Can the New Afghanistan Survive America’s Exit? By Yaroslav Trofimov - Wall Street Journal
At the end of 2001, just months after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the Taliban reached out to the U.S. with a proposal: They would agree to renounce al Qaeda, stop fighting and join power-sharing talks.
President George W. Bush, like the country at large, was in no mood for negotiating with the regime that had given shelter to Osama bin Laden and his followers. The Bush administration scuttled a reconciliation deal that the Taliban had struck with the country’s interim leader, Hamid Karzai, vetoed the Islamist movement’s participation in the Bonn peace conference and killed or imprisoned Taliban leaders.
Eighteen years and many thousands of Afghan and American deaths later, the U.S. and the Taliban—including some former Guantanamo Bay detainees—have initialed in Doha, Qatar, an agreement along similar lines that holds the promise of ending the war.
Except that the Taliban, a routed force in 2001, are now stronger than ever. An exhausted America, no longer determined to bring democracy to the Muslim world, just wants to leave. And today’s Afghanistan has experienced great progress in education, health and economic development since 2001. Many Afghans, while longing for peace, worry about the consequences of rushing to a deal with the insurgency…