Afghan service ending at last

After 18 years fighting alongside US and coalition forces in Afghanistan, Australia has good reason to welcome the troop withdrawal agreement signed by the Trump administration and the Taliban. As Peter Dutton said on the ABC’s Insiders, “well done on the US for being able to broker” a deal that Donald Trump said would see an “immediate” start on drawing down US troops from 13,000 to 8600 over the next four months, with the aim of achieving a complete withdrawal of coalition forces in the next 14 months.

The precise timing of a withdrawal of the 400 Australian troops still in Afghanistan will be worked out with the US. Ensuring the Taliban abides by what it agreed to in Doha will be vital. Mr Trump must allow no compromises, despite his undisguised political desire to see most US forces home by November’s presidential election.

The Doha deal commits the Taliban to negotiations on “a comprehensive and permanent ceasefire and the future political road map for Afghanistan”. The medieval Islamist terrorists who ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001, helping Osama bin Laden and al-Qa’ida when the 9/11 attacks were being plotted, have also committed to preventing “terrorists” from using Afghanistan as a base for attacks on the West. Mr Trump, remarkably, said he expected the Taliban to “take up the fight against ISIS” and other terrorist groups. Whether such optimism is well-founded remains to be seen.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is worried. He told a meeting of US ambassadors last week he was going to Doha only because Mr Trump insisted on it and that he remained angry about 9/11. In Doha, Mr Pompeo did not clap when Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, a co-founder of the Taliban in its most murderous days, spoke. Mr Pompeo left without shaking hands with the Taliban leader. He would rightly have been irked when the Taliban issued a statement claiming the deal was a victory for the fight to end the US “occupation” of Afghanistan.

Mr Pompeo said Washington would do “whatever is necessary” if the Taliban did not stick by the terms of the deal. The Trump administration must be resolute on that undertaking. The immensely costly mistake by Barack Obama in Iraq when, for self-serving political reasons in 2011, he withdrew US forces too soon, paving the way for the ISIS caliphate, must not be forgotten. Fourteen months is not long. The sacrifices of Australians and others who have fought in Afghanistan will be ill-served if the country regresses to what it was when the Taliban ruled Kabul before 2001.