U.S. pushes for April target date on Afghan talks
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s administration is pressing to open peace talks with insurgents in Afghanistan by April, a timetable driven by the president’s mounting impatience with the stalemated 17-yearold war.
The short-term goal, current and former officials say, is a cease-fire agreement to at least temporarily curtail an alarming rise in attacks by Taliban insurgents that have caused hundreds of Afghan civilian and military casualties each month.
But prospects for a far-reaching political settlement still appear dim, and Trump faces the risk of a political backlash if he pulls out and the country again becomes a failed state where terrorists could find refuge, as Osama bin Laden once did.
Without signs of progress in coming months, Trump could face the same dilemma as his predecessors: withdraw all or most of the 14,000 U.S. troops and risk a Taliban takeover, or leave them there indefinitely, even though he and his advisers consider the war unwinnable.
Zalmay Khalilzad, a former U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan whom Trump appointed in September to handle the peace initiative, is seeking to jump-start the talks. He has warned Afghan government officials who are reluctant to embrace the U.S. peace initiative that they cannot count on U.S. military support forever.
“We need the violence to stop,” said a senior U.S. official familiar with the internal deliberations. “This is a rare opportunity for every player in this.”
Khalilzad held preliminary talks in October with Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanekzai, the Taliban’s political chief, in Qatar. The insurgency’s leaders still refuse to deal openly with Afghan government officials, whom they dismiss as U.S. puppets.
In hopes of persuading insurgents to come to the bargaining table, the Pentagon has dramatically stepped up airstrikes, dropping 5,213 bombs and other munitions on Afghanistan in the first nine months of this year, more than in any of the past five years, according to U.S. Central Command.
Taliban officials have said for years that their objective is for U.S. troops and other foreign forces to leave Afghanistan. Increasingly, that appears Trump’s objective, too — a confluence that, in theory, could leave room for a deal.
Trump said last month that he is cautiously optimistic about ending the conflict, but added that it’s “a little bit too early to say what’s going to happen.”
Setting an April target date for peace talks is similar to the approach President Barack Obama tried unsuccessfully when he set a 2014 deadline for ending U.S. involvement in most combat operations and withdrew all but 5,500 troops.
Obama’s plans to lower U.S. troop levels further were delayed amid worsening security. Trump then reversed the drawdown when he accepted a Pentagon recommendation shortly after taking office to send more than 9,000 military personnel back in.
Trump has privately said he regretted the decision, as the military situation has shown no signs of improving, officials said.
Without continued U.S. military backing, American commanders say, the Afghan military would quickly collapse. The dependence has left the government in Kabul with few good options if Trump threatens to pull out U.S. forces to pressure it into a deal with the Taliban.
“If we left precipitously right now, I do not believe they would be able to successfully defend their country,” Marine Lt. Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr., Trump’s nominee to head U.S. Central Command, told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday.
The Taliban ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001, imposing a harsh form of Islamic law, but they were driven from power by the U.S.-led invasion that followed the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The militant movement remains riven by factions, some favoring peace talks after years of casualties and some determined to fight on, experts say.
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani has laid out his own peace plan that he said would take five years to implement.
But Khalilzad is on a much faster track. He is urging the Taliban and Ghani’s government to at least prepare a blueprint for continuing negotiations on ending the war before presidential elections scheduled for April.
U.S. officials are adamant that any deal should ensure Afghanistan does not again emerge as a haven for terrorist groups intent on attacking the U.S., such as al-Qaida and the Islamic State. They have reassured Ghani and his advisers that Afghan officials will lead negotiations with the Taliban.
Without signs of progress in coming months, Trump could face the same dilemma as his predecessors: withdraw all or most of the 14,000 U.S. troops and risk a Taliban takeover, or leave them there indefinitely, even though he and his advisers consider the war unwinnable.