The agreement promised the Taliban an earlier U.S. departure, by May 1, 2021, in return for a pledge that they would prevent the use of Afghanistan soil by any group against the security of the U.S. and its allies. Mr. Biden managed to extend the date by four months but was still bound by the basic terms of the agreement. The Biden administration believed that if the U.S. failed to remove forces by Aug. 31, the Taliban could renege on their commitment and allow attacks on U.S. troops remaining in the country, so the only way for the U.S. to avoid this danger was to withdraw, honoring its end of the Doha deal in the hope that the Taliban would spare American forces.
The Biden administration has made this contrived argument repeatedly, and Mr. Biden reiterated it at a press conference last week, following the deaths of 13 U.S. service members in Kabul. But the administration misrepresents the Doha agreement. The U.S. promised to withdraw from Afghanistan by May 1, 2021, but only if the Taliban met commitments of their own. One of them was a pledge to participate in an "intra-Afghan dialogue," to achieve a "permanent and comprehensive ceasefire" and to agree upon a "political roadmap" for Afghanistan's future. If the Taliban didn't honor this commitment, the U.S. had no obligation to withdraw.
Trump administration officials emphasized the conditional nature of the U.S. commitment when the Doha agreement was signed. As Defense Secretary Mark Esper put it in March 2020, Doha "is a conditions-based agreement." If "we assess that the Taliban is honoring the terms of the deal," including "progress on the political front between the Taliban and the current Afghan government," the U.S. will "reduce our presence toward a goal of zero in 2021." But Mr. Esper made clear that the American withdrawal wouldn't be automatic. "If progress stalls," he warned, "then our drawdown likely will be suspended, as well."
The Taliban didn't honor its political commitments and ultimately took Afghanistan by force. The Biden administration's claim that the Doha agreement left no choice but to quit Afghanistan unconditionally is false. Given the Taliban's behavior, the U.S. wasn't obligated to withdraw by May 1, by Aug. 31, or any other date. Withdrawal was a choice. And the Biden administration's announcement of this choice in April triggered the Taliban offensive to retake Afghanistan and set the disastrous U.S. departure in motion.
Neither the Doha agreement nor its implementation was perfect. Even former members of the Trump administration argue that it failed to protect the interests of the Afghan government adequately and put too much faith in the Taliban's willingness to share power. In addition, these critics maintain that President Trump's determination to reduce U.S. forces, despite the Taliban's failure to honor its commitments, undermined the agreement and strengthened the Taliban's position. But under the terms of the agreement, Mr. Biden could have insisted that the Taliban meet its obligations or face renewed U.S. military pressure.
The Biden administration's hope to succeed where others had failed, finally ending America's long war in Afghanistan, apparently blinded it to the pitfalls of committing to an unconditional withdrawal from Afghanistan by a date certain. The administration's subsequent attempts to shift blame to the Trump administration have led it to misrepresent the Doha agreement and to claim falsely that it made an avoidable disaster inevitable. This falsehood has exacerbated the current crisis.
By S. Paul Kapur Sept 1 AD 2021
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Mr. Kapur is a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution and is a Vandenberg Coalition Adviser. He served on the State Department's Policy Planning staff, 2020-21
