Deal with the Taliban

September 11

It was September 11, 2001.  The United States was assaulted, a sneak attack, using our own commercial aircraft.  The death toll was worse than Pearl Harbor, but the biggest casualty was America’s way of life.  It has never been the same. We check exits, we line up for security to enter Broadway plays, and we glance twice at airplanes streaking through the sky.

A terrorist group, Al Qaeda, was behind it.  They were led by a scion of one of Saudi Arabia’s richest families, Osama bin Laden, who believed in an aberrant version of Islam. Unable to organize in his native land, he moved first to Sudan, then onto Afghanistan.  There he found shelter with kindred spirits in charge of the government, the Taliban.

The Taliban believe in a similar ancient form of Islam. They viewed Sharia Law, the 1300 year-old rules of the desert, as the foundation of Islamic life.  The Taliban emerged to govern from chaos as the Soviet Union was driven from Afghanistan in 1994.  They ruled with an iron hand, destroyed historic relics of Buddhism, denied women education or the ability to participate in public life, executed men for not growing beards.  

Soon after September 11, the United States determined that Al Qaeda was responsible.  The US government issued an ultimatum to the Taliban in charge of Afghanistan:  deny the terrorists sanctuary, or face invasion. The Taliban refused. And on October 7, less than a month after the assault and while dust still rose from the rubble at Ground Zero, the United States attacked.

The Second Generation

That was nearly eighteen years ago.  The original goal, to destroy Al Qaeda, was largely achieved in the first few months, though it took several years for US Special Forces to find and kill bin Laden himself.  The US drove the Taliban from power, pushing them back into the mountainous territory that borders Pakistan.  They set up a new government, one that had modern values.

And the war took on a new goal, to reshape Afghanistan itself into an Islamic democracy.  The US picked sides in the constantly shifting amalgam of tribes that tried to rule the country, and found their allies could only survive with US backing.  The Taliban waited, knowing that it is one thing to “conquer” Afghanistan, but another to “govern” it.  No one, from Alexander the Great to the Red Army of the Soviet Union, could maintain control for long.

Today, American soldiers are walking the same mountain trails their father’s did, and are fighting for the same territories and villages. There is no “winning” in Afghanistan, only a turgid stalemate that is dragging a second generation of Americans, and Afghans, into the horrors of war. 

The US must make a decision:  maintain the stalemate, or change the equation.  They have tried a “surge” that was supposedly successful in Iraq, sent in the best in counter-insurgency, bombed with B-52 bombers and used  “Special Operators.”  It remains a stalemate; much like the Communists in Vietnam, the Taliban are willing to accept more pain and deaths than the Americans are willing to receive or give.

Today the US is negotiating with the Taliban, trying to reach some agreement to allow Americans to withdraw.  Taliban leaders who spent years in the US prison at Guantanamo are sitting across from the American soldiers that put them there.  American Generals, who began as young Lieutenants in the beginning of the war, are now negotiating with the enemy.  

Negotiation or Stalemate

There are a lot of similarities with Vietnam.  While America clearly has overwhelming military strength, somehow they are negotiating from weakness.  Just like in Vietnam, the US has been unable to bring that might to bear on an enemy able to slip into the mountains, and willing to suffer unacceptable casualties to achieve their goal.  

This week, on the very day the US envoy announced a tentative agreement, the Taliban emphasized their strength and resolve, and sent a suicide bomber to attack the “Green Village,” the “safe” enclave for foreigners in Kabul, the capital.  Sixteen were killed and 119 wounded, almost all local Afghans.

A spokesman for the Taliban stated: 

“…we understand that peace talks are going on … but they (the US) must also understand that we are not weak and if we enter into talks … we enter from a strong position.”

Claiming Victory

The Taliban want the United States military out in weeks.  The United States is looking for leverage to force the Taliban to become a part of the current Afghan government, instead of taking the entire country back to the dark ages of Sharia Law.  They will leave, but over eighteen months.  Much like the negotiations that ended the Vietnam War, the Taliban are likely to agree to whatever deal removes US troops, and then will do what they want.  They believe that the US won’t come back.

And they are right.

In early 1973, President Richard Nixon announced the “end” of the Vietnam War.  He claimed “victory” and brought US troops home; his Secretary of State Henry Kissinger won the Nobel Peace Prize.  Two years later it was President, Gerald Ford, who sent in the helicopters to evacuate the last US officials as Saigon fell to the Communists. 

I expect President Trump will claim “victory” in our negotiations with the Taliban.  The troops will come home, with cameras broadcasting their arrival and bands playing. It will fall to the next President to send in the helicopters and evacuate our last embassy personnel, as Kabul falls to the Taliban.  

There’s not much else to do.