NBC News reported on Tuesday that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo recently threatened two Afghan leaders with a full U.S. military withdrawal if they didn’t resolve their political dispute and negotiate an end to the war with the Taliban. Trying to predicate our withdrawal on a successful peace deal between Kabul and the Taliban, however, is a bad move that will almost certainly perpetuate the decadeslong failed American intervention.
The United States’ inability to win the Afghanistan war through three administrations and nearly a dozen different field commanders since 2001 has shown that Washington can’t force competing Afghan factions to get along, regardless of how many troops we have deployed or strategies we’ve tried. What President Trump can do, that all his predecessors have failed to do, however, is achieve success by ordering a coordinated and professionally executed withdrawal.
On Feb. 29, Trump hailed an agreement between the U.S. and the Taliban that was designed to end the “long and hard journey” of America’s war in Afghanistan. It was time, he promised, “to bring our people home.”
Unfortunately, there were so many requirements for external and competing actors to take unified action that there was no practical hope the agreement would end anything. The results and consequences of the past two Afghan presidential elections have painfully illustrated why.
The Afghan presidential elections held in September last year featured two main candidates, Ashraf Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah. These same candidates faced off in 2014, an election so corruption-ridden that then-Secretary of State John Kerry had to negotiate an extraconstitutional arrangement, the creation of the position of “chief executive,” that allowed the two fierce rivals to share power — and set the stage for five years of ineffective governance.
A rematch five years later was also so corruption-ridden that Pompeo had to travel to Kabul to try and negotiate yet another extraconstitutional power-sharing agreement between the two. But the animosity between Ghani and Abdullah had become so strong this time that even Pompeo’s March 23 visit could not end the dispute. To date, the September 2019 election has still not been resolved, with both Ghani and Abdullah claiming to be the true president and both having had swearing-in ceremonies.
During his visit last month, Pompeo threatened to withhold $1 billion in aid and to withdraw all U.S. troops if they didn’t resolve the issue and begin earnest negotiations with the Taliban. Since his visit, however, there has been no movement between the two sides, and still, neither leader is willing to compromise on settling the election results.
It is clear the Afghan leadership does not take Pompeo’s threats seriously and ignores them with impunity. Like the never-ending war America has been fighting on the battlefield in Afghanistan since 2001, this political fight will likewise continue into perpetuity.
Trump must finally acknowledge that he does not need a negotiated peace agreement between the Taliban and Afghan government to take decisive action of his own. He can instead issue an order on his authority to end the war on U.S. and NATO terms. He could then direct that the secretaries of state and defense make close coordination with both our NATO allies and the Afghan government to provide sufficient lead time for all parties to prepare for the withdrawal of our troops, carried out in a professional manner and with haste.
The harsh truth is that leaders in Kabul don’t believe the U.S. will actually make good on the threat to withdraw. The consequence of this belief is that they are unwilling to make even the most basic compromises.
If the two men competing for power at the very top of government won’t budge to their closest ally and protector because of a threat to withhold a billion dollars or the withdrawal of our troops, upon what possible basis could we expect that the winner will one day make the even greater compromises necessary to reach an agreement with their enemy?
The only way Trump can ensure the security of the U.S. and the preservation of our militaristic strength is to end the war and order a full withdrawal. Afghan leaders will then have the motivation to find a negotiated settlement with their opponents. Failure to end the war on our terms will condemn the U.S. to keep fighting in a never-ending conflict.
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.
