A top Pentagon official took an unannounced trip to Afghanistan on Feb. 11 to meet with U.S. commanders and Afghan leaders amid a renewed push for peace with the Taliban as the Trump administration seeks to end the 17-year-war—the longest in the history of the United States.
So far there have been no direct orders to reduce U.S. troops in Afghanistan, according to Patrick Shanahan, the recently installed acting secretary of defense who made the visit. Officials say the withdrawal of troops is at the top of the Taliban’s list of demands in exploratory peace negotiations.
Washington is trying to break the impasse between the government of Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and the Taliban, who have refused to negotiate.
“The Afghans have to decide what Afghanistan looks like. It’s not about the U.S., it’s about Afghanistan,” Shanahan told reporters traveling with him from Washington.
During his trip, Shanahan flew to a military base where he met with Afghan army commandos, regarded as the most capable element of the Afghan military. He told reporters that the U.S.-trained commandos are increasingly on the offensive against the Taliban.
Zalmay Khalilzad, the administration’s special envoy for Afghan peace talks, said on Feb. 8 that although talks are in an early stage, he hopes a deal can be made by July. That is when Afghanistan is scheduled to hold a presidential election.
In his State of the Union address last week, Trump said he had “accelerated” negotiations to reach a political settlement in Afghanistan.
The SDF said at the end of last month that the presence of the fighters’ wives and children meant the U.S.-backed militia could not launch an all-out storm of the enclave and instead would have to use more measured and precise tactics, which has slowed the advance.
Shanahan took over as acting secretary of defense on Jan. 1 after Jim Mattis submitted his resignation in December. Shanahan’s views on the Afghan war are not widely known. He said he would use this week’s visit to inform his thinking and to report back to Trump.
After Mattis’s resignation, Trump said he had been unhappy with how Mattis handled Afghanistan. Since then, the administration has said it achieved a tentative “framework” for fuller peace negotiations with the Taliban.
Gen. Joseph Votel, the commander of U.S. Central Command, said in testimony before Congress last week that current talks between U.S. and Taliban negotiators are “our first real opportunity for peace and reconciliation since the war began.”