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Members of the Taliban delegation gather ahead of Saturday's signing ceremony with the United States in the Qatari capital of Doha. Giuseppe Cacace/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

Members of the Taliban delegation gather ahead of Saturday's signing ceremony with the United States in the Qatari capital of Doha.

Updated at 10:22 a.m. ET

The U.S. and the Taliban have struck a deal that paves the way for eventual peace in Afghanistan. U.S. Special Representative Zalmay Khalilzad and the head of the militant Islamist group, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, signed the potentially historic agreement Saturday in Doha, Qatar, where the two sides spent months hashing out its details.

Under the terms of the deal, the U.S. commits to withdrawing all of its military forces and supporting civilian personnel, as well as those of its allies, within 14 months. The drawdown process will begin with the U.S. reducing its troop levels to 8,600 in the first 135 days and pulling its forces from five bases.

The rest of its forces, according to the agreement, will leave "within the remaining nine and a half months."

The Afghan government also will release up to 5,000 Taliban prisoners as a gesture of goodwill, in exchange for 1,000 Afghan security forces held by the Taliban.

"We owe a debt of gratitude to America's sons and daughters who paid the ultimate sacrifice in Afghanistan, and to the many thousands who served over the past nearly 19 years," Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in a statement celebrating the deal, which comes on the heels of a seven-day "Reduction in Violence" agreement in Afghanistan.

"The only responsible way to end the war in Afghanistan is through a negotiated political settlement. Today is a reflection of the hard work of our Nation's military, the U.S. Department of State, intelligence professionals, and our valued partners," he added. "The United States is committed to the Afghan people, and to ensuring that Afghanistan never becomes a safe haven for terrorists to threaten our homeland and our Allies."

The U.S. intends, along with members of the United Nations Security Council, to "remove members of the Taliban from the sanctions list with the aim of achieving this objective by May 29, 2020" and Washington, in particular, aims to remove the group from U.S. sanctions by Aug 27, 2020.

The U.S. has pledged to seek the Security Council's recognition and endorsement of the plan.

The Afghan government will also begin negotiations with the Taliban to map out a political settlement which would establish the role the Taliban would play in a future Afghanistan. These negotiations are expected to start next month. One of the first tasks in these intra-Afghan talks will be to achieve a lasting ceasefire in Afghanistan.

Separately, in Kabul, Afghanistan, U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg signed a joint declaration with the Afghan government represented by President Ashraf Ghani that commits the Afghans to these up-coming negotiations with the Taliban and to provide Afghanistan with security guarantees as this process unfolds.

The deal signed Saturday has been 18 months in the making.

There were nine rounds of on-again, off-again talks in Doha the Qatari capital where the Taliban maintains an office which began in 2018. The U.S. and Taliban had reached an agreement last summer, but President Trump walked away from those talks after a U.S. service member was killed in a September car bombing in the Afghan capital, Kabul.

Only the U.S., led by its chief representative, Khalilzad, and the Taliban have taken part in the negotiations, an arrangement that New York University's Barnett Rubin says was designed by the Taliban and resisted until recently by the U.S.

"Since 2010 [the Taliban] always insisted there would be two stages: international and then intra-Afghan," says Rubin, who served from 2009-2013 as special advisor to the State Department's Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan and now directs the Afghanistan Pakistan Regional Program at NYU's Center on International Cooperation.

The Taliban's rule in Afghanistan, which lasted just five years, ended abruptly with the invasion of a U.S.-led military coalition shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Their overthrow was a reprisal for having harbored Osama bin Laden, the leader of al-Qaida, whose militants hijacked and crashed four American airliners in those attacks.

President Trump has repeatedly vowed to end America's involvement in the war in Afghanistan, the most prolonged of all U.S. conflicts. Within months of assuming the presidency, though, Trump added 4,000 U.S. troops to the 8,900 American forces already deployed there.

More than 2,400 Americans have died in Afghanistan during nearly 18 years of fighting, at an estimated cost to the U.S. Treasury of nearly $1 trillion. In recent years, despite the surge in troop levels, the Taliban have fought U.S. and Afghan forces to what Milley has called "a state of strategic stalemate."

This past month has seen less bloodshed than usual in the country, as Taliban fighters promised to suspend major attacks and U.S. forces agreed to suspend offensive operations except attacks against Islamic State insurgents during the recent weeklong "reduction in violence" period.

"We have seen just these last six days a significant reduction in violence in Afghanistan," Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told the House Committee on Foreign Affairs on Friday, shortly before flying to the Doha signing ceremony. Earlier in the week, Pompeo called the partial truce "imperfect," but said "it's working."

Here are some of the key elements in that political resolution:

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, left, meets with Qatari Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani ahead of Saturday's signing ceremony between the U.S. and the Taliban in Qatar's capital, Doha. Giuseppe Cacace/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, left, meets with Qatari Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani ahead of Saturday's signing ceremony between the U.S. and the Taliban in Qatar's capital, Doha.

The success of February's seven-day partial truce has been seen as a crucial first step to the eventual withdrawal of U.S. troops, with aspirations for a full pullout contingent on the Taliban's "performance" over the coming months, according to a senior State Department official who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

"Part of the process of making peace is to begin to take down the edifice [of sanctions], but the language is carefully constructed to be conditional, depending on Taliban performance," says the official. "If the Taliban don't do what we hope they'll do, our requirements to begin to take down that edifice are vitiated."

Michael O'Hanlon, a Brookings Institution scholar and longtime supporter of the U.S. intervention in Afghanistan, points out that the initial drawdown brings the troop levels back to roughly the same number that were in the country under President Obama.

"So, it's not a huge change," O'Hanlon tells NPR. "It's just a reduction from the sort of mini-Trump buildup."

He warns this agreement cannot repeat what the U.S. signed with the North Vietnamese in the 1973 Paris peace talks, "where we basically take on faith that the enemy is going to behave itself once we're gone."

A senior Afghan official tells NPR that the U.S. forces that do remain would focus on the three missions they are currently carrying out: counter-terrorism operations, training of Afghan forces and air support for Afghan ground forces.

A drawdown of the approximately 7,000 forces from other NATO member states in Afghanistan would take place in tandem with the departure of U.S. troops.

U.S. officials insist the troop withdrawal timeline will depend primarily on one condition: the degree to which the Taliban fulfills its commitment in the peace deal not to allow Afghanistan to be used as a base of operations by insurgencies such as al-Qaida and the Islamic State.

"The Taliban must respect the agreement, specifically regarding their promises of severing ties with terrorists," Pompeo said earlier this week at the State Department. "We have our deep counterterrorism interest there, making sure that the homeland is never attacked. It's one of the central underpinnings of what President Trump has laid before us."

The Taliban's renunciation of ties with al-Qaida, though, may be more easily said than done.

"This is a complex issue because the Haqqani network is often seen as a strong affiliate of al-Qaida and it's also part of the Taliban leadership," says O'Hanlon. "So we don't really quite know what that means, but presumably, core al-Qaida and the Taliban would not be allowed to speak [to each other] and we would be listening with all of our electronic capabilities to make sure that was the case."

The Haqqani network is one of Afghanistan's most experienced insurgent groups, long thought to be responsible for some of the more sophisticated and large scale attacks, especially in Kabul. Its leader, Sirajuddin Haqqani, is the Taliban's current deputy and recently penned an op-ed in the The New York Times.

The State Department recognizes there are concerns about the Taliban's historical bonds with al-Qaida.

"We think this is a decisive and historic first step in terms of their public acknowledgment that they are breaking ties with al-Qaida," says one official. "That's going to be a work in progress."

Just as the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan is the Taliban's main demand in this agreement, the U.S. has made the Taliban's forswearing of ties to other insurgencies its top ask.

"We went into Afghanistan with NATO after 9/11 because of the threat to the United States and our allies," the State Department official says. "We are still there because we are concerned about the terrorist threat."

But one former senior U.S. official suggests the Trump administration may be exaggerating that threat.

"In my estimation, we have largely achieved our counter-terrorism objective today. Al-Qaida is much diminished in Afghanistan and Pakistan, with most of its senior leaders killed and those who remain marginalized," retired Army Gen. Douglas Lute, who served as point man for the Afghan war effort in both the Bush and Obama White Houses, recently wrote in prepared Congressional testimony.

"There is a branch of the so-called Islamic State in Afghanistan, but I have seen no evidence that it presents a threat to the U.S. and it is under pressure from the Afghans, including from the Taliban."

Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef, the Taliban's former ambassador to Pakistan, speaks to the press ahead of Saturday's signing ceremony with the United States in Qatar. Giuseppe Cacace/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef, the Taliban's former ambassador to Pakistan, speaks to the press ahead of Saturday's signing ceremony with the United States in Qatar.

The U.S. and the Taliban are expected to continue the lines of communications they have already established during the talks in Doha, both to support implementation of the agreement and to de-conflict their respective military operations against ISIS in eastern Afghanistan.

Suspicions that there was a secret annex to the deal that also involved sharing intelligence with the Taliban prompted a cautionary letter to Pompeo and Defense Secretary Mark Esper this week from 22 House Republicans. They demanded that any deal between the U.S. and the Taliban be made public with no secret annexes or side deals, including one for intelligence sharing or a joint counterterrorism center with the Taliban.

"This would be a farce," the lawmakers wrote, "and put American lives at risk."

A State Department official on Thursday denied the U.S. was entering into any kind of "cooperative partnership" with the Taliban.

The exchange of prisoners between the Afghan government and the Taliban is intended as a way of building trust between the two sides.

A State Department official expressed admiration for the care Taliban leaders have shown for freeing their fighters, adding: "The agreement makes explicit that those who are released need to make commitments that they won't go back to the battlefield and that they will support the agreement."

While noting the need for early action on releasing prisoners to build confidence among the Taliban in the peace process, the official said both the numbers of prisoners and the timeline for their release are "aspirational" and will depend on "Taliban performance."

A second phase of the peace process would bring together Afghan government officials, opposition figures, civil society representatives and the Taliban to discuss a political road map for bringing an end to the war.

The talks are expected to take place in Oslo, Norway, to begin around mid-March. The U.S. will be present along with others, including Germany, Indonesia and the U.N., but only in the role of supporting and facilitating the talks.

"It's not like the Taliban are endlessly evil or that this will bring flowers and roses and doves overnight," says one U.S. official. "We've reached a point where there's a critical mass on all sides where people want to change, want a better future, want a better option, and our job is to continue to create the incentives, continue to create the momentum for people to move forward and change the negative trajectory."

A host of difficult issues are to be addressed in the intra-Afghan talks, including:

a. A long-term cease-fire

The reduction in violence of the past week is intended to be a step toward an overall cessation of hostilities to be worked out in Oslo.

"The agreement explicitly calls on the Taliban to sit down with the other Afghans in the intra-Afghan negotiations, where they will discuss the modalities and the timing of a comprehensive and permanent cease-fire," says a State Department official. "There's a lot of mistrust, decades of fighting, so it's not going to be easy."

This would likely entail a dismantling of the Taliban's military force with the aim of either demobilizing or integrating its members into the Afghan security forces a goal O'Hanlon considers daunting.

"I think the only realistic way to handle the security forces is that you keep all the different forces more or less in place," he says. "The Taliban continue to hold the parts of the country where they're most influential in certain rural areas, the Afghan army and police control the cities and major highways, and maybe there's a U.N. observation force making sure they don't fight each other."

b. Power sharing

Yet to be determined is the role the Taliban might play in Afghanistan's political future.

The nation continues to roil over results of the disputed September presidential election. Ghani was declared the winner in mid-February. But that result is not recognized by his challenger, Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah, and a planned swearing-in of Ghani for a second term has been postponed until March 10, at the request of the U.S.

"You have a very fragmented country right now within Afghanistan, even apart from the Taliban and the central government who are clearly at war," says Bahar Jalali, who directs the women's mentoring program at the American University of Afghanistan.

"There's a lot of consternation with the Taliban coming back and re-emerging as viable political actors. What's going to happen with that?"

c. Women's rights

After women were prohibited under Taliban rule from attending school, working or appearing in public without a male relative as escort, they've won back those rights and gained others in areas no longer dominated by the Taliban.

In his opinion piece last week, Haqqani, the deputy Taliban leader, appeared to play down concerns that women would lose their restored freedoms.

"I am confident that, liberated from foreign domination and interference, we together will find a way to build an Islamic system in which all Afghans have equal rights," Haqqani wrote, "where the rights of women that are granted by Islam from the right to education to the right to work are protected, and where merit is the basis for equal opportunity."

But many are skeptical of the Taliban's intentions and doubt such assurances.

"We saw what the Taliban's version of Islam looked like in the late 1990s and early 2000s, right before the U.S. military intervention," says Jalali. "That gives nobody any good sense of comfort about the Taliban upholding the rights of women under Islamic law."

Jalali fears the U.S. is simply looking for a way out of Afghanistan before November's election.

"That really speaks to Trump's burning desire to exit from Afghanistan and to say, hey, I ended the Forever War, you know, I can claim credit for that," she says. "I keep saying [it's a] low threshold for peace and a low threshold for ending the war."

For O'Hanlon, the Doha peace agreement is only a start.

"It's a tiny step forward," he says. "It's a good step forward, but it doesn't really mean that phase two or round two is going to follow naturally."

View post:
U.S. Signs Peace Deal With Taliban After Nearly 2 Decades Of War In Afghanistan - NPR

It could be very easy for the Taliban to say all the things that we want to hear in order to get us down to a zero or a very low troop presence, said Jeremy Butler, a former Navy officer who runs the veterans service organization Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA). Probably with the assumption that the U.S. and the president would be not particularly inclined to reinvest servicemen and women back into the country.

A third of IAVAs veteran members deployed to Afghanistan at least once, according to Butler, and some have five or more combat deployments there. Many of the veterans he spoke with in recent days were especially concerned that the peace deal was signed before the Afghan government had agreed on how to share power with the Taliban after U.S. forces leave. We want to end the engagement in Afghanistan, Butler said. We just want it to be done the right way.

Theres been a growing consensus among veterans groups in Washington that a full withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan is long overdue. Last year, Concerned Veterans for America, a conservative advocacy group, made ending the post-Sept. 11 wars a legislative priority a policy agenda it shared with more progressive veterans groups on the left, like VoteVets and Common Defense.

Anecdotally, when you talk to veterans and service members about going to Afghanistan again and again and again, the response that you get is that people are tired, said Nate Anderson, the executive director of Concerned Veterans for America. People are tired of fighting this war that has no clear objective and that has no end in sight.

Anderson, who deployed twice to Afghanistan as a Green Beret, added that the agreement signed over the weekend was a step in the right direction, but he added that the deal should not be considered a substitute to a full withdrawal of American forces from the country.

For other veterans, the idea of negotiating with the Taliban was unsettling, given the groups history of human rights abuses. Lydia Davey, a former Marine who served in Afghanistan in 2005 and 2006, said she was ambivalent when she first heard the news, but then she thought more about the stories about life under the Taliban. Davey recalled one of her Afghan colleagues telling her that he had been arrested and beaten with electrical cords after the Taliban raided a wedding and arrested all of the men for listening to secular music at the reception.

Original post:
After Tours in Afghanistan, U.S. Veterans Weigh Peace With the Taliban - The New York Times

The US has finally moved to bring its disastrous Afghan Campaign to an end. It suffered from many basic flaws right from the outset; an inconsistent policy, a lack of a well-defined strategic direction, an ambiguous end state, persistent mission creep, baffling troop withdrawals and surges and gross infighting in the main echelons of the Obama and Trump Administrations, being the more prominent ones. (US Egress from Afghanistan, by this scribe, The Nation, 08 January 2019). Although a faade of an agreement between the Tehrik e Taliban Afghanistan (TTA) and the US has been arranged, yet the fact remains that as per its wont, the US is once again abandoning one of its major international undertakings, rather unceremoniously. Quite akin to its ingress into Afghanistan, the US egress too does not inspire much confidence. It smacks of stark self-interest (Elections 2020), indecent haste, a lack of forethought and blatant disregard for a responsible management of the aftermath of its exit from the region. It has apparently ditched Afghanistan and has no qualms about the future direction it takes domestically or its role in the evolving geopolitical, geostrategic and geo-economic imperatives of the region.

Goodbye Afghanistan!

The main pillars of the agreement are all difficult to implement except for the egress of the US and Coalition forces. Intra-Afghan talks, neutralizing the dangerous Terrorism Central (Al Qaeda, IS, TTP, JuA, IMU, ETIM etc) and enforcing a viable ceasefire (CF) will all pose serious challenges. Most importantly, without a Marshal Plan of sorts, Afghanistan will quickly degenerate into economic insolvency, chaos, unrest and internal strife. It will destabilize the entire region (BRI-CPEC included), too. The agreement itself has many peculiarities. It has been reached between the TTA and the US and is being imposed upon the rest of the Afghan nation including the National Unity Government (NUG) and other political forces - all who were never part of the negotiations! This is an illogical approach to resolving the Afghan quagmire. It should have been an all-encompassing venture.

By negotiating with the TTA the US has literally accepted them as the future rulers of Afghanistan. It now wants it to unify the Afghan nation and manage the aftermath of its exit too. The term Afghan led Afghan owned peace process has been quite a misnomer. Do the Afghans have within themselves the capacity and patience to reach and enforce a viable and peaceful solution? It has always been a fractious society of many ethnicities, persuasions, loyalties, clashing egos and interests and is severely polarized post the US invasion of Afghanistan. They have been killing one another, remorselessly. This raises questions on the viability of the intra-Afghan dialogue too. It is critical that it succeeds. Left to the Afghans alone, it will only lead to further destabilization. Therefore, it needs to be chaperoned extremely sensitively and deftly by the US and Pakistan.

Other matters to be considered are the form of government that will emerge. The two antagonists have opposing political philosophies to pursue. The TTA desires an Islamic Emirate while the NUG and others prefer a western style of secular, democratic, parliamentary form of Government. How and where will the twain meet? Can they agree to a hybrid Constitution that enshrines Islamic laws, tenets and principles and allows a democratic parliamentary mode of their implementation? Will both Afghan parties accept the current Afghan Constitution or will they first go in for a new legal framework-constitution and thereafter go in for fresh elections?

Furthermore, does the TTA have the capacity and the wherewithal to defeat and disperse Terrorism Central comprehensively? Will these terrorist groups readily submit to the diktat of the TTA or will some of them still remain subservient to their paymasters and spoilers like India? It will perhaps require a regional and/or joint US-TTA-ANSDF effort to snuff out this terrorist menace. The US has not enhanced the warfighting abilities and capacities of the ANSDF sufficiently to overcome these terrorist groups on its own. Time will thus be of critical importance. Terrorism Central must be neutralized before the US completes its egress. An unambiguous plan of action will be necessary.

A CF at the national level will be the most difficult to achieve. The TTA is used to projecting its power and imposing its writ and will wherever it operates. The other Afghan factions as well as Terrorism Central are bound to resist its freedom of action. This might lead to a veritable civil war and must be tackled at the outset.

The US is apparently exiting Afghanistan without a thought to the management of Afghanistan and the region, thereafter. It did so in 1989-90 too, leaving Pakistan in limbo. Immediately thereafter, it imposed economic, military and other sanctions on Pakistan thus taking away from it the capacity to deal with the aftermath of the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, too. The rest is history. Pakistan must prepare for all contingencies. Pakistan, (Iran) and China, as a subset of the CRIPT-SCO (China, Russia, Iran, Pakistan and Turkey) must undertake bold foreign policy initiatives and position themselves to get proactively involved in the management of Afghanistans transition to an unadulterated Afghan rule, as and when required. It is in their national and collective interests. They must incorporate Afghanistan into the CPEC immediately and provide them an opportunity to prosper economically. Without a domineering central authority and/or left to its own dynamics Afghanistans internal front is likely to collapse under ethnic and political pressures and degenerate into a civil war. It will lead to the eventual balkanization of Afghanistan. That will destabilize the region, suck in neighbours like Pakistan, Iran, China, Russia et al and even peripheral India. The Afghan cauldron will go onto the boil again and this time it might be without too many checks and balances. Afghanistan must not become another Vietnam!

The US thus must bring its Afghan Campaign to an orderly, responsible and well managed closure. Failing which, it will become incumbent upon Pakistan, (Iran) and China to move proactively to pre-empt Afghanistans and the regions descent into chaos and unmitigated disaster!

View original post here:
The US dumps Afghanistan - The Nation

DOHA, Qatar The Taliban cheered, whooped and cried "God is Great" just moments after one of their leaders signed an agreement that could lead to the United States' withdrawal from Afghanistan after more than 18 years of war.

On Saturday in this tiny Gulf kingdom, senior American officials shook hands with the group that, as the government of Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001, had sheltered Osama bin Laden, the Al Qaeda leader and the architect of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. The U.S. agreed to work toward lifting sanctions against the group, and Taliban leaders can even look forward to a possible meeting with President Donald Trump.

In short, after nearly two decades of war with the world's remaining superpower, the Taliban look like they not only have won the war, but they are also on the way to shedding their status as international pariahs.

Even if we dont say that the U.S. is defeated in Afghanistan, it is an open secret now that they are defeated, said Anas Haqqani, a senior member of the Haqqani network, considered to be the most formidable of the Talibans fighting forces, who was recently released from an Afghan jail in exchange for two Western professors taken hostage by the Taliban in 2016.

In the agreement aimed at ending Washington's military entanglement in Afghanistan America's longest war the U.S. agrees to withdraw all its forces from the country in 14 months, although a complete pullout would depend on the Taliban meeting its commitments, including cutting any ties to terrorist groups.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warned Sunday that the path ahead would be "rocky and bumpy," but said it was time to move forward.

"No one is under any illusion that this will be straightforward," he said on CBS' "Face the Nation." "We've built an important base where we can begin to bring American soldiers home, reduce the risk of the loss of life of any American in Afghanistan, and hopefully set the conditions so the Afghan people can build out a peaceful resolution to what for them is a 40-year struggle."

The U.S. has 12,000 to 13,000 troops in Afghanistan.

For the Taliban, getting the U.S. to agree to withdraw is akin to the U.S.-backed mujahedeen, or "holy fighters," pushing out Soviet troops in the 1980s and earlier, to the Afghans declaring independence from Britain in 1919.

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This sense of celebration and victory spilled into the open Saturday as Taliban leaders and members staged a small parade in the streets of Qatar before the signing ceremony.

The war has taken an enormous toll on the insurgents. Brown University estimates that between 2001 and October 2018, some 40,000 opposition fighters were killed in Afghanistan. While it does not give breakdowns on how many of these fighters were Taliban members, they are by far the largest insurgent group in the country.

The war has also inflicted a deadly toll on the Afghan people. While the Taliban steadfastly deny they target civilians, according to the United Nations the group was responsible for almost half of the more than 10,000 civilians who were either injured or killed in Afghanistan last year.

There were around 2,400 U.S. military deaths between 2001 and 2018, according to Brown University's Costs of War project.

The Taliban say they feel victorious now, but the war isn't over yet.

The group has made a substantial concession in agreeing to enter into talks for the first time with Afghan government officials, representatives of the opposition and members of the civil society on March 10.

It is this commitment along with a pledge to prevent Al Qaeda or other terrorists from using Afghan soil to attack the U.S. or its allies that enabled a deal between the Taliban and Washington to be brokered. And it has, at least for a moment, brought them partly out of the cold internationally.

The Taliban are betting that Trump is eager to bring U.S. troops home and will be reluctant to backtrack on the planned pullout. Once U.S. forces leave, the Taliban will be in a powerful position at the negotiating table or if necessary on the battlefield.

But the Taliban's rehabilitation is contingent on what comes next, according to American officials. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper said in Kabul that if the Taliban does not abide by its commitments, the U.S. would not hesitate to nullify the agreement."

For Laurel Miller, a former senior U.S. diplomat now with the International Crisis Group think tank, this was the easy part.

Upcoming Afghan-Taliban peace talks "will have to tackle much more difficult issues of who gets to wield power in the country and how the government is going to be organized," Miller said in a statement Saturday.

The Taliban have persistently dismissed President Ashraf Ghani as an American puppet and rejected taking part in elections, and they have also called on Afghans to boycott votes. They have built up shadow authorities throughout the country, taking over state hospitals and schools.

And even before intra-Afghan peace talks get underway, there are already issues to iron out.

The U.S. committed in the agreement to work with both sides to secure the release of up to 5,000 prisoners held by the Afghan government and 1,000 prisoners held by the Taliban by the start of the talks.

However, the timing of the prisoner swap could prove to be contentious. On Monday, a Taliban spokesman said the talks wouldn't happen unless the prisoners were released first.

Following that, reports swirled that the Taliban had called off the reduction of violence and had ordered their fighters to start attacking Afghan forces.

Saphora Smith is a London-based reporter for NBC News Digital.

Mushtaq Yusufzai is a journalist based in Peshawar, Pakistan.

Dan De Luceis a reporter for the NBC News Investigative Unit.

Ahmed Mengli

Ahmed Mengli is a journalist based in Kabul, Afghanistan.

Originally posted here:
U.S. sees Taliban deal as exit from Afghanistan. Militants see it as victory over the superpower. - NBC News

LONG, WINDY, BUMPY ROAD: Though hailed as a historic breakthrough, the Agreement for Bringing Peace to Afghanistan signed by the U.S. and Taliban leaders in Doha Saturday is a basically an agreement to try to reach a peace deal in the future and gives both sides plenty of room to wriggle out of it.

This is going to be a long, windy, bumpy road. There will be ups and downs and we'll stop and start, Defense Secretary Mark Esper told reporters yesterday That's going to be the nature of this over the next days, weeks and months.

Here are five things to keep in mind about the plan.

FOR NOW, THE US GAVE UP NOTHING: While on the surface it appears the Taliban achieved its primary goal the complete withdrawal of all foreign forces within 14 months the U.S. has agreed only to do what it planned to do anyway, with or without an agreement. We are going to show good faith and begin withdrawing our troops, and we can stop that at any moment, said Esper. What we'll do is we'll go to 8,600 and we're going to stop, and we'll assess the situation.

Thats the number of American troops U.S. commanders have said are needed to carry out the current advise and assist and counterterrorism missions. The U.S. has retained the option to keep those troops in Afghanistan if theres no progress toward peace. We can pause it based on, again, changing circumstances, Esper said.

FOR NOW, THE TALIBAN GAVE UP NOTHING: While the seven-day reduction of violence agreement was a precondition for signing the withdrawal agreement, the Taliban have made it clear they do not believe it applies to its war against Afghan government forces, and at any rate it has expired.

The reduction in violence... has ended now and our operations will continue as normal," Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told the French news agency AFP. That the Taliban plans to continue its strategy of fighting while negotiating came as a motorcycle bomb attack that killed three people is eastern Afghanistan. Whether the Taliban or some other group was responsible for the attack was unclear.

THE LEVEL OF VIOLENCE IS IN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER: The peace agreement not only contains no provisions for a peace, beyond intra-Afghan negotiations to begin next week in Oslo, it also does not include a truce or ceasefire.

I would caution everybody, to think that there's going to be an absolute cessation of violence in Afghanistan, that is probably not going to happen, admitted Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley at yesterday's Pentagon briefing. It's probably not going to go to zero.

Regarding yesterdays attack, Milley underscored the subjective nature of determining if violence is Taliban-related. We don't know exactly who did that yet.

ALL WE ARE SAYING IS GIVE PEACE A CHANCE: Our expectation is that the reduction in violence will continue, it would taper off until we got intra-Afghan negotiations, where it would ultimately consummate in a cease-fire, if you will, Esper said.

A negotiated political settlement is the only responsible way to end the war in Afghanistan, and this was an important step, said Milley. This agreement provides the best hope for a peaceful future for the people of Afghanistan.

Just watch what really happens. Pay less attention to statements, pay less attention to things people say. Watch what happens on the ground, said Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Fox news. Theres been a lot of work done at detailed levels about how this will proceed. So far, so good. Were just hours into this.

WHATEVER HAPPENS, TRUMP IS OVER AFGHANISTAN: Asked at the White House what would happen if the peace talks failed to take place and violence flared anew, President Trump said, Well, we're going to find out.

But we're getting out. We want to get out, he said. We had good meetings with the Taliban. And we are going to be leaving, and we're going to be bringing our soldiers back home. We've been there for almost 20 years. It's a long time. We've done a great job in terms of getting rid of terrorists. Now it's up to other countries to get rid of those terrorists.

Good Tuesday morning and welcome to Jamie McIntyres Daily on Defense, written and compiled by Washington Examiner National Security Senior Writer Jamie McIntyre (@jamiejmcintyre) and edited by Susan Katz Keating (@SKatzKeating). Email here with tips, suggestions, calendar items, and anything else. Sign up or read current and back issues at DailyonDefense.com. If signing up doesnt work, shoot us an email and well add you to our list. And be sure to follow us on Twitter: @dailyondefense.

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HAPPENING TODAY THE BEGINNING OF BUDGETPALOOZA: As you know, we have a busy week here at the Pentagon, said Defense Secretary Mark Esper DoD leadership will be testifying in 20 hearings before Congress in the coming days as we continue to brief the Hill on the department's F.Y. '21 budget request.

See our calendar below for the schedule of hearings this week.

ALSO TODAY: Esper welcomes Estonian Defense Minister Juri Luik to the Pentagon at 1 p.m. on the steps of the River Entrance. Esper and Luik will brief reporters in the Pentagon briefing room a approximately 2 p.m. Steamed live at https://www.defense.gov/Watch/Live-Events

NEW AF CHIEF: Air Force Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. has been nominated to be the next chief of staff of the Air Force, when current chief David Goldfein retires this year. Brown is currently commander of Pacific Air Forces; air component commander for U.S. Indo-Pacific Command; and executive director, Pacific Air Combat Operations Staff, Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii.

If confirmed, Brown will be the first African American to serve as a service chief. In 1989, Army Gen. Colin Powell became the first African American chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

NO TEARS FOR DAVE: Goldfein, you may recall, was the pick of former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis to succeed Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford as the next chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, but President Trump preferred Army Gen. Mark Milley.

Still, Goldfein retires as the Air Forces top officer after a distinguished 37 year career, which included flying F-16s and F-117s in combat missions in operations Desert Shield, Desert Storm, Allied Force and Enduring Freedom.

Goldfein also has the distinction of being one of two U.S. pilots shot down over Serbia in 1999, when a surface-to-air missile hit his F-16.

DRIP, DRIP, DRIP: Every couple of days the U.S. Africa Command drops another press release that begins with the same boilerplate language, In coordination with the Federal Government of Somalia, U.S. Africa Command conducted airstrikes targeting al-Shabaab terrorists

The latest release announced that two airstrikes targeting al-Shabaab killed one and wounded two terrorists. In drone strikes that kill one or two enemy fighters at a time, the U.S. continues a low-intensity war against the group that is an offshoot of al Qaeda.

US Africa Command is focused on support to the Federal Government of Somalia and helping them end al-Shabaabs brutal ambitions and treatment of the Somali people, said U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Bill Gayler, director of operations, U.S. Africa Command.

According to a tally of AFRICOM releases from so far this year, the U.S. has killed 17 al-Shabaab fighters in 15 strikes, including a senior al-Shabaab leader and his wife who were said to have been behind the Jan. 15 attack on Manda Bay, that killed one U.S. soldier and two American contractors.

CORONAVIRUS CONCERNS: Defense Secretary Esper says the threat of infection from the corona virus has been the focus of a high-level daily working group that includes senior Pentagon officials, members of the Joint Staff, and combatant commanders around the world.

At the end of last week, I did a deep dive with DOD civilian and military leadership, including all the service secretaries, the COCOM commanders to ensure the entire department is equipped for all scenarios: short and long-term, domestic and international, Esper said. Commanders of individually affected geographic commands have all the authority they need and we'll provide specific guidance to their troops as the situation continues to evolve.

EXERCISES MOSTLY UNAFFECTED: Right now, the overall broad impact to the uniformed U.S. military is very, very minimal, said Joint Chiefs Chairman Milley. It's not to say it's zero, but it's very, very minimal. Very few cases have been diagnosed, et cetera.

Milley noted that while a command post exercise was postponed in Korea, other exercises in Asia and Europe are going on as planned.

We're taking a look at some other exercises to see if they need to be modified or changed, he said. We're looking at the exercises, but right now we don't see any significant negative impact on that.

US-ISRAELI EXERCISE: The U.S. European Command announced today that Juniper Cobra, a combined missile defense exercise with the Israel Defense Forces began today, and will run through March 13.

Approximately 2,500 U.S. personnel and 1,000 IDF personnel will participate in the long-planned exercise, which EUCOM says is driven by overall dynamics in the Middle East, but is not a response to any recent developments or specific real-world events.

IRAN TO IRAQ TRANSMISSION: The Washington-based Institute for the Study of War says Irans inability to contain the coronavirus has allowed the disease to spread to Iraq, whose health institutions are poorly equipped to manage the potential pandemic.

Iraq is vulnerable due to the hundreds of thousands of internally displaced persons, congested anti-government demonstrations, and routine pilgrimages by religious observers across the region, particularly from Iran, says the ISWs latest situation report. Failure to contain the virus could lead to greater anti-Iranian sentiment among Iraqis. Iraq imports billions of dollars in cross border trade from Iran per year. Restricted movement will lead to increased prices on basic necessities.

INDUSTRY WATCH: BAE Systems has been awarded a five-year $188.2 million contract to provide the Navys AEGIS Technical Representative office with critical large-scale system engineering, integration, and testing expertise for the AEGIS weapons and combat systems aboard U.S. Navy surface combatant ships, the company said on Monday.

BAE Systems personnel have worked side-by-side with Navy sailors and civilians for nearly 40 years to strengthen and modernize the fleet of AEGIS-equipped surface ships, said Mark Keeler, vice president and general manager of BAE Systems Integrated Defense Solutions business.

Washington Examiner: Peace with the Taliban will be a 'bumpy road,' defense chiefs say

Washington Examiner: A war would trigger devastating consequences: Turkey and Russia try to avoid clash as Erdogan hammers Assad

Wall Street Journal: White House Drops Nominee Who Questioned Ukraine Aid Suspension

AP: Kim Watches N Korea Military Drill Alongside Masked Officers

AP: North Korean swagger may conceal brewing virus disaster

Military Times: Communities Fighting Transfers Of Coronavirus Patients From Military Installations

Breaking Defense: Hypersonic Missiles: Plethora Of Boost-Glide & Cruise

Defense News: Pentagon Launches Hypersonic Industrial Base Study

USNI News: CNO Gilday Defends 36-Month Carrier Cycle, Says Navy Has Never Missed A Deployment

USNI News: U.S. Issues Formal Protest To China Over P-8A Lasing Incident In Philippine Sea

Military Times: U.S. Loses Drone Over Niger

Marine Corps News: Commander Of Texas-Based Marine Reserve Aerial Refueling Squadron Fired

Washington Examiner: Opinion: The Taliban shows Trump whos really boss

Washington Post: Michle Flournoy and Stephen J. Hadley: The U.S. deal with the Taliban is an important rst step

TUESDAY | MARCH 3

8 a.m. 900 South Orme St., Arl. Brig. Gen. Stephen Michael, deputy commander of the Army Combined Arms Center for Training, delivers keynote address at the National Defense Industrial Association Human Systems Conference. https://www.ndia.org/events

8 a.m. 1200 South Hayes St., Arl. The RAND Corporation hosts Defense Department State-of-the-Science meeting on blast injury research, with Raj Gupta, acting director of the Defense Department's Blast Injury Research Coordinating Office https://www.rand.org/events/2020/03/03.html

9:30 a.m. 1919 Connecticut Ave. N.W. President Trump; Rep. Stephanie Murphy, D-Fla.; Rep. John Katko, R-N.Y.; and former Secretary of State Colin Powell, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, participate in a general session of the National Association of Counties 2020 Legislative Conference. https://www.naco.org

10:30 a.m. 2118 Rayburn House Armed Services Committee hearing: The Fiscal Year 2021 National Defense Authorization Budget Request for the Department of the Army, with testimony from Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy and Army Chief of Staff Gen. James McConville. https://armedservices.house.gov/hearings

12 p.m. Hudson Institute discussion on "Dialogues on American and Foreign Policy and World Affairs," focusing on "China, the broader American strategy in the Indo-Pacific region, and other challenges facing the U.S. across the globe, with former Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Kurt Campbell; Dan McKivergan, vice president of government relations at Hudson; and Walter Russell Mead, fellow in strategy and statesmanship at Hudson http://www.hudson.org

1 p.m. Pentagon Briefing Room 2D972 Defense Secretary Mark Esper welcomes Estonian Defense Minister Juri Luik to the Pentagon on the steps of the River Entrance. The secretary and Minister Luik also brief the press at approximately 2 p.m. Streamed live at

2 p.m. 2118 Rayburn House Armed Services Subcommittee on Readiness hearing: The Fiscal Year 2021 Air Force and Space Force Readiness Posture, with testimony from Shon Manasco, acting undersecretary of the Air Force; Gen. Stephen Wilson, Air Force vice chief of staff; and Lt. Gen. David Thompson, vice commander, U.S. Space Force. https://armedservices.house.gov/hearings

2:30 p.m. 2212 Rayburn House Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces hearing: The Fiscal Year 2021 Budget Request for Nuclear Forces and Atomic Energy Defense Activities, with testimony from Lisa Gordon-Hagerty, administrator, National Nuclear Security Administration; Victorino Mercado, performing the duties of assistant secretary of defense for strategy, plans, and capabilities; Vice Adm. Johnny Wolfe, Navy director, Strategic Systems Programs; Air Force Lt. Gen. Richard Clark, deputy chief of staff for strategic deterrence and nuclear integration; and Allison Bawden, director, natural resources and environment team, Government Accountability Office. https://armedservices.house.gov/hearings

2:30 p.m. 1300 Pennsylvania Ave. N.W. Woodrow Wilson Center Africa Program discussion on "The Trump Administration and U.S. Africa Policy: What has been Accomplished and What Lies Ahead?" with Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Tibor Nagy; and Monde Muyangwa, director of the WWC Africa Program. https://www.wilsoncenter.org/event

3 p.m. H-140 Capitol House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense hearing on National Guard and Reserve FY 2021 budget request, with Gen. Joseph Lengyel, Chief of the National Guard Bureau; Lt. Gen. David Bellon, commander, Marine Forces Reserve; Lt. Gen. Charles Luckey, chief of the Army Reserve; Vice Adm. Luke McCollum, chief of the Navy Reserve; and Lt. Gen. Richard Scobee, chief of the Air Force Reserve. https://appropriations.house.gov/events

WEDNESDAY | MARCH 4

8 a.m. 900 South Orme St., Arl. Army Col. Michael McGurk, director of research and analysis at the Center for Initial Military Training Directorate, delivers keynote address at the National Defense Industrial Association Human Systems Conference https://www.ndia.org/events

9 a.m. 1300 Pennsylvania Ave. N.W. McAleese Defense Programs Conference, with national security adviser Robert OBrien; Ellen Lord, undersecretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment; Michael Griffin, undersecretary of defense for research and engineering; Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy, and more than a dozen others. https://www.mcaleese.com/events

10 a.m. 2118 Rayburn House Armed Services Committee hearing: The Fiscal Year 2021 National Defense Authorization Budget Request for the Department of the Air Force, with testimony from Air Force Secretary Barbara Barrett; Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein; Gen. John Raymond, chief of space operations, U.S. Space Force. https://armedservices.house.gov/hearings

11 a.m. H-140 Capitol House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense hearing on U.S. Navy/Marine Corps FY 2021 budget request, with Marine Corps Commandant Gen. David Berger; Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Michael Gilday; and Thomas Modly, acting secretary of the Navy. https://appropriations.house.gov/events

12 p.m. 1957 E St. N.W. George Washington University Elliott School of International Affairs holds a film screening and discussion on "The Barbed Wire Fence," focusing on the Korean Demilitarized Zone, with filmmaker Dai Sil Kim-Gibson; and Young-Key Kim-Renaud, senior adviser in the GWU Institute for Korean Studies https://elliott.gwu.edu/event-calendar

2:30 p.m. 2212 Rayburn House Armed Services Subcommittee on Intelligence and Emerging Threats and Capabilities hearing: The Fiscal Year 2021 Budget Request for U.S. Cyber Command and Operations in Cyberspace, with testimony from Kenneth Rapuano, assistant secretary of defense for homeland defense and global security; and U.S. Cyber Commander and National Security Agency Director Army Gen. Paul Nakasone. https://armedservices.house.gov/hearings

2:30 p.m. 1030 15th St. N.W. Center for the National Interest and the Eurasia Center debate: Why should the US care about Ukraine? with Will Ruger, vice president for research and policy at the Charles Koch Institute; and Alina Polyakova, president & CEO of the Center for European Policy Analysis. The moderators are Jacob Heilbrunn, editor of The National Interest; and Melinda Haring, deputy director of the Eurasia Center. Register at : https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/event

3 p.m. H-140 Capitol House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense hearing on U.S. Space Force organizational plan, with Maj. Gen. Clinton Crosier, director, space force planning, Office of the Chief of Space Operations; and Lt. Gen. David Thompson, vice commander, U.S. Space Force. https://appropriations.house.gov/events/hearings

9:30 p.m. ET Hoover Institution, Stanford, Ca. Intelligence Squared U.S. debates "The Maximum Pressure Campaign Against Iran Is Working, with former national security adviser retired Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster and Military Historian Victor Davis Hanson arguing for the proposition and Martha Crenshaw, terrorism studies expert and Abbas Milani of the Iran Democracy Project arguing against. Streamed live at https://www.intelligencesquaredus.org/debates

THURSDAY | MARCH 5

8 a.m. 2425 Wilson Blvd., Arl. Association of the U.S. Army Hot Topics Forum on "Army Space and AMD (Air and Missile Defense): Protection of the U.S. Homeland, Forces Abroad, Allies and Partners, with Army Lt. Gen. James Dickinson, deputy commander of the U.S. Space Command; and Navy Vice Adm. Jon Hill, director of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency. https://www.ausa.org/events/amd-hot-topic

9 a.m. 2359 Rayburn House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense hearing on Defense Health Program, with Army Surgeon General Lt. Gen. R. Scott Dingle; Navy Surgeon General Rear Adm. Bruce Gillingham; Air Force Surgeon General Lt. Gen. Dorothy Hogg, Thomas McCaffery, assistant secretary of defense for health affairs; Lt. Gen. Ronald Place, director, Defense Health Agency; and Bill Tinston, program executive officer, Defense Healthcare Management Systems https://appropriations.house.gov/events/hearings

9:30 a.m. 2212 Rayburn House Armed Services Subcommittee on Tactical Air and Land Forces Hearing: The Fiscal Year 2021 Army and Marine Corps Ground Modernization Programs, with testimony from Bruce Jette, assistant secretary of the army for acquisition, logistics and technology; Gen. John Murray, commanding general, Army Futures Command; Lt. Gen. Eric Smith, commanding general, Marine Corps Combat Development Command; and James Geurts, assistant secretary of the navy for research, development, and acquisition https://armedservices.house.gov/hearings

3 p.m. 1030 15th St. N.W. Atlantic Council discussion with British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace on "The Next Era of UK Defense." https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/event

6 p.m. 600 New Jersey Ave. N.W. Georgetown University Law Center discussion: "America's Misadventure With Torture: New Revelations and Hard Lessons, with former UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Juan Mendez; Alka Pradhan, human rights counsel to Guantanamo Military Commissions; former Military Commissions Chief Investigator Mark Fallon; Susan Brandon, former research director of the High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group; Gregg Bloche, professor at Georgetown Law; David Luban, professor at Georgetown Law; and Steven Barela, senior fellow at the University of Geneva. https://www.law.georgetown.edu/news

This is going to be a long, windy, bumpy road. There will be ups and downs and we'll stop and start. That's going to be the nature of this over the next days, weeks and months. And so I'm not going to get too excited about what happens at the moment. We're just going to deal with each situation as it arises and make sure we stay focused on the mission.

Defense Secretary Mark Esper, speaking to reporters at the Pentagon

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