Trump’s Taliban deal and the weight of history

A few weeks ago, Afghanistan marked the 31st anniversary of the last Soviet soldier leaving the country. Over the weekend, the Trump administration heralded the beginning of the end of the United States’ near two-decade-long military presence in the country. The development came after the United States agreed to a truce with the Taliban, a timetable for future talks between Afghanistan’s warring parties and a tentative plan for pulling out U.S. troops. Afghans and Americans can only hope that the aftermath of these negotiations won’t lead to the same instability and state collapse that ultimately followed the Soviet withdrawal decades ago.

The legacy of the Soviet intervention has always hovered over America’s own “forever” war in Afghanistan, even as top U.S. officials waved away the analogy. Key Taliban officials involved in the talks, including deputy leader Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, fought on the side of the U.S.-backed mujahideen in the 1980s against the Soviet occupation. Now, they are preparing once more for a foreign power’s departure.

Over the course of the next five months, the United States may draw down its troop levels in Afghanistan to roughly where they were by the end of the Obama administration. A complete withdrawal could follow within 14 months, U.S. officials indicated. All of this remains contingent on security guarantees from the Taliban that Afghan soil will not be used by terrorists with aims to attack the United States or its allies, as my colleagues reported.