Op-Ed: The U.S.-Taliban peace deal only whetted the insurgents' appetite for more violence

When Joe Biden's victory in the U.S. presidential election was announced, Afghans celebrated. They had been obsessively checking their phones for results for days. If most prayed that Donald Trump, the U.S. ahmaq ("crazy man"), would lose, it was not because they believed or wanted the promised U.S. troop withdrawal delayed or halted. Rather, a new U.S. administration offers hope that the withdrawal might be done better: without surrendering Afghanistan to the Taliban.

Since signing a much-vaunted U.S.-Taliban peace agreement on Feb. 29, 2020, the United States has put enormous pressure on the Afghan government to make concessions to fulfill the Taliban's preconditions for intra-Afghan negotiations — the talks that most matter to Afghans, for they will determine the shape of the country to come.

At the price of numerous painful concessions wrested from a reluctant Kabul by the special representative for Afghan reconciliation, Zalmay Khalilzad — such as allowing the Taliban to bar almost all Afghan government officials from participation — those negotiations finally began in September in Doha, Qatar. But instead of real progress toward a functional future for Afghanistan, the talks have concentrated on Taliban demands. Meanwhile, its fighters have increased their attacks in a striking demonstration of their disregard for the Washington deal.

The Taliban has made its position clear: It has no intention of giving up violence. And its objective is plain to see: a return to total power in Afghanistan.

Now Biden and the Pentagon are reconsidering the May 1 U.S. troop withdrawal date set under Trump. The only responsible way for the U.S. to withdraw is simply to do so without pressuring the Afghan government to make more unilateral compromises. Fostering the intra-Afghan talks may assuage some American consciences as the U.S. forms its exit strategy, but American diplomacy is not inducing the Taliban to lay aside the terror and destruction it is wreaking on Afghanistan.

In fact, Americans must come to terms with how Washington's approach to dealing with the Taliban has so far only whetted the insurgents’ insatiable appetite for power and violence.

First, the United States elevated the Taliban’s status by negotiating the 2020 peace deal without Kabul’s participation. It put the government — suddenly isolated and insignificant — to shame. It legitimized the insurgents, and their violent tactics, in the eyes of ordinary Afghans and the world.

Then, upon signing the peace agreement, Khalilzad pressured the government to release Taliban prisoners, without any return concessions or even guarantees that these freed fighters would not show up again on the battlefield. Kabul ultimately agreed to a manifestly unfair swap, under which 5,000 Taliban fighters selected by name by the terrorist leadership were freed from jail in return for 1,000 abducted civilians. And yes, many of the freed Taliban fighters have in fact been recaptured on the field of battle.