© AFP/Javed TanveerFebruary 21, youths and peace activists gather as they celebrate the reduction in violence, in Kandahar. A week-long partial truce took hold across Afghanistan on February 22, with some jubilant civilians dancing in the streets as the war-weary country prepared for this coming Saturday's planned agreement on a peace deal between the Taliban and the United States.
Nearly two decades after the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan post-9/11, and after an interminable war costing over $ 2 trillion, there's hardly anything "historic" about a possible peace deal that may be signed in Doha this coming Saturday between Washington and the Taliban.
We should start by stressing three points.1- The Taliban wanted all US troops out. Washington refused.
2- The possible deal only reduces US troops from 13,000 to 8,600. That's the same number already deployed before the Trump administration.
3- The reduction will only happen a year and a half from now - assuming what's being described as a truce holds.
So there would be no misunderstanding, Taliban Deputy Leader Sirajuddin Haqqani, in an
op-ed certainly read by everyone inside the Beltway,
detailed their straightforward red line: total US withdrawal.And Haqqani is adamant: there's no peace deal if US troops stay.Still, a deal looms. How come? Simple: enter a series of secret "annexes."The top US negotiator, the seemingly eternal Zalmay Khalilzad, a remnant of the Clinton and Bush eras, has spent months codifying these annexes - as confirmed by a source in Kabul currently not in government but familiar with the negotiations.
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