„I truly believe the Taliban want to do something to show that we are not wasting all our time,“ President Trump said in Washington hours after the deal was signed. „When bad things happen, we go back.“ Pompeo`s allies say he doesn`t fear attacks on Afghanistan`s current withdrawal will make him boomerang again. They point to Pompeo`s media rounds and editorials claiming that the Biden administration has not complied with the terms of the withdrawal agreement and has not maintained an adequate footprint on the ground in Afghanistan as a deterrent to a Taliban takeover. Even in the description of al-Qaeda in the agreement, the Taliban refused to accept the word „terrorist.“ The language emphasizes the Taliban`s commitment to prevent future attacks, not the regrets of the past. Lord. Esper stressed that if the Taliban violated the promises, „the United States would not hesitate to cancel the deal.“ Why it matters: The deal was reviewed to lay the groundwork for the U.S. military`s withdrawal from Afghanistan, which coincided with a large-scale Taliban offensive that ended Sunday with the fall of Kabul. „The decision I had to make as president was either to follow this deal or to be ready to fight the Taliban again in the middle of the spring fighting season,“ Biden said. The deal also depends on more difficult negotiations between the Taliban and the Afghan government over the country`s future. Officials hope that these talks will lead to a power-sharing agreement and a permanent ceasefire, but both ideas have been anathema to the Taliban in the past. Lord. Khalilzad, the veteran diplomat who leads U.S. peace efforts and is himself from Afghanistan, has long insisted that the U.S.

is not seeking a withdrawal agreement, but „a peace agreement that allows withdrawal.“ But Biden can only go so far as to claim that the deal has pressed him. It included a notwithstanding clause: the US could have withdrawn from the deal if Afghan peace talks had failed. They did, but Biden chose to stick to it, even though he delayed the full withdrawal from May to September. Retaliation against al-Qaeda and its Taliban allies was the catalyst that led to the US invasion. But it was an emerging sense of futility that was perhaps best demonstrated by the United States` acceptance of relatively small concessions by the Taliban in the deal that led successive governments to find a way out. A day before the Doha agreement, he was one of the american leader`s top advisers. Negotiator Zalmay Khalilzad said the deal was not irreversible and that „there is no obligation for the United States to withdraw its troops if the Afghan parties fail to reach an agreement or if the Taliban show bad faith during the negotiations.“ The deal gave significant legitimacy to the Taliban, whose leaders met with Pompeo, the first secretary of state to have such interactions. There have also been discussions about their coming to the United States to meet with Trump. Former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, who resigned from the Trump administration before the deal was finalized, tweeted Wednesday: „Negotiating with the Taliban is like negotiating with the devil.“ The agreement signed in Doha, Qatar, which follows more than a year of negotiations and ostensibly excluded the US-backed Afghan government, is not a final peace agreement, is full of ambiguities and could still be dissolved.

Check out the case of former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. In early 2020, as a state department incumbent, he campaigned for the Trump administration`s deal with the Taliban, which created the conditions for the withdrawal of U.S. troops by May 2021 at the latest, a deadline that President Biden briefly extended. He defended the deal – and its Taliban interlocutors – even when the deal was criticized for not involving the Afghan government, preparing the conditions for the release of 5,000 Taliban fighters from Afghan prisons, and having weak language about ending the Taliban`s ties to al-Qaeda. Although attacks on U.S. troops largely ended over the next 14 months, the Taliban strengthened their capacity for the astonishing offensive that quickly toppled the U.S.-backed government. The agreement sets out commitments the Taliban should make to prevent terrorism, including commitments to abandon al-Qaeda and prevent that group or other Afghan soil from being used to plan attacks against the United States or its allies. While the agreement required the Taliban to stop attacks on U.S. and coalition forces, it did not explicitly require them to expel al-Qaeda or stop attacks on the Afghan army. Pompeo sought to distance the Trump administration from the current situation in Afghanistan by claiming that Biden failed to ensure that the Taliban abide by the terms of the deal before withdrawing their troops. Eighteen months later, President Joe Biden is referring to the deal signed in Doha, Qatar, as he tries to deflect blame for the Taliban who invaded Afghanistan in a flash.

He says this has forced him to withdraw U.S. troops and prepare the ground for the chaos engulfing the country. The big picture: The Trump administration has agreed to settle by 1. Withdraw from the country in May 2021 if the Taliban negotiate a peace deal with the Afghan government and promise to prevent terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda and the Islamic State from gaining a foothold. Pompeo has used his recent media appearances as an opportunity both to explain Trump`s withdrawal agreement with the Taliban to the public and to present himself as the leading Republican voice of foreign policy in the post-Trump presidential landscape. He did it again on Wednesday night. Talks began in Doha on September 12, but were almost immediately stalled due to disagreements over the agenda, the basic framework for discussions and religious interpretations. John Bolton and H.R. McMaster, two former Trump national security advisers known for their hawkish views, have criticized Trump and Biden for stepping down — though both have long criticized the deal with the Taliban. „The deal will mean nothing — and today`s good feelings won`t last — unless we take concrete action against the commitments made and the promises made,“ Pompeo said. After more than a year of talks, the deal marks the beginning of the end of America`s longest war.

But many obstacles remain. Earlier this week, the Pentagon said it would soon withdraw about 2,000 troops from Afghanistan, accelerating the timeline set out in a February agreement between Washington and the Taliban that calls for a full U.S. withdrawal by mid-2021. Here`s a timeline of Pompeo`s statements about the deal and its relationship with the Taliban, interspersed with data and facts about the conflict. The agreement sets a timetable for the final withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan, the impoverished Central Asian country once unknown to many Americans and now symbolises endless conflicts, foreign entanglements and an incubator of terrorist conspiracies. But this experience now carries potential baggage. Pompeo met with the Taliban in February 2020 during the signing of a withdrawal agreement with the United States in Doha. A photo of him from that moment standing next to Taliban co-founder Abdul Ghani Baradar was widely circulated online last week. This is the kind of image that could pierce and complicate future electoral candidacies if he chose to make one. .