Khalilzad took control of the US-Afghan portfolio in 2018 after the
Trump administration named him a special envoy overseeing negotiations
with the Taliban.
The new assignment followed a storied career. Khalilzad had shaped
embryonic governments in Afghanistan and Iraq following successive US
invasions, gaining a reputation for bringing disparate groups to the
table.
Washington’s decision to pursue talks followed years of rising
violence in Kabul where the Taliban unleashed chaos by sending waves of
suicide bombers into the Afghan capital.
Khalilzad secured the release of the Taliban’s co-founder Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar
from Pakistan’s custody to kick-start the initiative, with the two
sides cobbling together an agreement charting US withdrawal after nearly
20 years of conflict.
During months of negotiations in Qatar, Khalilzad was said to have developed a close rapport with the Taliban delegation.
Baradar,
right, and Khalilzad shake hands after signing the US troop withdrawal
agreement, February 2020 [Ibraheem al Omari/Reuters]
Pictures published online showed the gregarious envoy sharing laughs
and smiles with Taliban negotiators, stirring resentment in Afghanistan
where war raged.
But when the US withdrawal deal was finally signed in February 2020
at a lavish ceremony in Doha, Khalilzad had secured nothing more than
mostly nebulous assurances from the Taliban about any future peace.
“Khalilzad prised… just one strong commitment – that they would not
attack the US and ‘its allies’,” wrote Kate Clark of the Afghanistan
Analysts Network in a new report.
More vague were promises from the Taliban to abandon al-Qaeda and
other international armed groups, and to begin talking to the Afghan
government.
Little time, space to manoeuvre
In hindsight, the agreement appears to have been little more than a string of American concessions.
The US was leaving Afghanistan without a ceasefire and had not even
established a framework for a future peace process, something that would
be vital for locking down a settlement to end the war.
Rather than securing compromises from the Taliban in the months
following the deal, Khalilzad piled more pressure on the Afghan
government – strong-arming the palace into releasing thousands of
Taliban prisoners who immediately bolstered their ranks.
To add to Kabul’s woes, the agreement effectively set off a
countdown, with the US promising to pull all of its remaining troops
from Afghanistan by May 2021 – a deadline later extended until
September. US President Joe Biden later brought back the date to August
31
The Afghan government was left with little time or space to manoeuvre.
And that is what Pompeo (who ignores such history in criticizing Biden) and his boss Trump, facing a likely Biden victory, left in place, for 2021 actions from the White House, Defense Department, and State Department.
Yes, many Republicans can bleat, but the last thing they want is history shoved back at them. Pompeo in particular, with, "we'd have done it differently," had set the table along with Trump for an exit, no matter what, and Biden is the target of stones. When it is Pompeo throwing the stones, it is pure horse shit, and Pompeo has no conscience in criticizing Biden in light of the table he and Trump set for Biden. That is the truth. Like it or love it.
Biden is doing the withdrawal which Trump merely promised, doing the real heavy lifting, and Pompeo should remain silent instead of worsening things for an attempted political gain.
The puppet government the U.S. had set up was sold out before Biden took over the White House. Biden is getting thousands out, despite verbal sniping at the enormous effort the military is making to evacuate Afghan and foreigh personnel, where sniping only serves to complicate things and make it harder for Afghans wanting to evacuate. Again, that is the truth, like it or love it.
________UPDATE________
If the truth does not matter to you, you'd make a good Republlican. As good as a former Michele Bachmann aide. That good. But is that good?
But of course Pompeo, in criticizing the military's exit conduct now, did not know what Trump and Miller were up to. Because what? What's his excuse? He was out of the loop? A loop which a vice-presidential Pence aide was in? Or he just plows on, marveling at the straight furrow he leaves behind, with no excuse for not looking aside from that furrow he sees, in his mind, if not anywhere else in reality rather than in story telling.
More on the story of Stephen Miller's racist bigotry fitting Trump's Afghan refugee anticipations, AlterNet. And Pompeo had a lesser say than Miller, or was out of the loop? Or suffers from a selective memory ailment? Or lies because it fits his mood?
FURTHER: More on the theme of duty to help Afghan refugees - InTheseTimes, with a counter statement to Stephen Miller's racism. Suggesting that we, our nation and the Bush family, et al., caused the problem, we as a nation seeing ongoing failure are right to exit, but there is a mop-up duty on exit that Miller disdained, while Pompeo is saying, "We had a great plan."
That he learned from Trump. No real plan. No problem. Lie about it. Say there is/was one. Trump saw he had not painted himself into a corner, but had painted Biden into one, and left lying about who won because he has had a lifetime problem facing truth.
The nation is resilient enough to recover from the Trump disaster, (all aspects of it including Jan. 6), from Stephen Miller's hate, from Pompeo's dissembling, from Obama kicking the can along, and from Biden's ineptitude in his haste to get out of Afghanistan while expecting the puppet regime to last at least a few weeks or months rather than folding in seven to ten days.
Biden and the military are walking what Trump talked - but did not walk.
Cut him slack.
He is doing the correct thing. And, in fact, give Trump credit for getting us out of Syria after Obama put us there as part of his greatly disappointing two terms.
Thinking about that, if McCain had won his health meant Palin moving up; while Romney's expertise was as a Bain Capital vulture capitalist looking for distressed businesses to buy and profit from dismembering them. Like Gordon Gecko in the movie.
Indeed, Obama fooled one whole hell of a lot of people in 2008, who grudgingly reelected him in 2012 with far from the enthusiasm and trust the 2008 HOPE and CHANGE bullshit lie inspired. In hindsight, Romney might have been better. But that is very, very doubtful. Lesser evil lives and thrives. To this day. Biden replacing Trump sings the lesser evil theme song still today. Sad.
