The Daily Beast
Biden team about to start their first talks with the Taliban
GettyPresident Biden negotiator in Afghanistan has embarked on a diplomatic journey that will include the new administration’s first meeting with the Taliban, known sources confirmed to The Daily Beast. The State Department did not immediately comment on the agenda that Zalmay Khalilzad is bringing to the Taliban, which belatedly resumed peace talks with the US Afghan government client last week. Khalilzad will first travel to Kabul for meetings with an Afghan government whose viability in post-American Afghanistan is an open question. He will also visit other crucial regional capitals. Khalilzad “will resume discussions on the way forward with the Islamic Republic and Afghan leaders, Taliban representatives and regional countries whose interests are best served by winning a just, durable and permanent political agreement and a comprehensive ceasefire” , said a State Department official. Khalilzad, who was sent to Afghanistan to three different presidents, arrives at the region at a crucial time. The Doha Agreement is two months away, the deal that Khalilzad negotiated with the Taliban last year requires the total withdrawal of US troops. There is huge international speculation about whether Biden will stick to a deal that will free the United States from a 20-year war that he will not admit he lost. It helped to escalate an endless war. Will she end this? “I think leaving now is more attractive than ever,” said Carter Malkasian, who has advised the US military in Afghanistan for more than a decade. Almost immediately after taking office, Biden put the deal with Afghanistan, closed by the Trump administration, under review. It represents the first critical foreign policy decision of his presidency. Although the review is said to be nearing its terminal stage, sources familiar with it or close to management have said nothing – only that it has not been completed, a course of action has not been decided and they consider the process rigorous. climbing in Afghanistan when he was the vice president of Barack Obama, is under significant pressure from the elite to avoid a planned withdrawal for May 1. Both Democratic eminences in foreign policy and panels of prestigious think tanks called for a postponement. “It is possible to maintain American troops beyond May and, at the same time, to support Doha,” argued Lisa Curtis. Curtis was Afghanistan’s top official on Trump’s National Security Council. It is a criticism of what he calls the “imperfect peace agreement” that Khalilzad negotiated at Trump’s request, since the obligations he imposes on the United States – the withdrawal – are more specific than for the Taliban, which supposedly prevents Afghanistan from be a staging for international terrorism and enter into dialogue with the government of Afghanistan to resolve the country’s political future. Negotiators like Khalilzad should “emphasize [Doha’s] sections on a comprehensive ceasefire and a political roadmap, ”said Curtis. But delaying withdrawal risks blowing up the only diplomatic way to get out of Afghanistan. “If Biden breaks the agreement, he will bear the consequences, and the consequences will not be good,” said Christopher Kolenda, a retired army colonel who in 2017 and 2018 conducted preparatory diplomacy with the Taliban in Doha. Curtis, Kolenda and all other Afghanistan observers agree on a basic fact, if not on its implications. The Taliban, which continued the attacks on Afghan forces after signing the U.S. agreement, have positioned themselves for a massive offensive that the United States, its allies and the Afghan government may not be able to repel. Earlier this month, The New York Times reported that the Taliban have closed in on several of Afghanistan’s major cities and control vital roads for many of them. Whatever Doha has envisioned for a Taliban-Afghanistan government path to reconciliation, it is not so. The Taliban, having functionally defeated the US in the war, now appears on the horizon of total victory. “They are in a position for a major offensive. This offensive will include mass attacks against Americans if we miss the deadline, ”said Barnett Rubin, another long-time adviser from Afghanistan to the United States and the United Nations. “They may be prepared to extend it, but if we unilaterally say that we are not satisfied with you, then we will not be leaving, that is what they will do. And the strength of the US government’s memory is to do that. ”Kolenda and other long-time Afghan observers argue that the attempt to postpone the withdrawal will have exactly the violent effect that Curtis and his side argue will occur after the withdrawal. The Taliban, they argue, would probably see that the United States is unreliable to keep its word – friction between Washington and Kabul in 2012 condemned an earlier peace process in its infancy – ending any hope of a negotiated end to the war, to say nothing of a safe departure for the rest of the American troops’ presence. “If you are from the Biden government, do you prefer to leave as agreed in a safe and orderly manner while leaning towards a peace process, or do you prefer the view of the B-screaming C-17 in the wake of a Taliban offensive like Saigon 1975? ”Kolenda said. “I don’t hear the crowd talking about the possibility of a humiliating exit forever.” Curtis acknowledged that abandoning diplomacy and attacking American troops again “is a risk.” But, she said, “What is our goal and our goal? We don’t want a safe haven for terrorists to reappear. It is not just protecting us to a safe exit. ”Malkasian, more than most, has spent many years trying to prevent the resurgence of such a safe haven. He sees the risk of a subsequent terrorist attack launched on Afghanistan’s soil as “bearable” – something now severely proven by COVID-19. “For a good number of days in winter, we lost more people a day than 9/11,” he said. “It means that leaving is a viable strategy.” Although the review is carried out closely, early indications from the Biden government and its allies did not suggest an intention to maintain the planned withdrawal. On February 12, State Department spokesman Ned Price said among the issues the review will examine are “whether the Taliban is fulfilling its commitments related to counterterrorism, reducing violence, engaging in meaningful negotiations with the Afghan government and other interested parties ”. On February 19, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, after meeting with NATO allies, said that he was looking for a “responsible and sustainable end to this war”, rather than emphasizing the current agreement. Last week, Senator Jack Reed (D-RI), a Democratic chairman of the armed forces committee and a crucial ally of the White House, defended the postponement of the withdrawal. A source described as familiar with the review told Vox that a complete withdrawal is “out of the question”. “I think the measures the president has taken, in terms of insinuation that we may not withdraw the rest of our troops on May 1, are exactly right,” said Bob Gates, former Obama defense secretary and George W. Bush, to The Washington Post on Friday. “We may be in a position where we will have to tell ourselves that we will have a continued presence in Afghanistan for some time.” Rubin believes there is a way to sell the Taliban in a single six-month troop extension – something he acknowledges could backfire, but something he considers possible due to the six-month delay between the February deal and the start of September of the main talks between the Taliban and the Afghan government, which took place hesitantly. The Taliban still want things from the US-led coalition, Rubin pointed out, such as the release of additional prisoners and the removal of sanctions imposed not only by Washington, but by the United Nations. In addition, the government can take advantage of the recently energetic regional diplomacy, especially from Russia, to accelerate the peace process. Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, promised a “robust and regional diplomatic effort” in a call last month to his Afghan counterpart, but has yet to speak out publicly. “If anyone tries to extend the deadline, it should be classified as ‘we intend to leave Afghanistan entirely, we have this agreement, we want to see if it is fully fulfilled and then we are returning to a timetable for leaving completely,'” asked Malkasian. there will be peace in Afghanistan as long as we remain. We are an engine of violence. The Taliban can launch us as an occupying power and that leads them to fight against us. That doesn’t mean all Afghans, it’s just enough to get a critical mass to fight. If we want a peace deal, we have to be willing to leave Afghanistan. “Read more on The Daily Beast. Have a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast here. Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Subscribe now! Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper into the stories that matter to you. 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