‘BETTER’ SHOT AT AFGHAN PEACE
WASHINGTON — A year after the Trump administration introduced its strategy for Afghanistan, the Taliban are asserting themselves on the battlefield even as U.S. officials talk up hopes for peace. That’s raising questions about the viability of the American game plan for ending a war that began when some of the current U.S. troops were in diapers.
A Taliban assault on Ghazni, a key city linking areas of Taliban influence barely 75 miles from Kabul, has killed about 100 Afghan security forces and 20 civilians since Friday, the Afghan Defense Ministry said. That has demonstrated the militants’ ability to attack, if not hold, a strategic center on the nation’s main highway, and highlighted the vulnerability of Afghan security forces.
In a reminder that U.S. troops and their families are paying a heavy price, even with Afghan forces in the lead combat role, the Pentagon announced yesterday Staff Sgt. Reymund Rarogal Transfiguracion, 36, of Waikoloa, Hawaii, died Sunday of wounds sustained on a combat patrol in the Helmand province.
Against that turbulent backdrop, some wonder whether President Trump can resist pulling the plug on a war in which the U.S. is still spending $4 billionplus a year just to keep Afghan forces afloat. He said when he introduced his strategy on Aug. 21, 2017, that his instinct was to withdraw entirely.
Fighting across the country has intensified in recent weeks despite a fleeting outbreak of peace earlier in the summer. Taliban and the Afghan government called separate, briefly overlapping, national cease fires in June, and the administration has made its own contact with the Taliban in hopes of nudging them into talks with Kabul.
The strategy revisits an approach that was tried, and failed, under former President Barack Obama: increasing military pressure to push the Taliban into peace negotiations with the Afghan government. Signs point to Trump pressing ahead; he is about to send a new Army general, Scott Miller, to take charge of the U.S.-led coalition in Kabul.
David Sedney, who has worked on Afghan issues as a civilian, including multiple years in Kabul and at the Pentagon, since the war began in October 2001, said he believes the chances for peace are the best they’ve been.
“That doesn’t mean they’re great,” he said. “It just means they’re better.”
Among the meaningful factors at play, Sedney said, is Trump’s announcement a year ago that the U.S. would no longer set time limits on its military support for Afghanistan. This introduced an element of uncertainty for the Taliban, he said. On the other hand, the current U.S. push to draw Taliban leaders into peace negotiations with Kabul must succeed soon, he said, or risk following the failed path of previous efforts.