To my eye the most vital paragraph in Laurel Miller’s New York Times op-ed on negotiating peace in Afghanistan is this one:
The Taliban is violently opposed to the United States military presence on Afghan soil but does not have aspirations beyond Afghanistan. A peace deal could allow the United States to focus its resources on threats from the region that are directed toward the homeland and core American interests.
I can’t help but wonder when Ms. Miller reached that conclusion. From 2013 to 2017 she served the Obama Administration and then the Trump Administration as special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan. Did she inform her superiors of that? Did she reach that conclusion only recently?
Hasn’t that always been the case? Didn’t the U. S. invade Afghanistan in the first place because although they had no aspirations of their own beyond Afghanistan, they played host to Al Qaeda which did? Isn’t it reasonable to believe that having expelled the foreign invaders from their borders, as they would undoubtedly see it, they would be willing to host Al Qaeda or DAESH again?
That has always been the problem with the war in Afghanistan. We can’t stay and we can’t leave.
And, we can’t win.
Over the last 20 years or so, Al Qaeda has been explicitly loyal to the Taliban and their goals obviously extend way beyond Afghanistan. This loyalty pledged was openly renewed at every change of leadership in both organizations – the most recent was in 2015.
That is a poison pill for any negotiation, especially considering the failures prior to 9/11.
If it’s not clear from my post, I thought that Ms. Miller’s advice was either nihilistic or nakedly partisan. How else to think about giving opposite advice to administrations of two different parties under the same circumstances?
I think as I thought in 2001 that we should not have invaded Afghanistan. I thought we should mount the largest, most damaging punitive strike in history and be prepared to repeat as required. Invading Afghanistan was, is, and will remain foolhardy.
That does not mean that having invaded we may leave at will. We should be prepared to remain in Afghanistan indefinitely and I believe that President Obama was remiss in not explaining to the American people why that was the case and President Trump is following suit.