How Trump’s Plan to Secretly Meet With the Taliban Came Together, and Fell Apart
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/08/world/asia/afghanistan-trump-camp-david-taliban.html
WASHINGTON — On the Friday before Labor Day, President Trump gathered top advisers in the Situation Room to consider what could be among the profound decisions of his presidency — a peace plan with the Taliban after 18 years of grinding, bloody war in Afghanistan.
The meeting brought to a head a bristling conflict dividing his foreign policy team for months, pitting Secretary of State Mike Pompeo against John R. Bolton, the national security adviser, in a battle for the competing instincts of a president who relishes tough talk but promised to wind down America’s endless wars.
[Update: U.S. and Taliban agree to reduce violence, in first step toward cease-fire.]
As they discussed terms of the agreement, Mr. Pompeo and his negotiator, Zalmay Khalilzad, made the case that it would enable Mr. Trump to begin withdrawing troops while securing a commitment from the Taliban not to shelter terrorists. Mr. Bolton, beaming in by video from Warsaw, where he was visiting, argued that Mr. Trump could keep his campaign pledge to draw down forces without getting in bed with killers swathed in American blood.
Mr. Trump made no decision on the spot, but at some point during the meeting the idea was floated to finalize the negotiations in Washington, a prospect that appealed to the president’s penchant for dramatic spectacle. Mr. Trump suggested that he would even invite President Ashraf Ghani of Afghanistan, whose government has not been party to the talks, and get him to sign on.
[Our reporters explain how they keep track of the civilian and security-force casualties of the Afghanistan War.]
In the days that followed, Mr. Trump came up with an even more remarkable idea — he would not only bring the Taliban to Washington, but to Camp David, the crown jewel of the American presidency. The leaders of a rugged militant organization deemed terrorists by the United States would be hosted in the mountain getaway used for presidents, prime ministers and kings just three days before the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that led to the Afghan war.
Thus began an extraordinary few days of ad hoc diplomatic wrangling that upended the talks in a weekend Twitter storm. On display were all of the characteristic traits of the Trump presidency — the yearning ambition for the grand prize, the endless quest to achieve what no other president has achieved, the willingness to defy convention, the volatile mood swings and the tribal infighting.
What would have been one of the biggest headline-grabbing moments of his tenure was put together on the spur of the moment and then canceled on the spur of the moment. The usual National Security Council process was dispensed with; only a small circle of advisers was even clued in.
Listen to ‘The Daily’: A Historic Peace Plan Collapses
Talks with the Taliban were intended to end 18 years of war in Afghanistan. But President Trump called off the negotiations just as they appeared to be nearing an agreement.Listen to ‘The Daily’: A Historic Peace Plan Collapses
Hosted by Michael Barbaro, produced by Rachel Quester and Luke Vander Ploeg, and edited by Lisa Tobin and M.J. Davis Lin
Talks with the Taliban were intended to end 18 years of war in Afghanistan. But President Trump called off the negotiations just as they appeared to be nearing an agreement.
- michael barbaro
From The New York Times, I’m Michael Barbaro. This is “The Daily.”
Today. President Trump has abruptly called off the negotiations between the U.S. and the Taliban they could have ended the war in Afghanistan, saying that the talks are dead. The story of how a historic peace deal went off the rails.
It’s Tuesday, September 10.
Peter Baker, tell me about this meeting in the White House Situation Room.
- peter baker
Well on the Friday before Labor Day, the president sat down in the Situation Room with his top national security advisors talk about whether or not to make peace with the Taliban. Now his administration had been negotiating a deal for nearly a year with these militants we’ve been fighting since 9/11. And in that room at this moment, he was presented with a choice — do you go ahead and make peace with them or not. On the one side was Mike Pompeo, Secretary of State, and his special envoy, Zalmay Khalilzad, who has negotiated this deal. They said, look, this is a way to fulfill your campaign promise, pull troops out, and get a security agreement with the Taliban that will make sure that Afghanistan is not a haven for terrorists. But not everybody agreed, in particular, John Bolton. He’s the president’s national security advisor, a longtime well-known hawk. And he said, wait a minute, you don’t have to have agreement with the Taliban to pull troops out and fulfill your campaign promise. If you want to pull out for these 5600 troops the way you are talking about doing, you can do that on your own without getting in bed with these killers who have American blood on their hands.
- michael barbaro
And like you said, in the background of this, it seems, is the president’s campaign pledge to get every U.S. troop out of Afghanistan.
- archived recording (donald trump)
For years, we have been caught up in endless wars and conflicts under the leadership of failed politicians, and a failed — totally failed foreign policy.
- peter baker
Yeah, he had said that he wanted to end these endless wars, right? That Iraq, and Afghanistan, Syria, and all these other places we have troops around the world. That the American public was tired of it, we spent too much money, lost too many lives, and for nothing.
- archived recording (donald trump)
If we didn’t do anything with Iraq, if we never went — if our presidents went to the beach, we’d be much better off. If they just went every single day to the beach.
- peter baker
Now that’s a very radically different view than the conventional Republican view up until that point, as represented by George W. Bush, and Dick Cheney, and others in the Republican Party, including John Bolton.
- michael barbaro
I understand the Bolton perspective here, but it seems a little bit late for this sort of elemental division, right? I mean, these negotiations led by the U.S. government have been going on for, as you just said, almost a year. Why was the U.S. government so deeply engaged in these negotiations if members of the administration weren’t aligned in agreeing that they should be doing so?
- peter baker
Yeah, what President Trump’s aides would tell you is he wants to hear disagreement. There is disagreement within his team on a lot of issues, and he doesn’t shy away from hearing it. He doesn’t like it when it’s made public and it’s aimed at him, right? But if people are disagreeing in front of him, he’s OK with that, as long as he is the one who makes the final choice. And you’re right, it’s late in the game, but it’s not the first time this debate has come up. It’s just sort of the last chance that the opponents have to register their objections before the president goes forward, if he goes forward.
- michael barbaro
Do you think that the Taliban would have been surprised to learn that amid all these negotiations, the president and those around him weren’t even sure that there should be a deal?
- peter baker
I don’t know. That’s a good question. I think that they themselves, my guess is having a similar debate as to what they’re willing to accept and what they’re not willing to accept. Remember, you know, we’re kind of circling back here 18 years later to where we started.
- archived recording (george w. bush)
Tonight, we are a country awakened to danger and called to defend freedom.
- peter baker
After 9/11, George W. Bush, the president at the time, said to the Taliban, which was the government in Afghanistan —
- archived recording (george w. bush)
Deliver to United States authorities all the leaders of Al Qaeda who hide in your land.
- peter baker
You have to give us Osama bin Laden, and you have to give us Al Qaeda, and expel them for your country.
- archived recording (george w. bush)
These demands are not open to negotiation or discussion.
- peter baker
And if you do that, we’ll leave you alone.
- archived recording (george w. bush)
The Taliban must act and act immediately.
- peter baker
If you don’t do that, there’ll be a price to pay.
- archived recording (george w. bush)
They will hand over the terrorists or they will share in their fate.
- peter baker
And the Taliban didn’t do that. Well, we’re circling back to that now same position 18 years later. And a lot of blood and treasure under the bridge between 2001 and 2019.
- michael barbaro
So what does President Trump decide to do in that room dealing with these warring advisors?
- peter baker
Well, he’s not convinced by John Bolton’s argument, but he doesn’t make a decision to go forward yet, either. They do begin talking about how they would go about finalizing a deal. And the idea comes up in this meeting of doing it in Washington. Which appeals to President Trump’s sense of spectacle and drama. The idea of making peace in Afghanistan after all his time in Washington was very appealing to him. And over the days that follow, he came up with an even more dramatic idea, which is to actually bring the leader of the Taliban as well as the president of Afghanistan to Camp David.
Now Camp David, of course, has a historic legacy. It’s where Ike, and F.D.R., and Reagan used to relax.
- archived recording (jimmy carter)
When we first arrived at Camp David, the first thing upon which we agreed was to ask the people of the world to pray that our negotiations would be successful.
- peter baker
And where Jimmy Carter made peace between Egypt and Israel.
- archived recording (jimmy carter)
Those prayers have been answered far beyond any expectations.
- archived recording (bill clinton)
We have an opportunity to bring about a just and enduring end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
- peter baker
Bill Clinton tried to make peace between Israel and the Palestinians there.
- archived recording (bill clinton)
Of course, there is no guarantee of success, but not to try is to guarantee failure.
- archived recording (george w. bush)
I’ve asked the highest levels of our government to come to discuss the current tragedy that has so deeply affected our nation.
- peter baker
George W. Bush set a path of the war that we are talking about now in Afghanistan there at Camp David.
- archived recording (george w. bush)
We will not only deal with those who dare attack America. We will deal with those who harbor them, and feed them, and house them.
- peter baker
So it’s a place with a real resonance is special. The idea that you would invite the leaders of this band of terrorists — that’s what they’re designated by the United States government — to the mountains of Maryland, and in effect, host them in this special setting, really struck some as a bad idea. In particular, John Bolton. We’re told that the vice president, Mike Pence, was worried that it would be bad optics, particularly coming just a few days before 9/11. But the president pulled forward. He loved this idea, and he began pushing it forward so that they began even telling the Afghan government about a plane coming to pick up the president of Afghanistan, Ashraf Ghani. The trick is I don’t think the Taliban had necessarily the same idea that the president had, right? The Taliban said we’re open to coming, but only after the deal is announced. In other words, they wanted the assurance that it was done before they traveled to the heart of the enemy, the United States, and showed up at an event with President Trump. That’s a fundamental disagreement of what Trump thought. What Trump wants to do is he wants to be the dealmaker, he wants to be who closes the deal, or at least be perceived to be the person who closes the deal. So he doesn’t want to announce before you have it at Camp David. He wants to bring you to Camp David, seal the deal, and then say I’ve had this great success.
- michael barbaro
It’s sort of funny Peter that the question goes from whether to make peace with the Taliban because of who they are, to whether to take them to Camp David to do it.
- peter baker
Yes. I mean, look, this is how life is in the Trump White House. You saw literally over the course of a few days, a debate about whether to go forward the agreement to this remarkable idea for how to finalize an agreement that hadn’t yet been fully finalized.
- michael barbaro
Peter, besides the fact that the president wants to invite the Taliban to Camp David, I’m struck by the fact that he wants to invite the leader of the Afghan government. Because my sense from talking to our colleagues is that the Taliban feels really strongly about these being negotiations with the U.S. to end the war, and then it will negotiate with the government of Afghanistan. Which by the way, it views as illegitimate.
- peter baker
Right, exactly. And this is a structural conundrum of this process that’s been going on. You’re leaving out the very people who are supposed to be running the country. And from their point of view, they are potentially being sold out, right? The Americans want to get out, but then they’re left to battle the Taliban on their own. Ashraf Ghani, the president, he was very skeptical of this whole thing from the beginning. And the idea of bringing him to Camp David, putting him in one lodge, putting the Taliban leaders in another lodge, trying to find a way to bring them together would have been a big gamble for frankly, all three parties.
- michael barbaro
So Peter, as the president is secretly planning for this spectacle of a summit at Camp David, what is the state of the actual peace talks between the U.S. and the Taliban that have been going on in Doha?
- peter baker
So while the president is planning for this Camp David extravaganza, his special envoy, Zalmay Khalilzad, is shuttling back and forth in the region between Doha and Qatar which is where the talks of the Taliban have been taking place, and Kabul, the Afghan capital. And he’s telling everybody they’ve got a deal. In fact, he and the Taliban negotiators initial a document, outlining their deal that would involve America pulling out the remaining 14,000 troops. In exchange, the Taliban would make commitments about ensuring that Afghanistan is never again a haven for Al Qaeda or other terrorist groups that have America as their target. And this would be basically a way out of 18 years of war while in theory, securing some sort of guarantee of American safety.
- michael barbaro
We’ll be right back.
OK, so Peter, from everything you’ve just described, these peace talks are going quite well. The president has a vision of a grand public announcement of a deal. And as he’s planning this, the two sides seem to be coming together to actually make a deal. So then what happens?
- peter baker
Well, on Thursday —
- archived recording
A brazen attack just outside the entrance to NATO headquarters in Kabul.
- peter baker
In Kabul, a suicide car bomber attack, kills 12 people, including an American soldier.
- archived recording
It’s part of a string of attacks launched by the Taliban this week as the militant group reportedly edges closer to a peace deal with the U.S.
- peter baker
The president is told about this by his aides. The Taliban takes credit.
- archived recording
And while they may be talking peace in Doha, here in Afghanistan, they’re still waging war in the most brutal way.
- peter baker
And the idea of bringing the Taliban leaders to Camp David just a few days after an American soldier has been killed is just politically untenable. And he says to his aides, this is it, we can’t do this. It’s over, we can’t do it. Now he’s not calling off the peace drive altogether, but it is the idea of having the enemy to your home in effect just three days after one of your soldiers is killed was just too much for him.
- michael barbaro
But Peter, hasn’t the Taliban been setting off suicide bombs and waging war in Afghanistan, and even horribly killing American soldiers for years and months right up and through these negotiations with the U.S.?
- peter baker
Yes, and as far as we can tell, there was no agreement to have a ceasefire during the talks. In fact, Secretary Mike Pompeo was on television on Sunday —
- archived recording (mike pompeo)
Jake, it’s also the case we haven’t been negotiating while they’ve been killing us, and we’ve been standing still. We’ve been taken into the Taliban as well. Over 1,000 Taliban killed in just the last 10 days alone.
- peter baker
Specifically, boasting that the American side had killed 1,000 Taliban fighters just in the last week.
- archived recording (mike pompeo)
So the American people should know we’re going to defend American national interests. We’re going to be tough.
- peter baker
Whether that’s true or not, that doesn’t sound like a situation where we expect violence to go away in the midst of the talks, right?
- michael barbaro
Right.
- peter baker
We had one soldier killed, they had 1,000. Having said that, as a matter of politics, as a matter of visuals, as a matter of optics, it would have been hard for a president to go forward with the Camp David meeting in the immediate aftermath.
- michael barbaro
And is your understanding, Peter, that this car bombing in Kabul is the main reason that the Camp David talks are called off? Or was it sort of just accumulation of complexities that were starting to signal that this was just a little bit too dicey?
- peter baker
Yeah, I think it’s more complex than just the car bomb. It was a work in progress, it was coming together so quickly. And then it falls apart just as quickly. But nobody knows about it outside of a handful of people. The president didn’t have to say anything. And yet on Saturday night —
- archived recording
Breaking news tonight, the president revealing he was going to have a secret meeting tomorrow —
- peter baker
For whatever reason, he sends out a handful of tweets announcing to the world that he had issued this invitation and canceled it.
- archived recording
Trump wrote, quote “Unbeknownst to almost everyone, the major Taliban leaders and separately, the president of Afghanistan, were going to secretly meet with me at Camp David on Sunday. They were coming to the United States tonight. Unfortunately, in order to build false leverage, they admitted to an attack in Kabul that killed one of our great soldiers and 11 other people. I immediately canceled the meeting and called off peace negotiations.”
- peter baker
That’s how most of America learns for the first time that this was even a possibility. And it was a shock, I think, to a lot of people. It was 7 o’clock at night on a Saturday. And most of Washington doesn’t know about this. Congress doesn’t know about this. Most of the State Department and the Defense Department don’t know about this. And it was a real jaw-dropper, I think, for a lot of people.
- michael barbaro
What exactly was the reaction beyond the initial shock of its very existence?
- peter baker
Well, you can imagine the Democrats would be critical. But what was really striking was of course, Republicans were nervous and uncomfortable about the whole idea of this peace negotiation to begin with. The idea that it would be at Camp David was just too much. So Republicans ended up criticizing the president by praising him.
- archived recording
I think that the president was right to cancel the meeting. I think what he’s trying to do is fulfill a campaign promise —
- peter baker
They put out tweets and they issue statements saying, the president did the right thing not to do the thing he was thinking about doing.
- archived recording
Well, the president, you know, leads through action. He’s looking for results. Looking for solutions. He’s done that in terms of North Korea. He’s done that all across the world. I think he is right to have done it here and right to have pulled back —
- peter baker
The president was right not to do it.
- michael barbaro
So in that praise is really, a profound critique that the president should never, ever have invited the Taliban to Camp David in the first place.
- peter baker
Exactly, exactly. And this is the thing that kind of wakes Washington up, right? Again, these peace talks have been going on for a while, everybody kind of knows about it, but it hasn’t been a source of major debate in Washington. But now for the first time, it’s sort of thrust out into the conversation in a significant way. Now suddenly, it’s sort of more front and center. Now suddenly, they’re going to have to confront the idea whether it’s even a good idea in the first place. Forget the Camp David idea — is the very idea of this agreement wise or not? And we don’t know the answer to how Trump views this. He was certainly willing to go forward with the deal on some level, and we assume that he is still open to it. He has shown in the past a willingness to go back and forth. He did this with Kim Jong-un. He canceled a summit meeting with him one day, and a few days later, reinstated it. Would not surprise me if at some point in the not too distant future they resume talks or they resume and effort to still finalize this deal.
- michael barbaro
I wonder if Camp David had never entered the picture, is it likely that he would now be signing a peace deal between the United States and the Taliban?
- peter baker
I think it’s certainly possible. I mean, again, the bombing would have still made it difficult. But they could have postponed by a week and nobody would have known. Or they could have come back and negotiated, hey, if we’re going to do this kind of agreement, we have to have a period of calm and no violence between us. And if we do something like that, then we can sign a deal. I suspect the president hasn’t changed his mind about the fundamentals, which is that he wants to get out of Afghanistan. And whether he, in fact, has a deal with the Taliban or not, he seems still determined to bring troops home, at least some of them.
- michael barbaro
And does Washington, does Congress, and perhaps even the entire Republican Party, suddenly play a much greater role in all of this because the president, as you said, kind of awakened everyone to this?
- peter baker
Yeah, I think that they’re going weigh in. Now the question of course, is this is the Republican Party has been remarkably deferential to the president even when he has gone against traditional Republican orthodoxy. He’s going against it now and they have been mostly quiet up until this point. The Camp David angle gives them a way in to register their discontent with making too much of a deal with the Taliban, with pulling out too fast in their view, or too precipitously. And we’ll see if they you know jump into that void. But for now, the debate is front and center.
- michael barbaro
So it sounds like the debate you told us about at the beginning of our conversation, in the Situation Room between Mike Pompeo on one end and John Bolton on the other about whether to sign a peace deal with the Taliban, that is representative of a much bigger and still unresolved question. Not just in the Republican Party, but maybe in the whole country, which is whether we should ever make peace with the Taliban, given who they are and what they did.
- peter baker
I think that’s exactly right. That debate in the Situation Room now may play out in the broader public, as you say. Because in fact, America’s got to make a decision. They’re tired of war, right? Poll after poll shows that Americans want to get out. They’re done with it. Last poll I saw showed that around 59 percent, something like that, think the Afghanistan war wasn’t worth it. But the trade off is does that mean you’re willing to pull out, does it means you’re willing to hand the country over to the Taliban if that’s the consequence of pulling out? And do you want to get in bed with these guys who harbored the Al Qaeda terrorists who were responsible for 9/11. These are difficult choices and now instead of just in the Situation Room, this choice is being presented to the American public.
- michael barbaro
Peter, thank you very much.
- peter baker
Thank you. It’s great talking to you.
- michael barbaro
After we spoke with Peter, President Trump was asked about the state of negotiations with the Taliban by reporters outside the White House.
- archived recording (donald trump)
They’re dead, they’re dead. As far as I’m concerned, they’re dead.
- michael barbaro
Trump defended his original plan to host the Taliban and the Afghan government at Camp David, saying it was less controversial than holding the summit at the White House.
- archived recording (donald trump)
I like the idea of meeting. I’ve met with a lot of bad people and a lot of good people during the course of the last almost three years. And I think meeting is a great thing.
- michael barbaro
The Times reports that despite the president’s emphatic claim that the negotiations are dead, it’s unclear whether the peace talks have permanently ended, something the president seemed to hint at Monday, when he reiterated his desire to withdraw American troops from Afghanistan.
- archived recording (donald trump)
Yeah, we’d would like to get out, but we’ll get out at the right time.
- michael barbaro
We’ll be right back.
Here’s what else you need to know today.
- archived recording
Order. Order.
- michael barbaro
On Monday night, British lawmakers delivered their latest and most devastating defeat yet to Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
- archived recording
The ayes to the right, 293. In the nos to the left, 46. So the ayes have it, the ayes it.
- michael barbaro
By voting to reject his plan to hold new elections.
- archived recording
The majority does not satisfy the requirements of the fixed term Parliament’s act for the purpose of engendering the election that some seeks.
- michael barbaro
Thanks to his own tactics, there is virtually no way for Johnson to fulfill his promise to leave the European Union with or without a negotiated exit by October 31. Parliament is now suspended for the next five weeks at Johnson’s behest, and has passed a law in response, blocking the prime minister from leaving the E.U. without a negotiated deal. And The Times reports that the Secretary of Commerce, Wilbur Ross, threatened to fire top officials at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for contradicting President Trump’s claim that Hurricane Dorian might hit Alabama. The threat prompted the agency to disavow a message that assured Alabama that it was not at risk, in a move widely seen as caving to the White House. The president’s claim that Alabama was in the storm’s path was inaccurate from the moment he made it. But for the past week, his administration has aggressively defended it.
That’s it for “The Daily.” I’m Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.
And even after it fell apart, Mr. Trump took it upon himself to disclose the secret machinations in a string of Saturday night Twitter messages that surprised not only many national security officials across the government but even some of the few who were part of the deliberations.
Almost a Done Deal
For Mr. Trump, ending the war in Afghanistan has been a focus since taking office, a signature accomplishment that could help him win re-election next year. For nearly a year, Mr. Khalilzad, a former ambassador to Afghanistan, has engaged in talks with the Taliban to make that happen.
In recent weeks, it had been increasingly clear that the United States and the Taliban, after nine rounds of painstaking negotiations in Doha, Qatar, had ironed out most of the issues between them. Mr. Khalilzad declared that the agreement document had been finalized “in principle.”
The deal called for a gradual withdrawal of the remaining 14,000 American troops over 16 months, with about 5,000 of them leaving within 135 days. In return, the Taliban would provide counterterrorism assurances to ease American fears of a repeat of Sept. 11 from Afghan soil.
But the negotiations left out Afghanistan’s government, and Mr. Ghani’s officials criticized it for lacking measures that would ensure stability. At home, Mr. Trump was cautioned by Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina; Gen. Jack Keane, a retired Army vice chief of staff; and Gen. David Petraeus, the retired Afghanistan and Iraq commander.
Mr. Bolton was the leading voice against the deal on the inside as Mr. Pompeo’s allies increasingly tried to isolate the national security adviser. Mr. Bolton argued that Mr. Trump could pull out 5,000 troops while still leaving enough forces to assist counterterrorism efforts without a deal with the Taliban, a group he argued could not be trusted.
In an interview on Sunday, Mr. Graham said he shared Mr. Trump’s desire “to end the war in Afghanistan between the Taliban and the Afghan people.” But he added that no deal could include withdrawing all American forces or trusting the Taliban to confront Al Qaeda or the Islamic State.
“My advice to the administration is, let’s focus on trying to shore up our relationship with Pakistan,” he said, adding that it should include a free-trade agreement. He said that the Taliban must be prevented from believing it can seek safe harbor in Pakistan.
A Dividing Point
When Mr. Khalilzad left Doha after the last round of talks concluded on Sept. 1, two days after the Situation Room meeting, he and his Taliban counterparts had finalized the text of the agreement, according to people involved. Leaders of both teams initialed their copies and handed them to their Qatari hosts.
Before the end of the meeting, Mr. Khalilzad brought up the idea of a Taliban trip to Washington. Taliban leaders said they accepted the idea — as long as the visit came after the deal was announced.
That would become a fundamental dividing point contributing to the collapse of the talks. Mr. Trump did not want the Camp David meeting to be a celebration of the deal; after staying out of the details of what has been a delicate effort in a complicated region, Mr. Trump wanted to be the dealmaker who would put the final parts together himself, or at least be perceived to be.
The idea was for Mr. Trump to hold separate meetings at Camp David with the Taliban and with Mr. Ghani, leading to a more global resolution.
Even as talks were wrapping up in Doha, the American ambassador to Afghanistan arrived at the presidential palace in Kabul with the proposal of a Camp David meeting, Afghan officials said.
Details were sorted out between the Afghan president and the American side when Mr. Khalilzad arrived from Doha and held four rounds of talks with Mr. Ghani. A plane would arrive to take Mr. Ghani and his delegation to the United States, according to the initial plan.
Mr. Ghani’s ministers knew that a Taliban delegation would most likely be arriving, too, but were unclear on the details. They had three priorities: the fate of presidential elections scheduled for Sept. 28, how the peace talks would move forward to include them and how they would bolster security forces to reduce the cost for the United States.
As a sign of how important the event was for the United States, Mr. Ghani got the Americans to agree to include on the trip his national security adviser, Hamdullah Mohib, who had essentially been kept out of the American meetings after lashing out at the peace process.
For months, the Americans had essentially held Mr. Ghani’s re-election campaign hostage to a deal that they projected was imminent. Mr. Ghani was reduced to pretending that the September elections were still on by holding a couple of daily “virtual rallies” at which he addressed small gatherings around the country via video chat. If the American-Taliban deal were finalized, it would most likely push the elections back.
If Mr. Ghani had refused the Camp David meeting, he would have been called a spoiler of peace, a senior Afghan official said. So he took his chances; it was to be hosted by an ally on friendly turf, and it could help clarify whether there would be a peace deal, and whether the elections would proceed.
Intensifying Bloodshed
But Taliban leaders, having refused to negotiate directly with the Afghan government until after the group had an agreement with the United States, said the Americans were tricking them into political suicide.
A senior Taliban leader said on Sunday that Mr. Trump was fooling himself to think he could bring the Taliban and Mr. Ghani together at Camp David “because we do not recognize the stooge government” in Kabul.
The Americans were also rushing to finalize outstanding issues in the days before the last-minute proposed Camp David meeting. Among the most significant was a disagreement over the release of thousands of Taliban prisoners in Afghan prisons.
Afghan officials said the Americans had taken the liberty of negotiating on their behalf by agreeing to the release. Mr. Ghani’s government found that unacceptable, saying it would agree only if the Taliban reciprocated with an extensive cease-fire — something the insurgents are reluctant to do at this stage of the talks since violence is their main leverage.
The final negotiations occurred during a period of intensifying bloodshed. In response to Taliban attacks, American negotiators made clear they were prioritizing the agreement, not looking to boycott the talks. Their negotiations were undergirded by increasing battlefield pressure by the American military.
How Many U.S. Wars Equal the One in Afghanistan? (From 2018)
Afghanistan is America’s longest war — 18 years. That’s longer than World War I, World War II and the Korean War combined.
“Good afternoon. On my orders, the United States military has begun strikes against Al Qaeda terrorist training camps and military installations of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.” That was the start of the U.S. war in Afghanistan. “We need the freedom to operate on the ground and in the air.” It’s now America’s longest war. About 18 years. Yet few battles or notable events from Afghanistan have taken root in America’s collective memory. And that means fewer signposts to mark the long passage of time. But if we look at how long it took to reach seminal moments in other wars, it might bring America’s 17-year presence in Afghanistan into clear view. We’ll start with the Battle of Gettysburg. This bar represents the number of days the U.S. has been fighting in Afghanistan. The fighting at Gettysburg began 811 days into the Civil War. Many consider this the most important battle of the conflict. And it took place after half the war was fought. Now apply it to Afghanistan time. It would bring us to just Dec. 27, 2003. There were about 13,000 American troops in Afghanistan back then. That number would eventually peak at 100,000. “In England, General Dwight D. Eisenhower and his deputy commanders chart the liberation of a lost continent.” Then there’s the Allied D-Day invasion at Normandy. One of the most iconic moments of World War II. The culmination of extensive planning in years of fighting in Northern Africa, Italy and elsewhere. That invasion began 913 days after America entered the war. In Afghanistan time, that brings us to just April 4, 2004. Hamid Karzai hadn’t even been elected as president of Afghanistan yet. And when World War II neared its end with the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, that came after 1,339 days of battle. In Afghanistan time, that would reach to June 2005. Not even a quarter of the way through. Vietnam was America’s second-longest war. And the final pivotal moment was the fall of Saigon in April 1975. That occurred 3,706 days after U.S. Marines landed in Da Nang in 1965. And in a final comparison to Afghanistan time, that would bring us to Nov. 30, 2011. Osama bin Laden was killed about six months earlier. And President Obama had already announced plans to completely withdraw U.S. troops. He would later reverse that decision. The Obama and Trump administrations would unveil new strategies – continuing the fight, which goes on to this day.
When Mr. Khalilzad and Gen. Austin S. Miller, the American commander in Afghanistan, returned to Doha on Thursday, it was to finalize technical appendices to the main text. The Taliban negotiators got no sense that anything was amiss and later posted on Twitter that the atmosphere was good.
But the same day, aides told Mr. Trump about a suicide car bomb attack that killed an American soldier and 11 others. At this point, according to senior officials, Mr. Trump and his team were unified. He could not host Taliban leaders at Camp David just days after an American was killed even though it was unclear whether the insurgents had actually agreed to come in the first place.
“This is off; we can’t do this,” Mr. Trump told his aides, according to one official.
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No announcement was made by the White House. In Kabul on Friday, Mr. Ghani’s officials told reporters that he planned to travel to the United States, and then hours later said he would not go.
But little was made of that at the time. The endgame of the talks seemed near, if not the timetable. Only then came Mr. Trump’s tweets on Saturday night disclosing that he had invited the Taliban and Mr. Ghani to Camp David — but called it off, citing the bombing.
The tweets took many in the administration by surprise; there was no reason for Mr. Trump to reveal what had happened, several officials said, especially since he has not given up on the idea of a negotiated settlement.
Hours later, Mr. Pompeo visited Dover Air Force Base for the arrival of the coffin of Army Sgt. First Class Elis Angel Barreto Ortiz, who was killed in the Kabul bombing. His presence was unusual for a secretary of state; the return of fallen American soldiers would be more traditionally attended by presidents or defense secretaries.
On Sunday, after their negotiating team held an emergency internal meeting in Doha, the Taliban said Mr. Trump’s decision to cancel the talks would hurt only the United States. The Afghan government blamed the Taliban, saying that the violence was making the peace process difficult.
American officials stressed that the peace drive was not over and the deal had been neither rejected nor accepted. With Mr. Trump especially, anything can happen.
But for the moment, at least, all sides seemed certain of one thing: Violence will now intensify. The war will go on.
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