After spending $2 trillion, losing the life of 2,300 American soldiers, 24,000 injured or maimed, 40,000+ Afghan soldiers dead and many more thousand civilians dead, after spending 20 years in Afghanistan, U.S. is finally cutting and running. It is ironic that to get a safe exit from Afghanistan, the U.S. forces had to negotiate with the same Taliban that George W. Bush and his cronies, Cheney, Rumsfeld, et al, avowed to kill and eliminate.
U.S. had all but won the war within three months of launching its attack on Afghanistan as Al-Qaeda was either eliminated or hid in the mountains, the Taliban, who were never a party to 9/11 attacks were made the enemy possibly by the U.S. Military Industry establishment to keep the war going, for longer it lasted, the more money they made. Both President George W. Bush and Barak Obama fell into that trap and escalated the war instead of wrapping it up. The credit must be given to President Trump for negotiating a deal with the Taliban and for winding down the war in Afghanistan.
The neighboring countries have suffered a great due to turmoil created in Afghanistan, first by the former Soviet Union and later by the United States. There are close to four million Afghan refugees still living in Pakistan since the Soviet invasion. The conditions have never improved for them to return to home.
U.S. is now leaving in a haste and without an all-essential power-sharing agreement between Taliban and the Afghan Government. If the U.S. completes its withdrawal without such an agreement, there could be turmoil and civil war in Afghanistan once again. The Ashraf Ghani Government is trying to hold on to power and is refusing to come to a power-sharing interim Government, which can then hold elections, and power can be transferred to elected representatives. Mr. Ghani wants to conduct the elections under his authority, the last two such elections held have been highly controversial and led to massive disagreements between him and Mr. Abdullah Abdullah. If there is no agreement, in a few months Taliban will kick out the Kabul Government by force, they have already captured several military bases from the rag-tag Afghan army.
It is essential that U.S. broker a power-sharing agreement and install a Government that represents all factions & tribes in Afghanistan. Trying to seek military bases in Pakistan, Uzbekistan or Tajikistan is a fool"s errand as no country would want to bring the Afghan war to their soil. Imran Khan, the Prime Minister of Pakistan has flatly refused such accommodation and so have all other regional countries. Also, no one is willing to trust the U.S. as they may well use such a base for causing internal strife in the host country (as did Blackwater operatives in Pakistan before, causing bomb blasts and killings on the streets of Lahore in broad daylight), use it for spying on China & Russia. Also, when Pakistan lost nearly 70,000 lives to terrorism as a result of Afghan backlash and its economy suffered $160 billion damage, the U.S. was not much concerned to help the country or provide compensation, while it blew away $2 trillion in Afghanistan like a drunken sailor. The trust deficit is high.
It was foolish to have spent twenty years in Afghanistan, it is now time to make amends and leave Afghanistan with a workable Government acceptable to all sides, otherwise a civil war in Afghanistan will be on U.S. head. Cutting and running under the Taliban protection is cowardly and does not behoove a superpower,
