Biden needs to address the situation in Afghanistan

Whether you agree with his actions or not, it is hard to argue that President Joe Biden and his team have not hit the ground running. In recent days there has been a flurry of executive orders on a wide range of issues.
Significant policy changes (or reversals) have also been announced, and dozens of personnel appointments have been made. However, there is one major foreign policy matter that needs to be addressed urgently: The Biden administration’s position on Afghanistan.
So far, the administration has not been clear on its approach to Afghanistan. Antony Blinken, the new US secretary of state, announced this week that US Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation Zalmay Khalilzad will remain in his position. This is good news, as he was the one who brokered the peace deal last year and he has a personal rapport with all the key players in the Afghan government and Taliban.
Blinken also stated that the new administration is reviewing the agreement made last year to determine whether the Taliban is meeting its commitments. As he told reporters this week: “One of the things that we need to understand is exactly what is in the agreements that were reached between the United States and the Taliban, to make sure that we fully understand the commitments that the Taliban has made as well as any commitments that we’ve made.”
This makes good sense. Some aspects of the Trump administration’s agreement with the Taliban were kept secret and will need to be reviewed by the new administration.
Wondering whether the Taliban is living up to its side of the agreement is a legitimate question. After all, there have been many signs in recent months that violence and attacks by the Taliban against the Afghan military and civilians have not decreased. After the Afghan government made the goodwill gesture of releasing thousands of Taliban prisoners, hundreds have already been recaptured during recent fighting, even though those who were released promised they would not take up arms again. Recently there has been a spate of assassinations of journalists in the country, along with several suicide bombings of civilian targets.
President Trump was correct to pursue a policy of negotiation with the Taliban, and to encourage intra-Afghan talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban to achieve a peaceful settlement. History shows that most insurgencies end, if they end at all, with some sort of a political settlement.
However, one of the flaws of the Trump administration’s strategy toward Afghanistan was the emphasis on ending so-called “forever wars.” At times, it seemed that President Trump did not really care about the outcome of the intra-Afghan talks, as long as US forces could leave the country.
Now President Biden needs to decide quickly what he is going to do. According to the agreement between the Trump administration and the Taliban last year, all US forces are due to leave the country by this spring. Right now, there are only 2,500 American troops left there.
The Biden administration needs to determine whether the deal with the Taliban can be salvaged and whether it should redeploy more troops back to the region — not only to send a strong message of support to the Afghan government and the Afghan people, but also to send a message about US determination to the Taliban.
It is in America’s interest that Afghanistan is stable and secure, and that it has the capability to provide its own security with minimal help from the US or the international community. Even though there have been many ups and downs along the way, good progress has been made since the Taliban was ousted.
Though there are now only 2,500 US troops on the ground in Afghanistan, the Afghan military has been able to hold its own against the Taliban. The group’s reach across the country is nowhere near what it was at its peak on Sept. 10, 2001 when it controlled almost 90 percent of the country, the capital city and every major urban center.

History shows that most insurgencies end, if they end at all, with some sort of a political settlement.

Luke Coffey

Now is not the time for the US to turn its back on Afghanistan. The Biden administration has to operate in the world it is in and not in the world it wants to be in. This means that while there will be a lot of focus on the domestic situation in the US, the administration cannot ignore the pressing international issues. Afghanistan has to be a top priority.
The US military needs to know how to plan in Afghanistan and the broader region. America’s friends and allies in NATO must plan too. The Afghan government — and indeed the Afghan people — deserve clarity on the new administration’s approach.
There remains only a skeleton force of US troops in the country. The deadline for the complete withdrawal of international forces is only months away. Seemingly, little progress has been made on the intra-Afghan talks and the levels of violence across much of the country remain high. The Biden administration cannot ignore this problem. It must act quickly and with clarity.

• Luke Coffey is director of the Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign Policy at the Heritage Foundation. Twitter: @LukeDCoffey