Afghanistan withdrawal complicates policy issues for Biden

On Tuesday, Acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller announced the withdrawal of another one thousand troops in Afghanistan to be completed by Jan. 15, five days before the inauguration of a new president.

President-elect Biden has also expressed his desire to draw down American troops from America's longest war and has, in the past, expressed skepticism about so-called nation building efforts in that war-torn country. So, is this a rare area of agreement between the outgoing Trump administration and the incoming Biden administration?

Yes and no.

The devil, as they say, is in the details. Last Feb. 29, the Trump administration signed an agreement with the Taliban. The U.S. agreed to withdraw its troops within 14 months while the Taliban agreed to not allow terrorist entities such as the Islamic State or al-Qaida to operate in areas under its control and to engage in talks with the Afghan government to seek a comprehensive peace. The U.S. indicated that its troop withdrawals would be contingent on the situation on the ground.

However, more than the fog of war clouds the situation on the ground in Afghanistan. The Trump administration has its own fog machine.

Start with the agreement itself. It has several secret annexes, though administration officials have asserted that those annexes contain only technical arrangements related to implementation and do not contain any further U.S. commitments. Then there are the formerly public reports that the administration began withholding more than a year ago. These include reports on the conditions on the ground and the amount of U.S. military activity in the country, such as the intensity of air operations.

U.S. military commanders and outside observers assert that the Taliban is today as strong as it has ever been with an estimated 60,000 well-trained fighters. How has it been able to maintain this strength? Most analysts point first to Pakistan, which has its own ethnic and geopolitical reasons for supporting the Taliban and U.S. military commanders are now observing increasing support from Russia and Iran, which see the Taliban as a convenient stick with which to poke America.

U.S. air power has kept the Taliban from overrunning key Afghan cities. In 2019, the U.S. dropped more ordinance than in any previous year, but all indications are that the U.S. has scaled back these attacks to help

facilitate the peace talks. The Taliban has not extended the same courtesy. While the Taliban has curtailed attacks against U.S. and NATO forces, it is killing 30 members of the Afghan security forces a day and has killed or injured thousands of civilians this year. Moreover, U.S. military commanders report that elements of both the Islamic State and al-Qaida continue to operate in Taliban controlled areas.

For both the U.S. and the Taliban, their main leverage in the current talks is the ability to inflict violence. There have been brave words from some Afghan leaders that their forces can hold the line, but others worry that a precipitous U.S. withdrawal could tip the balance in the Taliban's favor. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg had sharp criticism for the move, noting that the other nations in the coalition rely on the U.S. to provide intelligence, transportation and security so they can carry out their training and humanitarian missions.

This is primarily another open fight among Republicans with the isolationist-America Firsters in one corner and the traditional internationalists in the other. With the Taliban-Afghan government talks stalemated, the violence unabated and a new administration about to arrive, this would seem to be the time to pause. It would be politically difficult if not impossible for a President Biden to raise troop levels again if things go south, and he will want to heal fissures within NATO. This withdrawal, though small, makes that harder.

• Keith Peterson, of Lake Barrington, served 29 years as a press and cultural officer for the United States Information Agency and Department of State. He was chief editorial writer of the Daily Herald 1984-86.