WASHINGTON — Lisa Curtis, former senior director for South and Central Asia at the US National Security Council, said Monday that the 2020 Doha Agreement between the US and the Taliban was a “very weak” arrangement focused solely on enabling US troop withdrawal rather than achieving peace in Afghanistan.
Speaking at a Hudson Institute panel on Afghanistan, Curtis said the agreement, signed by US envoy Zalmay Khalilzad and Taliban leader Mullah Baradar, “conceded far too much” to the Taliban.
“This was akin to handing the country over to the Taliban like a birthday cake,” Curtis said. “It was not a peace agreement. It was a withdrawal agreement. It was basically between the US and the Taliban, and it was about the US wanting to withdraw troops and really giving anything the Taliban wanted to be able to do that so that the Taliban would not kill US troops on their way out.”
Curtis added that as part of the deal, the United States pressured then-President Ashraf Ghani to release 5,000 Taliban prisoners, many of whom rejoined the fight against the Afghan government after their release.
She also criticized President Biden’s defense that his administration was bound by the Doha agreement. “President Biden said his hands were tied by the agreement, that he had to abide by it. He did not have to,” she said. “He did not have to keep Zalmay Khalilzad as his negotiator, which he did until September 2021, and he did not have to follow through on that agreement. He could have negotiated a new agreement.”
Curtis argued that the flawed structure of the Doha Agreement contributed significantly to the rapid collapse of the Afghan government during Biden’s presidency.
In the same event, retired Gen. Jack Keane, former vice chief of staff of the US Army, discussed the long-standing relationship between Pakistan’s military and the Taliban.
“We know for a fact, primary evidence, that the Pakistan military and their intelligence services provided direct assistance to the Taliban and the Haqqani network. We have the evidence, indisputable evidence, and we never did anything to stop it other than to talk to them about it,” Keane said. “Providing military training on the ground to Taliban forces — we have evidence of it. Providing specific intelligence for them to attack US forces — we have evidence of it.”
Keane emphasized that many US and Afghan soldiers lost their lives because of Pakistan’s support to insurgent groups, calling it a painful reality that was never adequately addressed during the US mission in Afghanistan.
He acknowledged that US relations with Pakistan have improved recently but cautioned against forgetting Pakistan’s past actions. “Hopefully never giving up the rearview mirror of who these people really are and what they represented for far too many years,” Keane said. “What we really need is a strategic policy” toward Central and South Asia, he added.
The Hudson Institute event focused on Afghanistan’s current situation and future US interests in the region, amid ongoing instability under Taliban rule.
