Posts published in “Defense and Foreign Policy”

We’ve alluded before to the sharp divergence between President Trump’s reckless and counterproductive rhetoric about Afghanistan and his more careful and deliberative actions vis-à-vis the country.

Rhetorically, Trump is eager to bug out of Afghanistan and end so-called endless wars. Yet, his actions there have been far more sober and deliberative than his foolish rhetoric suggests.

The danger is that Trump’s isolationist instincts will win out and that the disaster we’ve seen unfolding in Syria as a result of Trump’s sudden bug out there will be repeated in Afghanistan, albeit with far worse results.

Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, this same dichotomy exists in the new peace agreement that the Trump administration signed with the Taliban Saturday. The early indications are that Trump intends go all-in on the deal and live out his isolationist fantasies.

Diplomacy. Of course, pursuing a diplomatic solution in Afghanistan is a good idea. As Michèle Flournoy and Stephen J. Hadley explain in the Washington Post, “What is the alternative? After more than 18 years of war, neither the Taliban nor the combined U.S., Afghan and coalition forces have been able to defeat the other.”

But for diplomacy to be successful and not simply a ruse for surrender and defeat, the United States has to be determined to walk away from the negotiations if the Taliban does not act in good faith and fails to meet its obligations under the agreement.

The Department of Defense and the Department of State clearly understand this. Which is why both the Secretary of Defense, Mark Esper, and the Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, have both stressed that the agreement is “conditions-based.”

What Esper and Pompeo mean is this: If the facts on the ground in Afghanistan do not correspond with what was agreed to, then the planned withdrawal of U.S. troops will be called off.

“This deal doesn’t depend upon trusting anyone,” Pompeo told Face the Nation’s Margaret Brennan. 

It has a deep, complex, well-thought-out, multi-month-negotiated verification complex and mechanism by which we can observe and hold every member of the agreement accountable.

We’ll do that. It’s not about trust. It’s about what happens on the ground, not only yesterday which was an important day, but in the days that follow.

“This is a conditions-based agreement,” added Esper in the Washington Post. 

As this is a conditions-based agreement, if we assess that the Taliban is honoring the terms of the deal, the United States will reduce its military presence to 8,600 troops within a matter of months.

This drawdown will be part of a NATO-approved plan for commensurate reductions by other troop-contributing nations.

If progress on the political front between the Taliban and the current Afghan government continues, then the United States and its partners will further reduce our presence toward a goal of zero in 2021. If progress stalls, then our drawdown likely will be suspended, as well.

So far so good. The problem, as always, is the man at the top: President Trump, who is clearly singing a different tune.

Time-Based Deal. For Trump, the agreement is not conditions-based; it is time-based. Indeed, time, not conditions, are the determinative factor. We’ve been in Afghanistan for almost two decades, damn it, and, well, it’s just time to get out!

That’s a paraphrase of what Trump said, but it is an accurate paraphrase! Look for yourself. Here are Trump’s exact words, in full context, at a White House press briefing Saturday:

I’d like to congratulate all those incredible people that have worked for so long on our endless war in Afghanistan—19 years, going on 20 years…

We’ve had tremendous success in Afghanistan in the killing of terrorists, but it’s time, after all these years, to go and to bring our people back home. We want to bring our people back home.

And, again, it’s been—it’s been a long journey in Afghanistan in particular. It’s been a very long journey. It’s been a hard journey for everybody. We’re very largely a law enforcement group; and that’s not what our soldiers are all about. They’re fighters. They’re the greatest fighters in the world.

As you know, we’ve destroyed, in Syria and Iraq, 100 percent of the ISIS caliphate. One hundred percent. We have thousands of prisoners. We have killed ISIS fighters by the thousands—and, likewise, in Afghanistan.

But now it’s time for somebody else to do that work, and that’ll be the Taliban, and it could be surrounding countries. There are many countries that surround Afghanistan that can help. We’re 8,000 miles away.

So we’ll be bringing it down to 8,000 [U.S. troops], to approximately 8,600 [U.S. troops]—in that vicinity—and then we’ll make our final decision [at] some point in the fairly near future.

But this was a very spirited agreement. There was a lot of—there was a lot of talk. There was a lot of everything. They’ve been trying to get this for many years. And just—it’s time.

So I just want to thank everybody. I want to congratulate everybody. I really believe the Taliban wants to do something to show that we’re not all wasting time.

If bad things happen, we’ll go back. I let the people know: We’ll go back and we’ll go back so fast, and we’ll go back with a force like nobody has ever seen. And I don’t think that will be necessary. I hope it’s not necessary.

Yes, Trump talks about going back into Afghanistan; but that presumes we leave altogether first and let things fall apart.

In other words, Trump is determined to get out first and ask the hard questions later: because, in his mind, “it’s time” and we can always go back in if we have to.

Naïveté. This is naive and dangerous talk from the Commander in Chief. Leaving Afghanistan and then going back are not nearly as easy as Trump glibly suggests. And letting Afghanistan fall apart poses a host of dangerous risks to American national security and the American homeland.

Trump’s reckless rhetoric also makes it much more difficult for him to achieve an enduring and sustainable peace agreement with the Taliban. They surely can sense, after all, Trump’s weakness and his palpable desire for a deal, any deal.

On the other hand, we do have 14 months under this agreement before U.S. troops would leave Afghanistan altogether.

A lot can and will happen between now and then. We can only hope and pray that Trump—or his successor—comes to his senses and recognizes the danger and folly of acting out his isolationist fantasies in Afghanistan.

Feature photo credit: Live Science.

We noted yesterday that President Trump is eager to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan. Yet, he’s been president for three years and hasn’t done so. Why? Clifford May, President and Founder of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies explains why in today’s Washington Times:

I suspect his advisers have painted a picture of what could happen were he to cut and run:

A historic Taliban victory and U.S. defeat; helicopters evacuating diplomats from the U.S. embassy; pro-American Afghans having their heads chopped off with videos going viral; America’s enemies around the world redoubling their efforts to hasten what would be seen as America’s imminent decline and fall.

Not the results Mr. Trump wants to produce—least of all in an election year.

Trump himself made this same point, essentially, during a July 1, 2019, interview with Fox News’ Tucker Carlson.

Trump told Carlson that he would “like to just get out” of Afghanistan; but “the problem is that it [Afghanistan] just seems to be a lab for terrorists… I call it the Harvard of terrorists..”

Trump noted that the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorists who attacked the World Trade Center in New York City were trained in Afghanistan; and that the country’s history as a terrorist training ground and terrorist base of operations makes withdrawing U.S. troops there problematic.

“I’ll give you a tough one, if you were in my position,” he told Carlson:

A great central-casting general walks up into your office. I say we’re getting out. “Yes, Sir, we’ll get out. Yes, Sir.”

I say, ‘What do you think of that?” “Sir, I’d rather attack them over there than attack them in our land.” In other word, them come here.

That’s always a very tough decision, you know, with what happened at the World Trade Center, etcetera, etcetera.

When they [U.S. military leaders] say that, you know, no matter how you feel…

When you’re standing there and you have some really talented military people saying “I’d rather attack them over there than have them hit us over here and fight them on our land”— it’s something you always have to think about.

Now, I would leave and will leave—we will be leaving—very strong intelligence, far more than you would normally think, because it’s very important. And we can do it that way, too. But we have reduced the forces very substantially in Afghanistan.

First off, kudos to Tucker Carlson for asking an important and straightforward question about Afghanistan and giving the president the time and space that he needed to answer that question fully and completely.

I am not a fan of Carlson. His snide anti-interventionist views do not comport with my own perspective, but credit where credit’s due.

Carlson, obviously, has earned Trump’s trust; and, as a result, Trump shares with him his thinking. This is something that Trump rarely does (at last in a serious and thoughtful way), and the result here is great journalism and a genuine public service.

Reassuring. Moreover, it is reassuring to know that Trump sometimes listens, seriously and with due respect and consideration, to his military advisers, and doesn’t always act out impulsively as he often seems wont to do.

It also is reassuring to hear Trump say that, so long as he is president, the United States will retain a robust intelligence apparatus in Afghanistan.

This almost certainly means that some number of troops will be kept there indefinitely to collect and analyze intelligence and ensure that Afghanistan never again becomes a terrorist base of operations from which to attack the United States.

The fear with Trump, though, is that what he says one day he may not mean the next day. He can and does change his mind impulsively. Policy decision-making, consequently, can be inconsistent and erratic.

Syria. Look at what happened in Syria, for instance. Trump abruptly announced last fall that he was withdrawing U.S. troops. This set off an unnecessary military and humanitarian disaster.

The president then announced soon thereafter that he would keep some U.S. troops in Syria, ostensibly to “protect the oil,” but the strategic damage already had been done: U.S.- and allied-controlled territory had been ceded to Russian- and Iranian-backed regime forces; the Islamic State had been given a new lease on life; and chaos reigned—and still does.

However, at least with respect to Afghanistan, Trump seems to be proceeding carefully, cautiously and deliberatively, with greater situational awareness and understanding of the longer-term strategic ramifications of his actions and what these actions might mean for the safety and security of the American people.

Trump’s caution may be surprising in light of his more reckless rhetoric about wanting to leave Afghanistan. Yet it is nonetheless reassuring, and it makes Trump a more successful president. More importantly, the American people are better served—and better protected—as a result.

Feature photo: DoD/DVIDS via KNOP News.