A24 TUESDAY, DECEMBER 1, 2020
NFor years, the stalemate in Afghanistan has left American
officials torn between two bad options: Prop up a corrupt,
hopelessly divided Afghan government indefinitely or admit
defeat and go home, leaving the country to its fate. At 19
years and counting, the U.S.-led effort in Afghanistan is al-
ready the longest war in American history. A consensus has
been forming that it is time for U.S. troops to come home.
But the speed of the withdrawal and whether any residual
force will be left behind to carry out counterterrorism opera-
tions remain open questions.
The Trump administration has taken laudable steps to-
ward a U.S. exit. In February, it struck a deal with the Tal-
iban to withdraw American forces from the country within
14 months. In exchange, the Taliban agreed to cut ties with
Al Qaeda, prevent terrorists from using Afghanistan as a
base for international attacks, help reduce violence and par-
ticipate in talks with Afghanistan’s political leadership to try
to end the conflict.
American diplomats have been pressing the Taliban to
live up to their end of the bargain. Qaeda fighters are still be-
lieved to be embedded with the Taliban, although Al Qaeda’s
leader, Ayman al-Zawahri, may now be dead, according to
Pakistani media. Intra-Afghan peace talks began in Doha,
the capital of Qatar, in September but have stalled over a
fresh wave of attacks and uncertainty over whether the Bi-
den administration will honor the deal with the Taliban.
Over the weekend, the Taliban announced on social media
that both sides had agreed to a set of guiding principles for
the talks, but President Ashraf Ghani of Afghanistan has re-
portedly pushed back on that claim, denying that an agree-
ment has been reached.
The two sides have yet to begin confronting a host of
seemingly irreconcilable differences, including whether to
be a theocracy or a republic, and the status of women and fol-
lowers of the Shiite sect of Islam. The Taliban claim they now
accept Shiites as fellow Muslims. But previously Taliban
leaders have justified persecuting them as infidels. In 1998,
Taliban commanders massacred thousands of Hazaras, an
ethnic minority that predominantly follows Shiite Islam,
when they took power in their region. Today, two command-
ers of that bloody operation are among the Taliban negotia-
tors in Doha. Some Hazaras fear the Taliban are just going
through the motions of peace talks until U.S. forces leave.
Efforts to hold the Taliban accountable for their commit-
ments have been undercut by the Trump administration’s
abrupt announcement that it will pull all but 2,500 American
troops out of the country by Jan. 15, regardless of whether
the conditions the Taliban agreed to have been met. Presi-
dent Trump, who spent Thanksgiving 2019 with U.S. soldiers
at Bagram Airfield, wants to keep a promise to bring Ameri-
can soldiers home before he leaves office. But NATO’s secre-
tary-general, Jens Stoltenberg, expressed alarm at Mr.
Trump’s announcement and said the alliance would contin-
ue to train Afghan security forces even with the planned
U.S. reductions. NATO has 12,000 personnel in the country,
about half of whom are often American troops, and relies
heavily on the U.S. military for transportation and logistics.
President-elect Joe Biden is unlikely to depart radically
from the Trump administration’s exit plan. Mr. Biden op-
posed the Obama-era surge in Afghanistan and wrote in the
spring in Foreign Affairs magazine that “it is past time to
end the forever wars.”
But an American withdrawal does not have to mean end-
ing financial support for the Afghan people or leaving the re-
gion in chaos. The United States has a moral obligation to
work with regional partners to try to clean up the mess we
are leaving behind.
Americans have the geopolitical luxury of flying away
from a war they plunged into in 2001 in the wake of the Sept.
11 terrorist attacks. Afghanistan’s neighbors do not. Six
countries share a border with Afghanistan. Not one wants a
failed state on its doorstep. Afghanistan has been at war al-
most continuously since 1978, partly because its powerful
neighbors have all tried to manage the chaos inside it by
funding proxies. A debilitating free-for-all might be pre-
vented if Afghanistan’s neighbors work together to support
a peace process.
This is a rare instance where Iran, Russia, China, Paki-
stan and the United States all share a common interest: the
orderly departure of American troops and preventing Af-
ghanistan from imploding.
Mr. Trump, who has an allergy to multilateral coopera-
tion and a zero-sum mentality toward Iran and China, has
been unable to fully engage Afghanistan’s neighbors in the
effort to stabilize the country. In March 2019, American dip-
lomats threatened to veto the U.N. Security Council resolu-
tion renewing the mandate of the U.N. Assistance Mission in
Afghanistan because it referred to China’s Belt and Road
Initiative. And the Trump administration’s “maximum pres-
sure” campaign against Iran scared off international invest-
ors in Chabahar, an Iranian port considered essential for in-
creasing trade in landlocked Afghanistan.
Barnett Rubin, a former State Department official who is
now the director of the Afghanistan-Pakistan Regional
Project at New York University, argues that the United
States would benefit from having a strategic vision for the
region that was bigger than “no Al Qaeda.”
“Stop looking at Afghanistan as either ‘war on terror’ or
nothing and broaden the aperture to see that it is a country
in a region with China, Russia, Iran, India and Pakistan —
four nuclear powers,” he said. “They all have a very strong
interest in trying to stabilize Afghanistan.”
The Biden administration is better positioned to test the
limits of regional diplomacy. While it is far from clear that
Afghan talks can negotiate a political settlement that will
end the war between the Taliban and the Afghan govern-
ment, a coordinated regional approach is more likely to
produce success than a rapid unilateral American withdraw-
al. American soldiers should not be held hostage to a peace
agreement that might never come. But with U.S. troops
down to 2,500 soldiers, some portion of which is needed as a
security umbrella for the embassy, the costs of the U.S. ef-
fort in Afghanistan have fallen sharply. The Biden adminis-
tration has time to craft a more responsible withdrawal.A Responsible Exit From Afghanistan
EDITORIALYURI CORTEZ/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE — GETTY IMAGESTO THE EDITOR:
Re “Trump Appointees Show Their
Clout in Ruling on Virus” (front
page, Nov. 27):
The Supreme Court recently
made a dangerous decision to place
its expertise over that of Gov. An-
drew Cuomo’s professional public
health staff. In its 5-to-4 decision
the court rejected Mr. Cuomo’s
restrictions on the number of wor-
shipers in a church or synagogue in
areas of New York designated as
red or orange zones, reflecting their
high positivity count for Covid-19.
The last time I checked, there
were no public health professionals
serving on the Supreme Court. As
Chief Justice John Roberts noted in
his dissenting opinion, “It is a sig-
nificant matter to override the
determinations made by public
health officials concerning what is
necessary for public safety in the
midst of a deadly pandemic.”
While the right to worship is
enshrined in our Constitution, when
life itself is at stake, worshipers
should consider self-preservation
rather than accelerating our ulti-
mate meeting with our maker.
CHARLES VIDICH, ASHFORD, CONN.
The writer is the author of “Germs at
Bay: Politics, Public Health and Amer-
ican Quarantine.”TO THE EDITOR:
In striking down pandemic restric-
tions on attendance at religious
services, Justice Neil Gorsuch said
that “there is no world in which the
Constitution tolerates color-coded
executive edicts that reopen liquor
stores and bike shops but shutter
churches, synagogues and
mosques.”
We inhabit a pandemic-afflicted
world in which people congregating
in large numbers for long periods of
time pose a threat to everyone’s
welfare that those masked few
briefly visiting small shops and
stores do not. Does the Constitution
prohibit necessary emergency
regulations during such a crisis?
Reading Justice Gorsuch’s re-
marks, I recalled words from a
recent Op-Ed by Pope Francis (“A
Crisis Reveals What Is in Our
Hearts,” Sunday Review, Nov. 29),
who noted that some react to pan-
demic regulations “as if measures
that governments must impose for
the good of their people constitute
some kind of political assault on
autonomy or personal freedom!”I think our founders would con-
cur with the pope.JAMIE BALDWIN, REDDING, CONN.TO THE EDITOR:
As a lifelong liberal and an attorney,
I am actually shocked that a minor-
ity on the court voted against the
majority verdict. It seems obvious
to me that no governor should have
the right to limit or suppress a
constitutionally protected activity.
The ruling does not prevent places
of worship from establishing their
own distancing rules, or individuals
from controlling their own behavior,
but there must not be unconstitu-
tional governmental limits on free-
dom of worship.JANE BEDNO, MUNDELEIN, ILL.TO THE EDITOR:
There is no legal, or religious, con-
struct that could justify permitting
large gatherings of people during a
deadly pandemic. This is not a First
Amendment issue, just as falsely
screaming “fire!” in a crowded
movie theater is not an exercise of
free speech. My response to people
who demand religious freedom in
our current high-risk environment
is “Your religious liberty ends
where the danger to my health
begins.”
In reaching decisions, our Su-
preme Court justices should follow
the fundamental mandate of physi-
cians: “First, do no harm.”MARK W. WEISSTUCH
FOREST HILLS, QUEENSTO THE EDITOR:
We now see that, in the form of his
Supreme Court appointees, Trump-
ism, including the elevation of
personal beliefs over science, will
outlive President Trump’s tenure by
decades. It’s frightful to imagine
what this portends.BRENDAN WILLIAMS, BEDFORD, N.H.TO THE EDITOR:
I strongly suspect that the Supreme
Court would have ruled differently
if the appellant had been a mosque
rather than churches and syna-
gogues. Freedom of religion in this
country has too often meant free-
dom for my religion, not freedom
for yours.
LOUISE DUSTRUDE
FRIDAY HARBOR, WASH.Court’s Ruling on Religious Services
LETTERSTO THE EDITOR:
Re “A Senate Majority Is Over-
rated,” by James M. Curry and
Frances E. Lee (Op-Ed, Nov. 19):
Perhaps history shows that big
things can happen with divided
government. But that was before
Mitch McConnell was majority
leader.
If you care about voting rights,
the dignity of work and a function-
ing government, Georgia’s special
election matters.SHERROD BROWN, CLEVELAND
The writer is a Democratic senator
from Ohio.TO THE EDITOR:
While Professors Curry and Lee
set forth a reasonable historical
analysis of significant legislation
that passed with bipartisan sup-
port, they neglect to factor in the
dramatic transformation that has
infected the Republican Party. The
Trump era has solidified the reality
that Republicans who cooperateand work with Democrats will be
targeted and risk their own politi-
cal future.
While working with the other
side and compromise used to be
commendable traits in political
leaders, Republicans now treat
their colleagues who do so with
disdain. The numerous stories of
Republicans who vehemently
criticize President Trump and
Trumpism in private while profess-
ing their full support in their public
statements indicate that they are
unlikely to work collaboratively
with Democrats in the incoming
Biden administration.
The fear of primary challenges
fueled by attacks from Mr. Trump
(who together with his sycophants
is not going away when he departs
the White House on Jan. 20) will
regrettably result in deadlock and
paralysis after President-elect Joe
Biden assumes office and the new
Congress is sworn in.DEAN R. BROWN
BRIARCLIFF MANOR, N.Y.Why a Senate Majority Really Does Matter
WHEN JOE BIDEN ISinaugurated, he will
immediately be confronted with an un-
precedented challenge — and I don’t
mean the pandemic, although Covid-19
will almost surely be killing thousands of
Americans every day. I mean, instead,
that he’ll be the first modern U.S. presi-
dent trying to govern in the face of an op-
position that refuses to accept his legiti-
macy. And no, Democrats never said Don-
ald Trump was illegitimate, just that he
was incompetent and dangerous.
It goes without saying that Donald
Trump, whose conspiracy theories are
getting wilder and wilder, will never con-
cede, and that millions of his followers will
always believe — or at least say they be-
lieve — that the election was stolen.
Most Republicans in Congress certainly
know this is a lie, although even on Capitol
Hill there are a lot more crazy than we’d
like to imagine. But it doesn’t matter; they
still won’t accept that Biden has any legiti-
macy, even though he won the popular
vote by a large margin.
And this won’t simply be because they
fear a backlash from the base if they admit
that Trump lost fair and square. At a fun-
damental level — and completely sepa-
rate from the Trump factor — today’s
G.O.P. doesn’t believe that Democrats
ever have the right to govern, no matter
how many votes they receive.
After all, in recent years we’ve seen
what happens if a state with a Republican
legislature elects a Democratic governor:
Legislators quickly try to strip away the
governor’s powers. So does anyone doubt
that Republicans will do all they can to
hobble and sabotage Biden’s presidency?
The only real questions are how much
harm the G.O.P. can do, and how Biden will
respond.
The answer to the first question de-
pends a lot on what happens in the Jan. 5
Georgia Senate runoffs. If Democrats win
both seats, they’ll have effective though
narrow control of both houses of Con-
gress. If they don’t, Mitch McConnell will
have enormous powers of obstruction —
and anyone who doubts that he’ll use
those powers to undermine Biden at every
turn is living in a fantasy world.
But how much damage would obstruc-
tionism inflict? In terms of economic pol-
icy — which is all I’ll talk about in this col-
umn — the near future can be divided into
two eras, pre- and post-vaccine (or moreaccurately, after wide dissemination of a
vaccine).
For the next few months, as the virus
continues to run wild, tens of millions of
Americans will be in desperate straits un-
less the federal government steps up tohelp. Unfortunately, Republicans may be
in a position to block this help.
The good news about the very near fu-
ture, such as it is, is that Americans will
probably (and correctly) blame Donald
Trump, not Joe Biden, for the misery
they’re experiencing — and this very fact
may make Republicans willing to cough
up at least some money.
What about the post-vaccine economy?
Here again there’s potentially some good
news: Once a vaccine becomes widely
available, we’ll probably see a sponta-
neous economic recovery, one that won’t
depend on Republican cooperation. Andthere will also be a vast national sense of
relief.
So Biden might do OK for a while even
in the face of scorched-earth opposition.
But we can’t be sure of that. Republicans
might refuse to confirm anyone for key
economic positions. There’s always the
possibility of another financial crisis —
and outgoing Trump officials have been
systematically undermining the incoming
administration’s ability to deal with such a
crisis if it happens. And America desper-
ately needs action on issues from infra-
structure, to climate change, to tax en-
forcement that won’t happen if Republi-
cans retain blocking power.
So what can Biden do?
First, he needs to start talking about im-
mediate policy actions to help ordinary
Americans, if only to make it clear to Geor-
gia voters how much damage will be done
if they don’t elect Democrats to those two
Senate seats.
If Democrats don’t get those seats, Bi-
den will need to use executive action to ac-
complish as much as possible despite Re-
publican obstruction — although I worry
that the Trump-stacked Supreme Court
will try to block him when he does.Finally, although Biden is still talking in
a comforting way about unity and reach-
ing across the aisle, at some point he’ll
need to stop reassuring us that he’s noth-
ing like Trump and start making Republi-
cans pay a political price for their at-
tempts to prevent him from governing.
Now, I don’t mean that he should sound
like Trump, demanding retribution
against his enemies — although the Jus-
tice Department should be allowed to do
its job and prosecute whatever Trump-era
crimes it finds.
No, what Biden needs to do is what
Harry Truman did in 1948, when he built
political support by running against “do-
nothing” Republicans. And he’ll have a
better case than Truman ever did, because
today’s Republicans are infinitely more
corrupt and less patriotic than the Repub-
licans Truman faced.
The results of this year’s election, with a
solid Biden win but Republicans doing
well down-ballot, tells us that American
voters don’t fully understand what the
modern G.O.P. is really about. Biden needs
to get that point across, and make Republi-
cans pay for the sabotage we all know is
coming. 0PAUL KRUGMAN
How Will Biden Deal With Republican Sabotage?
He needs to make the
G.O.P. pay a price for
obstruction.