President Trump’s new Afghan war plan, which puts Pakistan on notice for its purported support of terror groups while also opening the door to peace talks with the Taliban, drew a mix of praise and criticism Tuesday from regional leaders and U.S. lawmakers.
Several prominent Republicans, including House Speaker Paul D. Ryan and Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain, lauded the plan that calls for more U.S. troops and abandons Obama-era withdrawal timelines in favor of a so-called “conditions-based approach” to ending the longest war in U.S. history.
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani also heaped praise on the new strategy for the 16-year conflict, saying Mr. Trump’s speech Monday night laid down “a clear pathway” to peace in the war-torn South Asian nation.
But there was also fire from some in the GOP, including from Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, who accused Mr. Trump of outlining little beyond a plan to funnel more soldiers and tax dollars into a war that “has lost its purpose.”
Former Afghan President Hamid Karzai tweeted that the administration’s call for fresh American military action “excludes bringing peace and prosperity to Afghanistan and is focused on more war and rivalry in the region.”
During his prime-time address Monday night, Mr. Trump admitted he had once been in favor of a complete U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan but, after extensive deliberation with his advisers, said he’d changed his mind.
“Our nation must seek an honorable and enduring outcome worthy of the tremendous sacrifices that have been made, especially the sacrifices of lives,” the president told the crowd of American service members at Fort Myer in Arlington, Virginia.
More specifically, Mr. Trump is calling for an increase of some 4,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, a move that would bring the total American force on the ground in the country to over 10,000 for the first time since the Pentagon announced the end of combat operations there in 2014.
While the increase is notably smaller than the 33,000 troops Mr. Obama ordered into Afghanistan with his own strategy adjustment eight years ago, several analysts who spoke with The Washington Times on Tuesday said the key change in Mr. Trump’s approach is the avoidance of any set timetables for withdrawal.
Withdrawal deadlines were a hallmark of the Obama administration’s approach that often drew behind-the-scenes criticism from defense hawks leery of telegraphing American military strategy to the enemy.
“We have always had these looming deadlines,” said Thomas Spoehr, a retired Army three-star general and now a senior defense analyst at the Washington-based Heritage Foundation. “That is not the American way of war — dictated by timelines.”
Mr. Spoehr, who served as second-in-command of all U.S. forces in Iraq during the 2011 withdrawal from that country, told The Times the lack of a hard withdrawal deadline is a change that had been aggressively sought by U.S. commanders who contributed to the Trump administration’s recent Afghan strategy review.
At the same time, however, he said Mr. Trump’s approach does not equate to a conflict in Afghanistan with no end in sight. The president “made it pretty clear this is not an open-ended commitment,” said Mr. Spoehr. “If there is no progress being made, he made clear the United States does not have infinite patience” and will adjust accordingly, he said.
Mr. Trump himself said his administration’s yardstick for progress in Afghanistan going forward won’t reflect that of previous U.S. administrations. “We are not nation-building again,” the commander in chief said. “We are killing terrorists.”
But Mr. Trump also tempered such rhetoric with a stated interest in getting the Taliban — the militant Islamic group that ruled Kabul prior to 2001 and that U.S. forces have fought since — to the negotiating table and possibly even into discussions toward a legitimized role in Afghanistan’s future central government.
“Someday, after an effective military effort, perhaps it will be possible to have a political settlement that includes elements of the Taliban in Afghanistan,” Mr. Trump said, although he quickly added “but nobody knows if or when that will ever happen.”
Taliban talks
Washington historically has been wary of pushes by Kabul and Islamabad to initiate peace talks with the Taliban — an outfit that is not listed by the U.S. government as a terrorist organization despite being deemed as such by many U.S. analysts.
Some counterterrorism experts have argued the Obama administration refused to place the group on the State Department’s official list of foreign terror groups as a way to leave the door open for potential negotiations.
Afghanistan and Pakistan agreed to hold peace talks with the Taliban in 2013, coinciding with the group’s unprecedented move to open a political office that year in Doha, Qatar.
At the time the Obama White House saw the potential talks as a vehicle to help accelerate the withdrawal of U.S. forces by 2014. But Pakistan’s decision to withdraw from the talks eventually scuttled efforts.
Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson on Tuesday doubled down on Mr. Trump’s suggestion that the Taliban could have a role in a postwar Afghanistan.
“I think the president was clear this entire effort is intended to put pressure on the Taliban, to have the Taliban understand you will not win a battlefield victory,” Mr. Tillerson told reporters. “We may not win one, but neither will you. So at some point, we have to come to the negotiating table and find a way to bring this to an end.”
White House officials, he said, remain confident the U.S. can foster “moderate elements of the Taliban who, we think, are going to be ready and want to help develop a way forward.”
Mr. Spoehr said Mr. Trump’s call for a results-based strategy could give Kabul the political breathing room it needs to “come to terms with this insurgency” and restart talks. “Peace talks are not essential,” he said. “But if [Kabul] does not come to a political agreement with the Taliban, they will never control 100 percent of Afghanistan 100 percent of the time.”
The Pakistan factor
Any proposed peace talks will likely require the support of Pakistan.
Mr. Tillerson said Tuesday that “Pakistan in particular can play an important role here, certainly in delivering the Taliban to the negotiating table.” But the secretary of state also pointed to “an erosion of trust” between Washington and Islamabad over allegations that Pakistan supports known terror groups.
While seemingly extending an olive branch to moderate factions of the Taliban, Mr. Trump used Monday night’s address to reprimand Islamabad for harboring extremists.
“We can no longer be silent about Pakistan’s safe havens for terrorist organizations, the Taliban and other groups that pose a threat to the region and beyond,” the president said. “Pakistan has much to gain from partnering with our effort in Afghanistan,” he added. “It has much to lose by continuing to harbor criminals and terrorists.”
American diplomats sought Tuesday to ease tensions with Islamabad in the wake of the comments, in which Mr. Trump accused Pakistan of protecting groups like the infamous Haqqani network and other “organizations that try every single day to kill our people.”
U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan David Hale met with Pakistani Foreign Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif, and Mr. Tillerson reportedly extended an invitation to host Mr. Asif in Washington in coming weeks to discuss details of the new strategy.
Pakistani officials declined to respond specifically to Mr. Trump’s comments in an official statement released Tuesday, but emphasized their country’s “desire for peace and stability in Afghanistan.”
Pakistani Ambassador to the U.S. Aizaz Chaudhry said Islamabad refuses to be blamed for the worsening security situation in Afghanistan.
In June Mr. Chaudhry told The Times in an interview that the Haqqani network was “on the run, as far as we are concerned.” He also touted the success of large-scale Pakistani military and counterterrorism offensives that have been carried out in Pakistan’s volatile tribal region in recent years.
“Scapegoating Pakistan for failures in Afghanistan will not help,” he said at the time. “It is too simplistic to say all of these [problems] are because of Pakistan.”
Washington and Islamabad have long been uncomfortable bedfellows in counterterrorism, and tensions soared following the clandestine U.S. Special Forces raid that killed Osama bin Laden inside Pakistan in 2011.
The relationship has been rife with allegations that Pakistan’s intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence directorate, has covertly trained and financed extremist terror groups. Islamabad has fired back counteraccusations that Washington’s heavy military and political support for India — Pakistan’s neighbor and chief regional rival — has undermined regional stability efforts.
• This article is based in part on wire service reports.
• Carlo Muñoz can be reached at cmunoz@washingtontimes.com.
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