Doha Agreement: Trump Negotiated Afghanistan Withdrawal With Taliban, Excluded Afghan Government

Overview

The Doha Agreement was predicated on a compromise that determined its outcome: the U.S. accepted the Taliban's demand that the elected Afghan government be excluded from the negotiations. This acceptance was the agreement's defining characteristic. Everything that followed flowed from it.

What the Agreement Did

By signing with the Taliban directly, the U.S. conferred political legitimacy on an organization that had been conducting an insurgency against the Afghan state for 20 years. The Taliban achieved what two decades of fighting had not: recognition as a party to a binding international agreement.

The prisoner release was its own strategic decision. Five thousand Taliban fighters and commanders, released in exchange for 1,000 Afghan security force members. The Taliban used the time between the agreement and the withdrawal to absorb its returning fighters and position forces for the final offensive.

The Afghan Government

Ashraf Ghani's government was presented with an agreement it had not negotiated, committing the U.S. to a departure timeline, legitimizing the Taliban as a political actor, and requiring Afghanistan to release prisoners it did not want to release. The U.S. pressured the Afghan government to comply with the prisoner release provision.

SIGAR documented in quarterly reports that Taliban violence against Afghan forces did not decrease after Doha — it continued at elevated levels. The agreement's anti-terrorism provisions were not being met. The withdrawal proceeded on schedule regardless.

The Aftermath

The Taliban took Kabul in eleven days after the final U.S. withdrawal began — faster than any U.S. intelligence estimate. Women's rights, girls' education, and employment were systematically eliminated. The Taliban government is not recognized by any UN member state.

Trump, out of office by then, blamed Biden for the collapse.