp series of strikes on Taliban infrastructure. His present appeasement is a fundamental disservice of American security interests.
