The Daily - The Almost-Peace Deal

Episode Date: March 6, 2020

After years of false starts, the United States has signed a landmark deal with the Taliban to end the war in Afghanistan. We traveled to the front lines of the war — and to the signing ceremony in Doha, Qatar — to investigate whether peace is actually possible.Guest: Mujib Mashal, senior correspondent for The New York Times in Afghanistan.For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Background reading: The agreement between Washington and the Taliban seemed to be an important first step in ending the war in Afghanistan. Then the violence started again.Zalmay Khalilzad, the Afghan-born American envoy and architect of the deal, seemed to have been handed an impossible and thankless assignment. Here’s how he pulled it off.

From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. Today. After years of false starts, the United States has signed a historic peace deal with the Taliban to end the war in Afghanistan. My colleague, Mujib Mashal, traveled to the front lines in Afghanistan and the signing ceremony in Doha to find out whether peace is actually possible.

It's Friday, March 6th. It's Friday, March 6th. Mujib, what was the situation heading into this peace deal? This conflict has gone on for about 40 years. It kind of began with the Soviet invasion in the 70s, and it dragged on. It became a civil war, and the chaos of the civil war became a safe haven for terrorist groups like al-Qaeda that use it as, you know, launching grounds to attack the United States. And in retaliation, the United States invaded Afghanistan and they toppled the Taliban government that was hosting al-Qaeda. So now we've got mostly three main players. One is the Taliban that feels that they

are a government in waiting because they were toppled. And then it's the U.S. military that's been on the ground for 18 years and they want out. And so that's the second player. And the third player is the Afghan government that has been propped up by the United States over the past 18 years. And they are in the middle because they haven't been part of the negotiations. So the effort to find a way out that can satisfy all the three players, it's been a difficult process. Right. And Mujid, the last time you and I spoke, a peace deal was on the brink of happening. But the Taliban carried out an attack. It killed an American.

President Trump, who was involved in those negotiations, was furious and at the last minute called the talks off. Exactly. But that process was picked up again in recent months. But that process was picked up again in recent months. And in the past few weeks, it finally felt like it was seriously coming together that we may have a way out of this conflict. The way it happened is that they took the same deal that they almost finalized last September. They put a condition in front of it. The condition was that for seven days across Afghanistan, the violence level needed to be significantly reduced just to build some trust so ordinary Afghans could finally get to imagine what the dividends of peace could look like.

And when that temporary truce started, the first thing that came to my mind was, what does it mean to the soldiers who've been fighting for years with no respite? So I thought of this guy I had sat next to on one of my flights earlier flights from southern Afghanistan. I sat next to this guy and I started making small talk with him and he was like, yeah, I'm a highway police commander posted in this stretch of highway between Zabul and Kandahar provinces, both very, very badly hit areas of the war.

And I was like, hey, would it be okay for me to come visit you at some point? He was like, sure. So I got his number and we were always nervous to go visit a place like that for security reasons. So when this truce went into effect, the first person that came to my mind was him. I want to go see what does it feel like for these guys who have constantly faced loss and fire to go see, engage their emotions and how they were experiencing this very rare breather from daily violence and daily attacks. So what did you do? So photographer Kiana Hyrie and I, we flew to Kandahar,

and from there we found this old, really seasoned taxi driver who had done the road for about 40 years, and he drove us to the commander, to the base on the highway. And it's a beautiful drive, but every couple miles of the drive, getting to this commander was seeing bridges blown up, the road blown up. So we arrived at this outpost on top of a hill. And we're met by the commander, and he sort of oversees this 40, 50-mile stretch of the highway.

The one good thing he has is good weather, you know. He's got about 300 men spread out in a dozen outposts because what the Taliban do is plant a bomb. When a convoy is driving, they blow up the bomb, and then once the convoy sort of gets disoriented with the explosion, they attack them from all corners. This is the main way the Taliban come here. So every morning, they come out, and they just patrol along the highway, look for any wires, look for any pieces of the asphalt dug up.

This is what they get the... The mines. The mines. The actual mine or the cables? The cables. That's how they dig it up. This is what they dig the cable with. And this commander, something that really, really got to me

in the sense of how bad they've been suffering, was he was like, listen, I've lost more men fetching water than I have in face-to-face fighting. My men come out and they make their way down to get water in these buckets and a sniper takes them out. Wow. So that's how badly they've been surrounded.

That's the kind of fire they were receiving. And I asked him, I was like, how has it been this couple of days? We visited them on day three, I think, of this violence reduction. And he's like, it's been beautiful. These are the latest Sayidi's I've bought. I was like, is that thing still packed? He's like, yeah, if I push it right now, I'm like, is that thing still packed?

He's like, yeah, if I push it right now, I'm like, please don't. Seeing them walk around, seeing them just, some of them having their weapons down. He's just been engaged three days ago. It felt like they were, you know, breathing a little relief. And then he said, let's go for a drive. He was showing us a couple other outposts. Like, from the 300 people he has, he probably doesn't have a single one

who hasn't been wounded at some point during the war. And the amazing part was, a lot of his fighters were really young. 20, 22, 23, 25. A lot of them had started as child soldiers, you know, 14, 15-year-olds. And many of them were really badly broken. Somebody was missing a finger, somebody was missing a leg, somebody was missing an eye. Some were wounded two, three times by the time they're 24, 25 now.

Let's see. There were at least two brothers, actually three brothers. The one was home, had already lost a leg. Their father had served in the police for a long time and he'd just died last year clearing roadside bombs. So that job had been passed down to the sons. And both of them were in their early 20s. One was, I think, 21, the other was 23.

And one of them, his only interaction with the Taliban was when he was detained by them for three days and tortured. And he still has the scars of that torture to show. The village they come from in a different neighboring province, it is entirely contested by the Taliban. So these brothers can't really go home often. One of them actually even arrived late to his own wedding because his family had prepared, you know, all the festivities. He tried to find

the truck driver that could, you know, smuggle him to his own village for the wedding. By the time he got there, the festivities were over, you know, so he missed his own wedding, basically. wedding basically they are so young and they're so shaped by this war that when i asked them even basic questions of what peace could mean to them they would just you know smile and you know this grin and they couldn't mentally get into the details of it. So I pushed him a little. I was like, listen, peace means the 50,000, 60,000 Taliban fighters out there either laying down their arms or integrating into the army and the police and basically sitting across from you, sharing this barrack with you. And one of them was like, I don't like them. I don't like the way they look.

And I was like, well, that's what peace means. It means those Taliban fighters would need to be accommodated somehow. So he thought about it again. And he's like, well, peace is good, but we'll think about it. The commander is just 29 years old, but he seemed so sort of seasoned and so experienced and so wise, and he got a little more reflective as we were driving between outposts. And one of the stories he told us as we were driving between outposts. And one of the stories he told us as we were driving was as an example of what pains him about this war.

And he said, listen, I wish I was fighting people who were from a different country. The people we're fighting, they're not even from a different village, they're not even from a different district. And he told us a story of this local guy who he said had come to his outpost for tea and for lunch with other elders maybe even a dozen times and then they discovered him planting roadside bombs

during one of their operations and he didn't even know the guy was a Taliban. To him, that was a point of how localized, how interlinked and interwoven this conflict is. It almost seems that the easier part of the peace is between the Taliban and the Americans. But we're talking about peace between people who are sharing the same stretch

of the highway. And sharing tea, in fact. Who are sharing tea. And he said the most basic thing, the most important thing in human life is freedom. And he said life is nothing without freedom. And he said, life is nothing without freedom. And he said, the way we live, these targets on our back wherever we travel, constant fear of attacks and violence, he said, this is not life. This is not life. As I was with them and hearing their stories, it was very clear that the truce was working.

They hadn't faced any fire in several days. And the truce working meant the peace deal would go ahead and be signed between the U.S. and the Taliban in Doha. So we got back in our taxi, drove to Kandahar. We took a flight from Kandahar to Kabul. I spent the night in Kabul and then from there fly to Doha to make it in time for the signing. It's the day before the agreement is supposed to be signed. And the dignitaries are arriving from around the world, Sheraton, Doha. It seems like it's happening.

We'll be right back. They're putting final touches at the venue. So, Mujib, you are in Doha getting ready to report on this historic peace agreement. What is the scene like there? So, the event is supposed to happen at the Sheraton in Doha. There's a podium where the signing is going to happen and two sides are going to give speeches. And this ballroom is prepared.

Kind of spotless red carpet and the red sort of velvety drapings behind the platform and it says, Agreement for Bringing Peace to Afghanistan. And people are slowly trickling in to find their way. The most high-profile guest is the U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo

and the Emir of Qatar. And then... Dozens of Taliban started arriving for the occasion. A lot of more unusual noise and clamor than you would see at a normal diplomatic event. And because this wasn't a normal diplomatic event. It was an insurgency that was only known for blowing stuff up and fighting in the battlefield. And now sitting in the same room as the Secretary of State and world leaders and getting ready to sign as equals with a world power. The ceremony just gets underway.

All the dignitaries have arrived. And then as the proceedings started, I found a seat on the balcony upstairs. Good afternoon. I want to start by thanking His Highness Sheikh Tamim for Qatar's invaluable role as host for these historic talks. And Secretary of State Pompeo gets up and he gives brief remarks. This effort only became real for the United States

when the Taliban signaled interest in pursuing peace and ending their relationship with al-Qaeda and other foreign terrorist groups. The agreement that we will sign today is the true test of this effort. So, Mujib, what's actually in the agreement that's about to be signed? The most concrete thing in the agreement is an American commitment to start withdrawing the remaining of its troops. So right now there are still about 12,000 American troops in Afghanistan. And the agreement lays out a 14-month timeline for a gradual withdrawal of those troops.

Here's our take on what steps by the Taliban will make this agreement a success. There is some basic language of conditionality attached to it. First, keep your promises to cut ties with al-Qaeda and other terrorists. Keep up the fight to defeat ISIS. That in return, the Taliban are making some commitments that they would not allow terror groups, they'll not allow al-Qaeda. The other pieces are that the Americans will help release up to 5,000 of the Taliban prisoners who are in the Afghan government. And those prisoners will get released in the next couple of weeks before the Taliban sit down for direct negotiations with the other Afghan side.

And start the difficult conversations on a political roadmap for your country. And then in that future negotiations, at the top of the agenda, it would be a comprehensive ceasefire. And for all of us here, and most importantly, for the security of the American Afghan people, this must happen. Thank you. And then... And then... The Taliban's deputy gets up.

He seems nervous and he's struggling to read the text, but he basically says the same thing, that we want a peaceful future, we are committed to the agreement that we'll sign. There was muted cries of Allahu Akbar from the Taliban guys, which is sort of a victory cry. And then the deputy Taliban leader takes his place at the desk and the American chief negotiator takes a seat next to him. The Taliban guy, he's watching closely to make sure the American envoy puts his signature down first as if to make sure there isn't some sort of a last-minute trick.

puts his signature down first, as if to make sure there isn't some sort of a last-minute trick. And after the American signs the first page, the Taliban opens his pen, and he starts signing also. And that was it. They had signed an agreement that had taken a year and a half of negotiations. And there was a sense of expectation that this momentous signing between the U.S. and the Taliban would open the way for peace. But as soon as the two sides signed,

the Taliban have started attacking again. Now, remember that landmark deal between the U.S. and the Taliban at the weekend? Well... Cracks are now starting to appear in the agreement. Appears to be unraveling. Already unraveling just four days after it was signed. New violence in Afghanistan just days after that landmark truce between the...

Back to Taliban launching attacks on Afghan outposts. Back to Taliban stopping people on the highways. Afghan police say that at least three people have been killed earlier. Dozens dead every day since. Separate attacks have left at least 19 people. 20 Afghan soldiers. More than 20 Afghan soldiers. Dead.

33 attacks in... Earlier this week, Defense Secretary Mark Esper warned violence will continue in Afghanistan. Why would the Taliban begin launching attacks days, hours after signing a peace deal? a peace deal? The Taliban say the deal makes it clear their violence is only ending with the Americans. And there's nothing in the deal about reducing attacks on Afghan government, on Afghan security forces. And I've posed this question to the Taliban,

and I was like, listen, so for 18, 19 years, you've been saying this is a jihad against foreigners, right? But the foreigners just signed with you, they're leaving. So how do you legitimize the shedding of Afghan blood now? And he was like, wait, wait, wait, wait, hold on, hold on. Just because we got the foreigners to agree to leave, doesn't mean we can give up already that the structure they created, the government they propped up, the system they put in place,

will inherit everything and we will be left out here without correcting that system that is in Kabul to include our wishes also. So they're very clear that they're going in Kabul to include our wishes also. So they're very clear that they're going to continue to use violence as leverage to bring political change also. So in their mind, they need to keep waging a war on these kind of extensions and projections of American power, and they are allowed to do it under this agreement because it only explicitly says you cannot attack the U.S. forces. Precisely. So there's an interesting thing that happened just on Wednesday.

After three days of violence, the U.S. military got back into action. They carried out an airstrike against the Taliban. And the U.S. military's justification was, listen, the agreement may have just ended the violence explicitly between us, meaning between the Taliban and the Americans. But there's a sense in the agreement that if you all of a sudden start attacking the Afghan security forces, we as the U.S. military reserve the right to go to their defense. They deserve the right to go to their defense. That feels like a very significant structural flaw in a peace deal, to have left so much ambiguity that your former enemy can go on to destroy the government that the United States has built there. There's a structural flaw in that, for sure. But getting around that structural flaw, there were two possibilities. One was you can ensure that doesn't happen by getting the enemy to agree to a ceasefire, right?

The Taliban in no way were going to agree to a ceasefire. So you either kept negotiating for months to try to force them to a cease fire, or they have agreed to this structurally flawed agreement, but hoping that because the U.S. reserves the right to carry out airstrikes, would mean the Taliban will carry out fewer attacks to risk being killed by American airstrikes. Taliban will carry out fewer attacks to risk being killed by American airstrikes. So what we're seeing right now is the Taliban testing how much they can get away with in this ambiguous area of how far the U.S. will go to defend the Afghan government. But they're also testing something else. So as part of the deal, the U.S. has committed to helping release

5,000 of the Taliban prisoners. And the Afghan government said, no way. Those are our prisoners. The U.S. doesn't have the right to commit to something like that. And the Taliban now are like, we don't care. U.S., you sort it out. You committed to us.

But at the same time, it almost feels like they're using violence to remind the Afghan government that if they drag their foot on the prisoners issue, the Taliban are still a reality in the battlefield, but they still have the same sort of firepower. Would you, I wonder if you've talked to those police officers that you had visited before the signing. I did. I wonder if your calling is not in service.

I mean, it was a bit of a struggle to get back in touch with them because that area where they're serving, what the Taliban do is they cut off cell towers and you lose cell phone signal. But when I got back in touch with them, they said they've been facing fire for the past three consecutive nights. Wow. One of the outposts they showed us and I toured, they had two people wounded in that outpost.

Their commander that we went to see, he was ambushed. So the commander is like, it's back to the same levels of attack for us. For us. But he said something really interesting that I think summed up the mood after the recent Taliban attacks. He said, but one thing that is good about their attacks now is that it makes things clear it makes our fight clear that until now the taliban were saying oh the foreigners are here we're fighting the foreigners and that kind of give their fight a little legitimacy right and they said now that they've gotten their agreement with the foreigners and they're still deciding to attack us, we have a more open hand to return fire as their attacks don't have that same legitimacy anymore. So it's almost crystallized the fight for them a little bit.

But the fact that their daily reality after the signing has been no different from their reality before the signing seemed heavy on them that they were back to the same, you know, being shot at and returning fire. It feels like nothing about this peace deal actually looks like peace to them. In fact, it's just the beginning of a new phase of the war. At the moment, it doesn't. It actually feels like a continuation

of the war they're fighting already. But one thing that came out of this peace deal was a brief pause. Even if it was just for seven days, they felt and experienced a new reality. And maybe, maybe for a long time, they won't experience that again. Maybe their reality will be violence, but at least they have a reference point now. They can think back to the seven days and maybe that will serve as a reminder of what is still possible and what they could still get to. Mujib, thank you very much.

Thank you. We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today. Italy and Iran have ordered all schools and universities to close as the coronavirus sweeps across both countries. In Italy, around 150 people have died from the virus, the highest number outside of China, while in Iran there are now more than 3,500 infections. In Iran, there are now more than 3,500 infections. In the U.S., California has declared a state of emergency after an outbreak that has infected dozens of residents, and state officials said they were ordering a cruise ship

to remain off the coast of San Francisco out of fear that the coronavirus may be spreading among its passengers. As of Wednesday evening, there were at least 211 infections in the U.S. And... I will not be running for president in 2020, but I guarantee I will stay in the fight for the hardworking folks across this country who've gotten short into the stick over and over.

That's been the fight of my life, and it will continue to be so. Elizabeth Warren dropped out of the Democratic race for president on Thursday, saying that after a series of disappointing primaries, there was no longer a place for her in the race. You know, I was told at the beginning of this whole undertaking that there are two lanes, a progressive lane that Bernie Sanders is the incumbent for and a moderate lane that Joe Biden is the incumbent for, and there's no room for anyone else in this. I thought that wasn't right, but evidently I was wrong. Warren declined to endorse either Biden or Sanders for now.

And during a news conference in front of her house, expressed regret that there was no longer a woman in the race. And I wonder what your message would be to the women and girls who feel like we're left with two white men to decide between. I know. One of the hardest parts of this is all those promises and all those little girls who are going to have to wait four more years. That's going to be hard. The Daily is made by Theo Balcom, Andy Mills, Lisa Tobin, Rachel

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