In the previous article, we presented the details of the deal concluded between the United States and the Taliban, according to which the United States handed over Afghanistan to the movement, and the announced agreement to bring peace to Afghanistan - signed in Doha at the end of February 2020 AD - defined the obligations of each party towards the other.

The terms of the agreement did not give compelling reasons for the United States to take this step;

Did the agreement include additional secret annexes that have not been published?

What are included in these supplements?

Will it be adhered to by both parties?

Will things go as desired by both parties?

The agreement was concluded between the United States and the Taliban, between two parties unequal in all respects, except by the representative power of the agreement, which would not have taken place after 18 months of negotiations except after the two parties had reached a complete agreement that it fulfilled the interests of each of them in the other;

Political, economic and security interests, in the short and medium term at least, go beyond the details of the withdrawal process and the war on terrorism.

Ambiguous questions and certain interests

The successive, bloody political and military developments taking place on the soil of Afghanistan these days, which were visible to both the United States and the Taliban, should not distract us from trying to understand what is going on;

These events - despite their bloody and painful losses - are not new to the Afghan or Arab street, unfortunately, and in order to get closer to understanding what is going on, and why it is happening, we have to delve deeper into understanding the terms included in the announced agreement signed between the two parties, which left many It is a very ambiguous matter, leaving many questions unanswered, chief among them:

1. What prompted the United States to sign this agreement with a party that represents only one of the Afghan political components?

2. Why did the United States change the state system in Afghanistan, from a democratic system in line with American values, to an Islamic emirate led by the Taliban that depends on the Islamic legal pledge of allegiance to its emir, which Western thought generally rejects?

3. What tempted the United States to sign the agreement with a sworn enemy, which it fought with the participation of the Afghan government and coalition forces for more than 18 years, in which it lost about 3,500 U.S. and coalition forces and tens of thousands of Afghan government soldiers, and on which the United States spent nearly a trillion dollars?

4. Why did the United States abandon the Afghan government in this agreement and excluded it from participating in the talks, which is the elected democratic government that represents all the Afghan fabric, with the exception of the Taliban movement and “ISIS” (Islamic State), on which the United States has spent hundreds of billions in preparation, training and development The cost of preparing the army only and enhancing its capabilities amounted to about 5 billion dollars annually?

This agreement was made between two parties unequal in all respects, except by the power of representation in the agreement, which would not have taken place after 18 months except after the parties had reached a complete agreement that it fulfilled the interests of each of the other;

Political, economic and security interests, in the short and medium term at least, and these interests go beyond the details of the withdrawal process and the war on terrorism.

The truth about secret supplements

The Taliban denied the existence of secret annexes to the agreement to bring peace to Afghanistan, which it signed with the United States, and whose signing ceremony was attended by former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, without shaking hands or meeting any of the Taliban, according to the media. However, the minister spoke this morning The next in the program "Face the Nation" on the American channel "CBS" (CBS), in which he mentioned that he met the head of the Taliban delegation, and assured him that the Taliban would work side by side with the United States to destroy al-Qaeda, cut off its resources and expel it from Afghanistan.

The American side had a different opinion than what the Taliban had mentioned regarding the secret annexes. When Secretary Pompeo was asked in the aforementioned meeting whether there were secret annexes to this agreement;

He said there are two of the appendices, which are military implementation documents classified as classified.

The minister did not answer whether there was an agreement to maintain a US military presence in Afghanistan.

A week after these statements, the New York Times published on March 8, 2020, a report entitled "Secret Agreement with the Taliban... When Will the United States Leave Afghanistan? And How?" In it, she stated that members of Congress reviewed the two secret annexes to the agreement, which the administration of former US President Donald Trump insisted on maintaining their secrecy, as his defense minister expressed his unwillingness to talk about them, in his testimony before Congress just days before the signing of the agreement. The newspaper quoted people familiar with the two documents as containing a timeline of what should happen in the next 18 months, the types of attacks that both sides would prohibit, and information that the United States would share about the locations of its forces with the Taliban, with the aim of giving it information that would allow it to prevent attacks during the withdrawal.

According to the report, a US State Department statement at the time stated that the documents remained classified because “troop movements and operations against terrorists are sensitive matters,” and “we do not want ISIS to know those details,” according to the State Department’s statement, which indicated that the secret annexes are in agreement with the general agreement, And that "the arrangements include specific commitments by all parties to continue efforts to reduce violence until a permanent and comprehensive ceasefire is agreed upon in the intra-Afghan negotiations, while preserving the right of all parties to self-defense." He added that the United States had a "robust monitoring and verification mechanism" in place to track and assess Taliban behaviour.

The newspaper reported that the documents give Trump, or his successor, ample freedom to simply declare that the war is over and that they should leave Afghanistan.

Several Trump aides have suggested that US counterterrorism forces and the CIA remain.

The newspaper also noted that many Republicans and Democrats who took the opportunity to review the documents were unhappy with them, describing them as failing to provide mechanisms to verify that the Taliban would keep their promises, and that the documents did not explain how the United States would measure success, and that the details were so vague that some questioned The United States retains a great deal of influence.

As for Secretary Pompeo, he was very reassured that the Taliban are ready to fulfill the commitments they made, and that they will do so, and that the United States will be able to monitor and ensure that the agreement and its annexes are implemented on the ground.

The strange thing is that two weeks before the signing of the peace agreement with the Taliban, the website of the American newspaper Time published on February 13 - according to 3 people familiar with it - that the deal that was made with the Taliban contains 3 secret appendices:

  • The first is for US counterterrorism forces to remain in Afghanistan.

  • The second concerns the Taliban's denunciation of terrorism and violent extremism.

  • The third is for a monitoring mechanism if all parties respect the quasi-truce while talks continue between the Afghan warring parties.

  • According to two people familiar with the site, Annex III also addresses how the CIA will operate in the future in Taliban-controlled areas.

What should be noted at the end of this article is that this agreement and its appendices (if true) do not move in a vacuum, and face many challenges and obstacles, regional and international, including more than local ones. It walks over its plains and hills.

(Followed by... the shrewd Khalilzad)