A low-level Taliban commander in Mirdad district, known as Keramatullah, confirmed this. Before the Doha agreement, « we suffered a lot from the airstrikes, » he said by phone. « So we have less stress than before. » In the absence of U.S. air support to disrupt the ongoing attacks, he said, « we can spend a lot of time fighting. » The Doha agreement, signed in February 2020, set a date for the United States to completely withdraw its troops by May 2021 Former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, who resigned from the Trump administration before the deal was signed, tweeted Wednesday: « Negotiating with the Taliban is like hell. » [1] It is said that other undisclosed parts of the agreement have been signed, but provided that these other documents do not contradict the disclosed part and do not prevail, and assuming that this is not the case, the following analysis should apply equally to the whole. The Trump administration has agreed to withdraw from the country by May 1, 2021, if the Taliban negotiate a peace deal with the Afghan government and promise to prevent terrorist groups like al-Qaeda and the Islamic State from gaining a foothold. « I truly believe the Taliban want to do something to show that we are not wasting all our time, » President Trump said in Washington hours after the deal was signed. « When bad things happen, we go back. » « If he had thought the deal was bad, he could have renegotiated. He had ample opportunity to do so if he wanted to, » Miller, a senior Pentagon counterterrorism official at the time of signing the Doha agreement, said in an interview. Biden said in an interview with ABC airing Thursday that he faced that deadline shortly after taking office: « Am I saying we`re staying? And don`t you think we should deploy a lot more troops? Even without Trump`s agreement, Biden said he had « tried to figure out how to withdraw these troops » and that « there is no right time to leave Afghanistan. » McKenzie said he also believed « for some time » that if the U.S.
reduced the number of its military advisers in Afghanistan to below 2,500, the Kabul government would inevitably collapse and « the military would follow. » He said that in addition to the sanctimonious effects of the Doha deal, Biden`s April ordered troop reduction was « the other nail in the coffin » for the 20-year war effort because it blinded the U.S. military to conditions within the Afghan army « because our advisers were no longer there with these units. » The U.S. decision to withdraw its military from Afghanistan was explained by President Biden on August 16, when the occupation of Kabul by Taliban troops had just taken place, with arguments that may seem convincing at first glance, up to a point. He went on to explain that the objectives with which the United States went to Afghanistan in 2001 were simply « to get those who attacked us on September 11, 2001, and to ensure that al-Qaeda could not use Afghanistan as a base to attack us again. » It follows from this statement, in the words of the president, that « our only vital national interest in Afghanistan today remains what it has always been: to prevent a terrorist attack on the American homeland. » President Biden went on to say, « I inherited a deal that President Trump negotiated with the Taliban. Under his agreement, U.S. forces would be withdrawn from Afghanistan by May 1, 2021. It is therefore clear that the agreement with the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan provides for and presupposes that the then existing government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan will soon be replaced by a « new Islamic government after settlement », which is to be mutually negotiated between the Islamic Emirate and other unidentified « Afghan parties ». The exact procedure for such negotiations, the parties, the content of the negotiations are not detailed in the agreement, there is only one date for the start of these negotiations, March 10, 2020. The Taliban takeover, which was much faster than officials in both administrations had imagined, even led some Trump-era officials to question whether the terms of the deal — and the decisions that followed — were enough to protect Afghanistan once the U.S. military withdrew. The Doha peace deal between the U.S.
and the Taliban has been the subject of heated debate in recent days — with U.S. President Joe Biden now controversially claiming that the deal tied it to the military withdrawal that allowed fighters to take power. Despite the peace agreement, insurgent attacks on Afghan security forces subsequently increased, killing thousands. However, withdrawals under the agreement continued. By January 2021, only 2,500 U.S. troops remained in the country, and NATO forces had been completely evacuated by the end of the summer. The United States completed its full evacuation on August 30, 2021, when the Taliban took control of the country by force. The United States, which has struggled to obtain better rights for women and minorities and to create a democratic system and institutions in Afghanistan, has reached an agreement with an insurgency that has never clearly renounced its desire for a government and judicial system rooted in a strict interpretation of Islam. After more than a year of talks, the deal marks the beginning of the end of America`s longest war. But many obstacles remain.
The best prospect offered by the agreement signed on Saturday could go far beyond America`s withdrawal. It raised hopes of ending a conflict that began more than 20 years before the U.S. invasion, when Soviet forces invaded the country and the U.S. began supporting guerrilla resistance against them. Editor`s note: The U.S.-Afghanistan peace agreement is a possible diplomatic triumph, but also a possible catastrophe. Much depends on the weakness of the Afghan government, the Taliban`s willingness to abide by the deal once U.S. forces are withdrawn, and the U.S. willingness to return to action when things turn south. Kabul-based photojournalist Andrew Quilty argues that these factors are not promising. Although the situation is still volatile in the short term, Afghanistan`s long-term future looks bleak. « The signing of the Doha agreement had a really damaging effect on the Afghan government and its military, more than anything else, but we set a date – sure when we would leave and when they could expect all the aid to end, » McKenzie said. The agreement sets a timetable for the final withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan, the impoverished Central Asian country once unknown to many Americans and now symbolises endless conflicts, foreign entanglements and an incubator of terrorist conspiracies.
« Obviously, he wasn`t excited about it, but he would — or he would be fired, » Miller said. « We wanted to put serious pressure on him to make a deal with the Taliban. » However, the renegotiations would have been difficult. Biden would have had little influence. Like Trump, he wanted to withdraw US troops from Afghanistan. Withdrawing from the deal could have forced him to send back thousands more. The agreement signed in Doha, Qatar, which follows more than a year of stop-and-start negotiations and ostensibly excludes the US-backed Afghan government, is not a final peace agreement, is full of ambiguities and could still dissolve. .