Doha Agreement, a deeply flawed document

The Doha Agreement, reached by the Trump administration and the Taliban, led to the collapse of both the Afghan government and the Afghan army and security forces. It is significant that this deal, signed on February 29th, 2020, committed the US to halt air action against the Taliban and draw down its troops in Afghanistan from 13,000 to 2,500 and to full withdrawal by May 2021. The Taliban was obliged to halt attacks on US troops, negotiate a peace deal with the Afghan government, and prevent al-Qaeda from operating in Taliban-held territory.

Although the Afghan government was not involved in the negotiations in Doha and was not a party to the deal, it was required to release 5,000 Taliban prisoners, some of whom returned to the field of battle. The Taliban fulfilled only the first of its obligations and encouraged al-Qaeda to join the fight against the US-backed government.

The timing of this deeply flawed deal was significant. Donald Trump, who prided himself on being a “deal-maker,” was in full campaign mode for a second term in the White House and believed ending “America’s longest war” would boost his prospects for victory in the November election. This was a cold-blooded political calculation which had nothing to do with saving American lives as none had been lost for months. The deal, heralded by Trump as a breakthrough, ignored Taliban advances across the countryside while US-troops and contractors were still backing up the Aghan army which was taking heavy losses.

Last week, Washington’s top generals testified to both houses of Congress that the Doha deal precipitated the crisis because it proclaimed US abandonment of Afghanistan. Central Command head General Frank McKenzie said that the Doha agreement “had a really pernicious effect on the government of Afghanistan and its military, psychological more than anything else, but we set a date — certain for when we were going to leave and when they could expect all assistance to end.”

Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin pointed out that an end to US air strikes against the Taliban meant it “got stronger… increased their offensive operations against Afghan security forces, and the Afghans were losing a lot of people on a weekly basis.”

The Taliban simply had to continue its offensive while waiting for the US to disappear from the scene. Among the first to go were US pilots and planes which attacked Taliban fighters and provided air cover for Afghan troops. Logistics, communications, advisers and technical teams were pulled out as ground forces were reduced, despite opposition from Trump’s generals who had treated Afghanistan as a permanent acquisition and Afghan forces as auxiliaries.

In the wake of the Taliban takeover, the generals admitted that their management of the Afghan military had been deeply flawed. Command-and-control was, ultimately, with US top generals rather than Afghan senior officers. Although cultural differences were profound, the US trained Afghan youths and men as if they were US recruits. They provided Afghans with advanced US-made weapons they could not handle and sent US technicians to maintain armaments instead of training Afghans to do the job. US troops were embedded with Afghan units to provide them with advice, moral support, and energy. With the aid of Afghan informants and translators, US intelligence agents tracked the Taliban and fed information to the Afghans. US-run networks delivered ammunition, food and other supplies to Afghan units and posts.

To make matters worse, the generals were well aware that the Afghan military was riddled with corruption. Officers at all levels were appointed because of political connections rather than competence, units were understrength because officers claimed pay for soldiers who did not exist (“ghost soldiers”), and soldiers in the field were not paid for months on end.

Consequently, the Afghan army, which was totally dependent on the US military, could not operate independently. So, when unpaid, isolated soldiers’ support systems were about to end, they made deals with the Taliban, deserted and melted away, or fled the country.

Chief-of-Staff General Mark Milley had recommended keeping between 2,500-3,500 troops in the country and warned that at least 2,500 troops were required to prevent a collapse of the Kabul government and the return of the Taliban.

Trump not only rejected such advice and set an initial date of January 15th, 2021, as the deadline for full withdrawal. He was persuaded to opt for May. Trump may have calculated, on one hand, that if he won the election, the pull-out would amount to a fillip for his new term in office since the majority of US citizens backed disengagement from Afghanistan. On the other hand, he may have calculated that if he lost, his rival Joe Biden would be bogged down by the Afghan mess and suffer loss of prestige and popularity if he mishandled the withdrawal. Which he did because he won and adopted the Trump pull-out plan, postponing the deadline until the end of August.

Like Trump, Biden was warned of the major risks of withdrawal, but, like Trump, Biden’s calculation was driven by a longstanding determination to withdraw and political considerations rather than military realities. While serving in the Senate, Biden saw the Afghan mission as a quagmire and favoured withdrawal. In late 2008, while vice-president-elect, Biden had an antagonistic dinner with then Afghan President Hamid Karzai over the rampant corruption which gripped Afghanistan. This seems to have hardened Biden’s view that the US should pull out of that country.

He opposed President Barack Obama’s dispatch of additional troops to tackle the Taliban.

Biden did not need to honour Trump’s misbegotten Doha deal, citing Taliban violations of its commitments to negotiate in good faith with the government and to rein in al-Qaeda, Daesh-Khorasan, and similar groups. Instead, Biden went ahead with it.

Like Trump, Biden calculated in April that withdrawal would provide political dividends but delayed the deadline until the end of August while troops were gradually rotated home. As the evacuation was set to be completed by the 20th anniversary of the Afghan-based al-Qaeda attacks on New York and Washington, Biden sought to provide closure for countrymen and women still traumatised and humiliated by these strikes. He failed, of course, because US intelligence agencies failed to predict the Taliban’s swift victory after the collapse of the Afghan army and government and the mid-August takeover of Kabul without a shot being fired.

While the generals have mistakenly rated as a tactical success the chaotic evacuation of US citizens and Afghan and other civilians from Afghanistan after Kabul fell, they have also honestly characterised the US war in Afghanistan a “strategic failure.” Unfortunately, the generals are as much to blame for this monumental debacle as the civilian politicians. The generals never admitted to themselves or the politicians their failure to create a viable, independent Afghan army and airforce during the 20 years the US occupied that country. This admission came too late to make a difference to the outcome of this occupation.

The US military followed the same deeply flawed model of dealing with the reconstruction of Iraq’s armed forces between 2003 and 2011, with a similar result.

Without mentioning Iraq, General Milley said they had to change their strategy for dealing with such endeavours if the US occupies another country and tries to build up its defence forces.