The US and the Afghan Taliban have finalized a framework for a potential deal — one that could lead to a cease-fire in a seemingly interminable war and to a withdrawal of US troops from a country they first entered nearly two decades ago.
One question that comes to mind about this sudden progress is: Why now?
Indeed, Washington has long indicated its willingness to help negotiate an end to the war. US and Taliban officials have held numerous talks in previous years. But until now, there was never a draft agreement.
The reason why the US and the Taliban have come so far so quickly comes down to three Ts: Trump, Taliban, and teammates.
President Donald Trump wants out of Afghanistan. He was never comfortable staying, not even when he announced a new strategy in August 2017 that entailed not only staying, but also sending several thousand additional troops. Only at the final hour did he reluctantly change his mind and agree to stay the course.
For Trump, the goal has been to get a deal — any deal — with the Taliban that gives him cover to head for the exits. It is an objective driven in part by US domestic politics: With the 2020 election fast approaching, an increasingly politically vulnerable president wants to deliver a gift to a restless base that opposes extended overseas military commitments.
So Trump enlisted the best possible US negotiator to help him get that deal. Zalmay Khalilzad, an Afghan-American and former US ambassador to Kabul, knows Afghanistan like few others. He has hit the ground running since assuming his role last year. In recent weeks, he hosted several meetings with senior Taliban officials. The latest one, in Doha, produced the new framework.
Then there is the Taliban. For all the talk of the insurgents having little incentive to stop fighting, they actually have a compelling reason to talk. They may be making major battlefield gains and rapidly seizing territory, but they are not winning the war. Though they enjoy influence and outright control in many rural spaces, they lack the capacity to take over urban areas. They are in a stalemate.
Everything is going according to plan for the Taliban. They have the Americans right where they want them.
Michael Kugelman
Talks present an opportunity for the Taliban. They can come to the table from a position of strength and try to gain major concessions from an American negotiating team under tremendous pressure to get a deal and get out.
So far, everything is going according to plan for the Taliban. They have the Americans right where they want them. They are talking directly with senior US officials and working toward a deal that would remove US forces. Kabul is completely sidelined from this process. All of this is exactly what the Taliban wants.
Meanwhile, America has two helpful teammates in this game: Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. These are arguably the Taliban’s two greatest influencers, and they have played an instrumental role in bringing the insurgents to the table. In October, Riyadh agreed to provide $6 billion to Islamabad to help bail out Pakistan’s sputtering economy. There is good reason to believe those funds were conditioned on the Pakistanis agreeing to convince the Taliban to participate in talks with the Americans. The Pakistanis did indeed help bring the insurgents to meetings with US officials, and they — along with the Saudis — also had a seat at the table.
There is an irony here. The Trump administration has repeatedly threatened to take a hard line on Pakistan, and yet Islamabad has now seemingly become Washington’s most important partner in a fledgling peace process with the Taliban. The White House’s threats were empty, but Pakistan’s sudden cooperation is very real.
In sum, a perfect storm of factors has come together to enable the US and the Taliban to lay out a blueprint for an agreement that few expected to materialize, and certainly not so rapidly.
However, this progress could easily come crashing down as quickly as it came together.
Washington wisely insists it will not agree to a withdrawal plan until the Taliban agrees to a cease-fire and to direct talks with the Afghan government. And let us be clear: No peace process can be credible until Kabul is brought into the conversation. But the insurgents, who reject Kabul’s legitimacy, may refuse. At the end of the day, if the Taliban does not like how things are going, it can happily walk away and redirect its full attention to the battlefield.
Khalilzad has his work cut out for him to get a deal. But then again, until recently, few imagined the US and the Taliban would be where they are today. When talks resume in several weeks, we will see if the two sides continue to defy the odds — and the expectations of all those jaded observers who had harbored little but skepticism about talks with the Taliban.
- Michael Kugelman is deputy director of the Asia Program and senior associate for South Asia at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Twitter: @michaelkugelman
