[Most officials and diplomats said they would only speak on condition of anonymity because they were still assessing the situation. But many were less concerned about the reduction in troop numbers — though struggling Afghan forces still need hands-on help — than by the way news of it emerged, which they said appeared to undermine not only the Afghan government, but also some of the most senior American officials working for a peace deal.]
By Mujib Mashal
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American
Marines in the southern Afghan province of Helmand last year. Officials
said
on Thursday that half of the 14,000 United States troops in the country
would
be withdrawn. Credit Andrew Renneisen/Getty Images
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KABUL,
Afghanistan — Last year,
when President Trump announced a new strategy 16 years into the Afghan war,
many in Afghanistan saw it as a much-needed refocusing of the American
commitment.
“Conditions on the ground — not arbitrary
timetables — will guide our strategy from now on,” Mr. Trump said at the time.
“America’s enemies must never know our plans or believe they can wait us out.”
In the year since then, as the architects of
that strategy have exited the administration one by one, many in Afghanistan
came to believe that Mr. Trump — who never met with his former top commander in
the country — had never really been persuaded, and that his impatience with the
war was winning out.
On Friday, that suspicion seemed to be
confirmed, as Afghan officials and Western diplomats woke to the unexpected
news that Mr. Trump had ordered half of the 14,000 American troops in
Afghanistan home, even as the war continues to rage and the Taliban threaten
much of the country.
For many in the Afghan leadership, shock
quickly turned to a sense of betrayal.
Most officials and diplomats said they would
only speak on condition of anonymity because they were still assessing the
situation. But many were less concerned about the reduction in troop numbers —
though struggling Afghan forces still need hands-on help — than by the way news
of it emerged, which they said appeared to undermine not only the Afghan
government, but also some of the most senior American officials working for a
peace deal.
Afghan officials said they had not been
consulted or even warned about the drawdown. And the timing was likely to
complicate the American push for peace talks with the Taliban, which requires
maintaining pressure, or at least holding the line, on the battlefield.
Just this week, senior American diplomats had
conducted two days of extensive talks with representatives of the insurgency,
with the future of the United States military presence among the topics
discussed. And hours before the troop pulldown became public knowledge, Zalmay
Khalilzad, the most senior American diplomat involved in the talks, said he had
made it clear to the Taliban that the American commitment was firm.
The decision also comes at a time when the
American military already has a trust deficit with its Afghan partners after a
spate of recent insider attacks. A feeling of abandonment could further
increase the risk to soldiers working closely with Afghan partners.
Under the right circumstances, an American
troop reduction could be a boon to peace talks — a demonstration to the Taliban
that the United States is willing to do what is necessary to reach a deal.
“It’s clear that a rapid pullout of all
international forces could spark the collapse of the Afghan government and
start a new civil war,” said Graeme Smith, a consultant with the International
Crisis Group and a longtime observer of Afghanistan. “Still, this partial
withdrawal could send a useful message to all sides. This signals to the
Taliban that the U.S. is serious about negotiating an exit.”
But the surprise nature of the move, coming
before the Taliban had indicated any willingness to hold formal talks with
Afghan officials or agree to a cease-fire, suggested it was unlikely to have
been coordinated with the recent peace moves, and that it could in fact
undermine the negotiators.
Afghan leaders who have met with Mr.
Khalilzad about the talks said he expressed a sense of urgency, warning that
Mr. Trump might take unilateral action if there were no breakthrough on peace
talks.
But the officials said Mr. Khalilzad seemed
to believe he had months to push for that breakthrough, and that he was
unlikely to have known what was coming.
Publicly, President Ashraf Ghani’s office
played down the significance of the troop reduction, saying that the Afghan
forces had weathered such storms before, notably the first drastic withdrawal
of American troops in 2014.
“If the few thousand foreign troops that
advise, train and assist leave, it will not affect our security,” Mr. Ghani’s
chief adviser, Fazel Fazly, said in a statement. “In the past four and half
years, our security is completely in the hands of Afghans, and the final goal
is that Afghan national defense and security forces will stand on their feet to
protect and defend our people and soil on their own.”
In private, however, officials’ views ranged
from a sense of betrayal to fear of outright chaos.
The Taliban clearly welcomed the news. A
senior member of the insurgency said the drawdown was a sign that Mr. Trump
realized negotiations were the only way to end the conflict.
In neighboring Pakistan, which the United
States sees as crucial to ending the war because its military has long given
sanctuary to Taliban leaders, officials said they, too, had been surprised by
the announcement. They expressed concern about how it could affect the push for
peace talks, and about whether a premature withdrawal could lead to the kind of
chaos that followed the Soviet Union’s pullout from Afghanistan in the late
1980s.
A senior Pakistani security official said the
American withdrawal should be phased and should ensure that Afghanistan’s
military and government can sustain themselves.
Much of the feeling of betrayal on the part
of Afghan officials stems from the fact that they pinned significant hope on
Mr. Trump’s new strategy, staking political capital at home and risking anger
in the region.
The strategy, announced as the Taliban were
making a serious push for cities and other territory across the country,
promised the Afghan government expanded resources, as well as pressure on
Pakistan’s military to stop harboring Taliban leaders.
The Afghan government saw it as just the
boost it needed in the face of panic. And for American generals and soldiers on
the ground, it suggested a long-term commitment. Several Marines who had just
returned to Helmand Province, once a site of bloody battles for them, said they
now saw the war as “a generational conflict” — one in which their children
would probably serve.
Mohammad Radmanish, a retired Afghan general
and defense analyst, said the drawdown would not make a big difference on the
battlefield.
“After 2014, they are here to support, train
and advise the Afghan forces,” Mr. Radmanish said of the Americans. “It is the
Afghan forces who are doing the fighting against the terrorists.”
But officers who were still in the fight
expressed serious concern.
“If the forces leave here and leave us alone,
it will be a dangerous blow and will have very negative consequences,” said
Maj. Mohammed Ali Ahmadi, the commander of the Afghan commando battalion in the
northeast. “We don’t have the proper capabilities to defend the areas,
particularly the areas where the security forces are under grave threat. It
will not be fair to us.”
Reporting was contributed by Fatima Faizi
from Kabul, Taimoor Shah from Kandahar, and Najim Rahim from Kunduz. Salman
Masood contributed reporting from Islamabad, Pakistan, and Maria Abi-Habib from
Dhaka, Bangladesh.