To Secure Afghanistan Peace, Examine Past Failures

In the course of several months, President Trump’s previously strong strategy for Afghanistan has become a two-pronged conglomerate of weak Obama-era strategies that never bore fruit, with Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation Zalmay Khalilzad attempting peace talks with an enemy in possession of tremendous momentum, and the Pentagon preparing what amounts to yet another Afghanistan withdrawal timeline of three to five years.

Trump and U.S. military, intelligence, and government leaders should reexamine the recent points of failure and weakness in America’s Afghanistan strategy so that, whether or not the Taliban prove earnest in their pursuit of a peaceful end to the conflict, the United States is prepared to make a renewed effort to defend its national security interests, and provide support to the Afghan government with which it has allied itself for nearly two decades.

During those negotiations, American decision makers should likewise reacquaint themselves with the Taliban, from the dissonance between the organization’s desire for legitimacy and cowardly civilian attacks, to its physical strength, which has previously been underestimated, to the detriment of many.

Thus armed, American leaders can embrace current realities in Afghanistan, unfettered by pessimism about, and emboldened by true understanding of the past which will aid in securing an enduring end to the previous seventeen years of war.