A Peace Agreement in Afghanistan?

It's hard to put too much hope in a U.S. pullout of Afghanistan. The Obama administration did it once already, nominally, before backsliding when the Taliban captured Kunduz City the fall of 2015.

Trump campaigned as a critic of the U.S. occupation of Afghanistan, but, once in office, he increased the number of troops and expanded the scope of the air war.

On a separate track, Trump has brought back former U.S. proconsul Zalmay Khalilzad to negotiate directly with the Taliban. Yesterday, establishment pundit of empire Robert Kaplan, affiliated with Center for a New American Security, penned a New York Times op-ed, "Time to Get Out of Afghanistan":

The United States’ special adviser to Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, is trying to broker a diplomatic solution that allows the United States to draw down its forces without the political foundation in Kabul disintegrating immediately.

That may be the real reason the United States keeps spending so heavily in Afghanistan. The Pentagon is terrified of a repeat of 1975, when panicked South Vietnamese fled Saigon as Americans pulled out and North Vietnamese forces advanced on the city. The United States military did not truly begin to recover from that humiliation until its victory in the Persian Gulf war of 1991. An abrupt withdrawal from Afghanistan could conceivably provide a new symbol of the decline in American hard power.

Kaplan's message is that Afghanistan is already lost, and the only countries benefiting are U.S. adversaries. Better to pullout now.

It's noteworthy that a premier beltway intellectual of American hegemony is publicly advocating for the U.S. to cut and run. Senator Lindsey Graham is talking up a free trade agreement with Pakistan if the Pakistanis can deliver a peace deal with the Taliban.

In addition to the Americans, Saudis, the UAE, and the Pakistanis, the Taliban is talking with Iran and Russia. So far the Ghani government has no official role in these talks; it is being treated as a superfluity of the United States. Najim Rahim and Fahim Abed report in "Taliban Attacks in Northern Afghanistan Kill 27 Security Officers" that

After a series of meetings recently between American diplomats and the Taliban in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, talks between the Americans, the Taliban, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates officials and Pakistan are set to take place in Saudi Arabia in the coming weeks.

The Taliban refused to sit down with the Afghan delegation at earlier meetings held in Moscow and the United Arabic Emirates, however, and they have said that they will not meet with the Afghan delegation in Saudi Arabia either.

While it remains unclear if the recent meetings will result in negotiations that include Afghan officials, they do appear to have contributed to the Taliban’s growing public outreach efforts in the region: The Taliban spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, confirmed on Tuesday that a delegation from the group had visited Tehran on Monday to discuss the situation in Afghanistan and possible paths to peace and security in the region.

It appears that more progress is being made on a settlement than at any time since 9/11.