U.S. Troop Withdrawal from Afghanistan: What the Taliban Deal Means for America

After 18 Years of War, the U.S. Prepares to Exit Afghanistan Amid Taliban Negotiations

The U.S. troop withdrawal from Afghanistan could signal the end of America’s longest war. After more than eighteen long years, American troops may finally be on their way out of Afghanistan. Reports indicate that the United States (U.S.) and Taliban forces are close to reaching agreement on a seven-day truce followed by withdrawal of most U.S. troops from Afghanistan. This news comes as Afghan election officials officially declared Ashraf Ghani the winner of the long‑disputed September 28, 2019 presidential vote. The vote itself took place in September 2019 amidst widespread accusations of fraud. However, observers considered his certification as president critical to advancing the peace agreement.

Taliban Talks in Qatar and the U.S. Withdrawal Strategy

U.S. and Taliban negotiators have held talks in Doha, Qatar for years but have made little progress. After President Trump appointed Envoy Zalmay Khalilzad in 2018, the U.S. renewed efforts to restart the long-stalled talks. Although officials have not released all the details of the proposed deal, reports indicate it will include several secret annexes and a Taliban pledge to reduce violence in major Afghan cities for seven days, followed by a U.S. withdrawal.

Currently, about 13,000 U.S. troops remain in Afghanistan, and the proposed agreement calls for withdrawing most of them. Furthermore, the Taliban reportedly will agree to a “denouncement of terrorism and violent extremism.”

Whoever drafted this language either ignores or disregards the fact that terms like ‘terrorism’ and ‘violent extremism’ mean very different things to Americans and the Taliban. Americans consider certain acts to be ‘terrorism,’ while the Taliban view them as ‘jihad’—a binding duty for all faithful Muslims. The Obama administration, guided by the Muslim Brotherhood, manufactured the term ‘violent extremism’ as an acceptable substitute for the purged—but accurate—language of ‘jihad’.

What the U.S. Troop Withdrawal from Afghanistan Really Means for National Security

So, what does this proposed peace deal really mean? In short, it means the U.S. has lost another war against the forces of jihad and will be retreating from the field of battle, leaving our erstwhile Afghan “allies” to face the victorious Taliban mostly alone.

Critics argue the U.S. troop withdrawal from Afghanistan empowers jihadist groups and abandons Afghan allies.

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The Bowe Bergdahl Exchange and Taliban Empowerment

The faces at the negotiating table in Doha should inform us exactly what the surrender talks have been all about. When President Obama released five senior Taliban detainees from Guantanamo Bay in June 2014 in exchange for U.S. Army deserter Bowe Bergdahl—who had been held by the Taliban’s Haqqani allies—he enabled some of the most hard-core Afghan jihadi commanders to return to the battlefield. The five were: Mullah Norullah Nori, Mohammed Nabi Omari, Mohammed Fazl, Khairullah Khairkhwa, and Abdul Haq Wasiq.

While all of these were top Taliban commanders, the role of Khairullah Khairkhwa is especially notable. Before the attacks of 9/11, Khairkhwa was the Governor of Herat Province, in the far west of Afghanistan, along the border with Iran. This is significant, because among his duties was arranging for pre-9/11 planning meetings among al-Qa’eda/Usama bin Laden, the Taliban, and Iranian officials.

The documents of the Havlish legal case—particularly the affidavit by this author and Dr. Bruce Tefft—reveal details of that jihadist alliance. Note: Federal Court Judge George Daniels of the Southern District of New York ruled in Havlish, et al. v. bin Laden, et al. in December 2011 that Iran and Hizballah were both co-responsible with al-Qa’eda in the attacks of 9/11. To date, no one has held either accountable for that atrocity.

This is whom U.S. Envoy Zalmay Khalilzad was negotiating with across that table in Qatar.

Afghanistan’s Constitution and the Failure of the U.S. Withdrawal Mission

A brief look back at the Afghan Constitution of 2004, drafted under the supervision of the U.S. Department of State in the aftermath of 9/11, gives an idea of what is to come. That constitution’s first three Articles make clear that Afghanistan is entirely subordinate to the principles of Islamic Law (shariah):

“Article 1

Afghanistan shall be an Islamic Republic, independent, unitary and indivisible state.

Article 2

The sacred religion of Islam is the religion of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan.

Followers of other faiths shall be free within the bounds of law in the exercise and performance of their religious rituals.

Article 3

No law shall contravene the tenets and provisions of the holy religion of Islam in Afghanistan.”

It has been clear for a long time that the U.S. had lost sight of its mission in Afghanistan. Once the constitution passed, the enemy had effectively claimed victory. Islamic Law is what al-Qa’eda, Hizballah, the Islamic Republic of Iran, and the Taliban all proclaim they fight for. U.S. and Coalition forces had ousted al-Qa’eda and the Taliban from Afghanistan’s government by 2002, but never succeeded in uprooting them from the country as a whole. So, even though the Taliban complained that American infidels supervised the drafting of the new constitution, the first three articles clearly show that it subordinated Afghanistan to shariah rule.

A Political Surrender or Peace With Honor?

While the U.S. troop withdrawal from Afghanistan may bring troops home, it also leaves behind dangerous uncertainties. U.S. leadership never grasped these basic facts but continued to commit endless American blood and treasure to a war it knew it was not winning. As the Afghanistan Papers, published by the Washington Post in December 2019, revealed, U.S. civilian and military leadership misrepresented the situation on the ground in Afghanistan for years.

Refusal to confront the reality of Afghanistan’s deeply Islamic identity drove the misguided nation-building exercise that blindly insisted on trying to impose Western notions of democratic governance on a tribal people with no concept of it.

Promotion of human development, gender equality, human rights, and overall security for a population torn apart by decades of internecine civil war was a laudable objective. But U.S. leaders consistently failed to acknowledge their lack of progress—and refused to correct course.

It is long since past time to bring American troops and contractors home safely from Afghanistan. The U.S. no longer has any achievable goals to pursue in Afghanistan, though it must continue to monitor jihadist forces—including al-Qa’eda, Hizballah, Iran, the Islamic State, and the Taliban—and respond decisively when needed. President Trump and his national security team have got this one right.