Dexter Filkins writes:

In 2018, as American officials in Kabul were sitting down to negotiate with the Taliban, a bleak joke circulated in the U.S. Embassy that at any moment the talks could be derailed by “the Tweet of Damocles”—a unilateral decision by President Trump to withdraw all American soldiers from the country without any deal at all. Now, in the waning days of his term, Trump may attempt to impose such a withdrawal, if not by tweet then by a last-minute act of will.

An Administration official who sees the outgoing President regularly told me that Trump is determined to bring home all forty-five hundred U.S. troops that remain in Afghanistan—or at least as many as possible before he leaves office. “He wants to put us on an irreversible course to a total withdrawal,” the official said.

Getting out of Afghanistan was, the official said, one of the primary motivations behind Trump’s decision to fire Mark Esper, his Secretary of Defense, earlier this week. Since Trump’s election, in 2016, he has promised to end the country’s military involvement in Afghanistan, where American troops have been engaged since 2001. Trump has reduced the size of the force there—from about ten thousand troops when he took office—and he announced as recently as last month that all American forces would be coming home by Christmas. But he has not achieved a total withdrawal, which he has blamed on his Defense Secretaries—principally Esper and his predecessor, James Mattis. Trump “felt like he has been slow-walked ever since he came into office,” the Administration official said. “Now with Esper gone, he can do it.”

A former U.S. official who meets with senior policymakers confirmed this description of Trump’s intentions. “It’s all up in the air now,” he said, of America’s Afghan policy.

The situation in Afghanistan is tenuous. In February, American and Taliban diplomats signed an agreement, by which the United States would withdraw all of its forces once security conditions in Afghanistan were stable. But Trump has been reducing the number of U.S. troops even though the conditions have not yet been met. American officials say that the President has been undercutting his own negotiators and emboldening the Taliban. “The trouble with the Taliban is, they are getting everything for free now,” an American official told me.

It’s not clear that there would be enough time to pull off a full withdrawal before Trump leaves office. Afghanistan is landlocked, and surrounded by countries that are either hostile to the U.S. or difficult to traverse. America’s nato allies also have a total of ten thousand troops in the country, and the U.S. would have to assist their withdrawal.

A complete pullout would have serious consequences. Most diplomats and military commanders agree that, without continued American financial and military support, Afghanistan’s government and armed forces would eventually collapse. The American official said, “I hope the President realizes that if we leave, the debate will become ‘Who lost Afghanistan?’ ”

Many American and Afghan leaders fear that a total withdrawal would turn Afghanistan’s long-festering civil war into a full-on conflagration. An Afghan leader told me that groups across the political spectrum were preparing themselves. “Everyone can see what is happening, and they’re arming,” he said. [Continue reading…]