U.S., TALIBAN SIGN AFGHANISTAN DEAL
DOHA ,Q ATA R » The United States signed a deal with the Taliban on Saturday that sets the stage to end America’s longest war — the nearly two-decade-old conflict in Afghanistan that began after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, killed tens of thousands of people, vexed three White House administrations and left mistrust and uncertainty on all sides.
The agreement lays out a timetable for the final withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, the impoverished Central Asian country once unfamiliar to many Americans that now symbolizes endless conflict, foreign entanglements and an incubator of terrorist plots.
The war in Afghanistan in some ways echoes the American experience in Vietnam. In both, a superpower bet heavily on brute strength and the lives of its young, then walked away with seemingly little to show.
American efforts to instill a democratic system in the country, and to improve opportunities for women and minorities, are at risk if the Taliban, which banned girls from schools and women from public life, becomes dominant again. Corruption is still rampant, the country’s institutions are feeble, and the economy is heavily dependent on American and other international aid.
The agreement signed in Qatar, which followed more than a year of stop-and-start negotiations and conspicuously excluded the U.s.-backed Afghanistan government, is not a final peace deal, is filled with ambiguity and could still unravel.
But it’s seen as a step toward negotiating a more sweeping agreement that some hope could eventually end the insurgency of the Taliban, the militant movement that once ruled Afghanistan under a severe Islamic code. The war cost $2 trillion and took the lives of more than 3,500 American and coalition troops and tens of thousands of Afghans since the U.S. invasion in aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, which were plotted by al-qaeda leaders under the protection of the Taliban.
The withdrawal of U.S. troops — about 12,000 are still in Afghanistan — is dependent on the Taliban’s fulfillment of major commitments that have been obstacles for years, including its severance of ties with international terrorist groups such as al-qaeda.
The deal also hinges on more difficult negotiations to come between the Taliban and the Afghan government over the country’s future.
Officials hope those talks will produce a power-sharing arrangement and a lasting ceasefire, but both ideas have been anathema to the Taliban in the past.
“I really believe the Taliban wants to do something to show that we’re not all wasting time,” President Donald Trump said during a news conference in Washington hours after the agreement was signed. “If bad things happen, we’ll go back.”
Echoing his boss, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who was in Qatar for the ceremony, said “the agreement will mean nothing — and today’s good feelings will not last — if we don’t take concrete action on commitments stated and promises made.”
The Trump administration has framed the deal as the long-awaited promise made to war-weary Americans, for whom the Afghan war has defined a generation of loss and trauma but has yielded no victory.
At the height of the war, more than 100,000 U.S. troops occupied Afghanistan, as did tens of thousands from about 40 nations in the U.s.-led NATO coalition.
“Everybody’s tired of war,” Trump told reporters in Washington. He said he would be “meeting personally with Taliban leaders in the not-too-distant future and will be very much hoping that they will be doing what they say.”