If only U.S. officials spent as much effort negotiating their deal with the Taliban as they have trying to scapegoat the Afghan government as they paper over the deal’s deficits.
First, consider the basics: On Feb. 29, 2020, Special Envoy Zalmay Khalilzad signed an agreement with Taliban negotiators based in Qatar. While often described as an Afghan peace deal, this is inaccurate: Khalilzad negotiated the agreement only with the Taliban, a group with which he once sought to do business. Not only did he cut out the Afghan government from the process, but he and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo sought to punish allied Afghan officials who raised concerns about American concessions. The State Department would meet with Taliban officials with blood on their hands, but blacklisted Afghan National Security Adviser Hamdullah Mohib because he criticized Khalilzad’s approach, and denied visas to Amrullah Saleh, a generally pro-Western former Afghan intelligence chief and interior minister who now is the elected vice president. For all the Trump administration prides itself on a different approach than its predecessors, on Afghanistan at least, Pompeo and Khalilzad engaged in John Kerry-style “bash your friends and fete your enemies” diplomacy.
The basic outlines of the Taliban deal were that the Afghan government would release “up to 5,000” Taliban prisoners, and the Taliban would release “up to 1,000” captured Afghan security force members by March 10, 2020. Once this occurred, the intra-Afghan dialogue would begin to determine the future direction of the country. Meanwhile, the forces of the United States, contractors, and NATO partners would pull out within 14 months. Khalilzad also committed to removing sanctions on the Taliban by Aug. 27, 2020.
Needless to say, the Afghan government and the Taliban did not meet the deadline for prisoner release. The Afghan government was rightly annoyed that, on one hand, Khalilzad refused to talk to them as an equal partner in the talks but nonetheless committed them to free known terrorists. On the other, the Taliban dawdled over its own releases, often seizing new civilian hostages to trade rather than free Afghan soldiers taken during their insurgency.
Many U.S. allies such as France and Australia, meanwhile, are increasingly angry at President Trump, Pompeo, and Khalilzad for pressuring the elected Afghanistan government to free Taliban prisoners who not only killed their nationals, but also violated the laws of war.
As has become too common, rather than assess compliance with the peace deal or acknowledge its weaknesses with the aim of fixing it, Khalilzad and the U.S. Embassy now appear to be working behind-the-scenes to spin the media and deflect blame for problems they caused.
On Tuesday, for example, NPR suggested that the Afghan government was waiting for the U.S. election before starting peace talks. Put aside Khalilzad’s historic insistence that he be the focus of attention and his fear that a new administration may not let him maintain a diplomatic perch which he hopes one day he can use as a springboard into becoming secretary of state. While accusing the Afghan government of slow-rolling Taliban prisoners, NPR omits a key fact: There are 22 commandos that the Taliban continue to hold despite claiming to have released all Afghan National Defense and Security Force prisoners. The U.S. government will never leave its men behind, and neither Khalilzad nor the State Department should demand that Afghans do.
In Dancing with the Devil, a history of U.S. diplomacy with rogue regimes and terrorist groups, including the Taliban, there was a pronounced pattern to U.S. peace efforts that failed: The State Department would turn a blind eye to an adversary’s cheating in order to keep peace processes alive. At the same time, adversaries would cheat to gauge the seriousness of U.S. commitment. When the U.S. signaled that they would not hold adversaries to their commitments, opponents concluded they could breach them at will.
So it has come to pass with the Taliban peace deal. Trump may like to extract the U.S. from its longest war, but if he is to succeed, it is important to hold the Taliban to the letter of their commitment. They must release the 22 Afghan commandos who fought not only for their country, but to defend the U.S. from a regime which collaborated with and harbored the terrorists which struck on Sept. 11, 2001.
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.
