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.