The Biden Administration’s Afghan ‘Peace Plan’ Is an Act of Desperation

It puts pressure on the Afghan government while whitewashing the Taliban, for starters.

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On Sunday, March 7, an Afghan media outlet, TOLOnews, published a leaked letter from Secretary of State Anthony Blinken to President Ashraf Ghani. TOLOnews also published an eight-page “peace” proposal by the State Department. While Foggy Bottom hasn’t yet officially acknowledged the authenticity of either document, American press outlets have cited anonymous officials confirming that both documents are genuine. 

Per the February 29, 2020, agreement between the Trump administration and the Taliban, the U.S. has until May 1, 2021, to withdraw all American forces from Afghanistan. If the Biden administration fails to do so, then U.S. forces could be more frequently targeted by the Taliban, al-Qaeda, and allied jihadists once again. For the past year, the jihadists have been willing to let the Americans leave. That could change quickly if May 1 comes and goes without a withdrawal extension. Thus far, the Taliban has rejected any suggestion that U.S. or allied forces stay past the agreed upon withdrawal date. 

It is with that fast-approaching date in mind that the two State Department documents were written. The proposed “peace” plan is an act of desperation filled with holes. Let’s examine several of them, as well as the problems with Blinken’s letter to Ghani. 

The Taliban doesn’t want a “political settlement,” other than through its own victory and the resurrection of its totalitarian Islamic Emirate. 

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  1. Avatar photo
    Cecil Bothwell

    Here's a high-level solution suggestion: If we had spent our billions of dollars subsidizing food, clean water, medical care in the mid-east instead of drone bombings, corrupt officials, and torture ... isn't is possible that the people in those countries would have turned to us? Sure the caliphate crew can "impose" ... but historically human beings like, oh, say in colonial America, take things into their own hands. The fear mongering regarding Al Qaeda and Isis is basically BS urging the US to continue forever wars. How about we try forever peace? Don't forget that the main trigger for the Arab Spring was food shortage.

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    1. Avatar photo
      Cecil Bothwell

      Meanwhile recognizing that we currently don't provide food, clean water and medical care to people in the U.S. ... while we create new fighter jets that cost $80,000,000 each and cost $36,000 per hour to fly. But, but, $15/hr wage would simply break us!

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    Cecil Bothwell

    BTW, am new to this platform and discussion, but like any other I think it would greatly benefit from requiring actual names attached to comments. If you can't own what you say, why shoul anyone give a damn?

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  3. Jake Lastfogel

    Thank you Thomas for these well-written and detailed foreign policy articles.

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    Victor Clairmont

    Hmmmm, desperate times call for desperate measures....

    Which means everyone has bad policies?!

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  5. Old Dragoon

    Perhaps an answer is to leave Afghanistan to the Afghans and, if necessary, increase the appropriation for the Department of Homeland Security?

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      Cecil Bothwell

      How about leaving Afghanistan to the Afghans and decreasing the appropriation to DHS? Maybe provide food security and clean water to human beings in the mideast and see if actually helping people is more politically appealing to them than bombing wedding parties?

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  6. Fudrock

    Thanks for the piece, Tom. It's a worthy exploration of the potential shortcomings of Blinken's approach. I understand your perspective, but it also feels like you leaving now other option available but the total eradication of the Taliban. They are the ultimate bad faith actors, and I'm sympathetic to aspiration, but I suspect if it was achievable, we'd have done it by now.

    Not doubt, Blinken inherited the rushed sh*t sandwich of a withdrawal deal and accepting it "as is" would be folly, but he can't scuttle it either. Given that it has been inked, signed, implemented in some cases, it's the pretext for any future negotiations. And rather than leaning into an escalatory posture out of the gate, which would no doubt be unpopular in the U.S. after so many troops have already been pulled out, it's contingent on Blinken to try to make some fertile ground for both parties to come to the table. That's not to say this is easy or likely to succeed, but it seems like the requisite first step.

    Given that he ends the letter with a tacit admission that the situation will worsen if we complete the withdrawal and that all options remain on the table, not excluding a withdrawal of U.S. troops, I think it's equally fair to assume that, under the auspice of ongoing productive peace talks, we will remain in Afghanistan well after May 1st, and perhaps in greater numbers.

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  7. Anne Zurmehly

    One thing is obviously true. The Taliban understands something that the US government forgot awhile ago. A country either wins wars or loses them and just quitting is the same as losing. Unless there is an actually foreign invasion I doubt I'll ever support another war effort. This nation no longer has will or guts to finish the job. BTW it is impossible to secure a victory without having a significant military presence on the ground for a fairly long period of time. Seriously foreign policy in US had been handled by naive idiots for quite some time

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    Michael Berkowitz

    To me the interesting question is "What are we as citizens supposed to make of this?" We're not in a position to decide foreign policy -- other than by the slow, incremental process of voting. Still, all else being equal I'd rather vote for someone whose public statements don't insult my intelligence (and yes, that's one of the many reasons not to vote for Trump). Blinken is certainly smart enough to know how wrong his letter is, and in a much better position than Mr. Joscelyn.

    So does he somehow believe it? Is this one of the frequent cases of a very smart person being very stupid about some particular thing? And if he doesn't believe it, for whose sake is he writing it? Who does he think *will* believe it? Or does he see some advantage in getting everybody to *pretend* to believe it?

    These aren't rhetorical question -- for me, anyway -- and I'd be thrilled were someone to enlighten me.

    (None of this has anything to do with the question of what we should actually *do* about Afghanistan. On that I tend to side with David French's claim that we can achieve quite a lot of containment with very few troops at low risk, and so should keep those troops in place.)

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    1. Richard Fulmer

      What I make of it is that Biden is giving the Afghan government an impossible demand so that we can use their failure to meet the impossible demand as an excuse to pull out.

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        Michael Berkowitz

        That's good, thanks. I still wonder whom it's meant to convince. Meaning, since it's obvious that there's no way for the Afghan government to win, who will believe America's claim that it's the Afganis' fault? And if nobody will really believe it, why not just come out and say "Yeah, we're giving you the shaft because it's in our interest, and because we can."

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    Joe Lancaster

    At least one thing is consistent between the Trump and Biden administrations - a complete and abject cluelessness about what’s going on and what can be achieved in Afghanistan.

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    Will Bates

    I hear a lot of criticism and not a single proposed solution.

    What would you propose?

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