In a blunt letter, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken has urged the Afghan President to “accelerate peace talks” with the Taliban. The letter, along with a proposed draft plan for Afghan peace, was delivered by the U.S. Special Representative Zalmay Khalilzad. The special envoy, Khalilzad, has been leading the U.S. negotiations with the Taliban since 2018. After two years of dialogs, Khalilzad was able to sign a U.S.-Taliban peace agreement in February 2020.

Under the accord, the United States committed to withdrawal of all U.S. and NATO troops from Afghanistan by May 2021. In return, the Taliban pledged to cut its ties with al-Qaida – the militant group behind 9/11 attacks – and refrain from attacking American and coalition forces.

Since the agreement the Taliban has stopped attacking the U.S. and coalition forces, but it has intensified vicious attacks against the Afghan forces and has started a violent assassination campaign targeting journalists, women, judges, lawyers, and other members of the elite educated population.

The Trump administration bypassed the elected Afghan government and went directly into negotiations with the militant group. The prevailing ethos of the Trump administration, as described by a senior American official to Dexter Filkins for The New Yorker, was to “just get out.”

The U.S. negotiations with Taliban led by Khalilzad were and are devastating for several reasons:

First, it empowered and legitimized the Taliban while totally ignoring the Afghan government, hence offering the Taliban an upper hand over the elected Afghan government. Khalilzad brought President Donald Trump to a direct phone line to talk to one of the Taliban leaders, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, for 45 minutes. This was a bizarre idea to bring the President of the United States to the level of a militia group commander.

Second, the U.S.-Taliban deal did not restrict the Taliban from killing noncombatants. As a result, they escalated terrorizing the civilians and threatening the government by assassinating more than five hundred educated elite afghans since the deal signed.

Third, because of the deal, the United States forced Afghan government to release five thousand Taliban prisoners. This strengthened the Taliban fighters and damaged the Afghan people’s trust in the United States. Signing a disastrous deal with the Taliban and giving them privileges is admitting a failure.

Throughout the 20 years of war, the United States has overlooked the role of Pakistan, a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Pakistan, Lawrence Wright of The New Yorker writes “is one of the most anti-American countries in the world, and a covert sponsor of terrorism.” Wright is right. Pakistan has been playing a double game with the United States since the beginning of this war.

The Pakistani military has been receiving billions of dollars from the United States for combating terrorism. And there is no significant evidence to show their loyalty. To the contrary, there are considerable evidences clearly showing that Pakistan is providing safe havens to the terrorists. Osama bin Laden, Akhtar Mansour, Mullah Omer and other major leaders of the Taliban and al-Qaeda lived in Pakistan for several years before the U.S. drones killed them. The current Taliban leadership still resides in Pakistan, and their wounded fighters are openly treated in Pakistani hospitals.

Khalilzad and the Department of State ought to realize that the war in Afghanistan is more sophisticated than a civil war. There are several regional players in the game with interests in Afghanistan no matter stable or unstable. For Pakistan, an unstable Afghanistan translates into influx of billions of dollars from the U.S.

It is so Trumpist, undiplomatic, and arrogant for the U.S. Special Representative to ignore the elected President of a nation while deciding the future of his country with an insurgent group. Just because the Trump administration was in hurry to record ending the Afghan war in its name doesn’t justify throwing an entire nation to the wolves.

“The U.S. can withdraw its troops anytime it wants, but they ought to negotiate with the elected President,” Ashraf Ghani told Dexter Filkins in a recent interview. “They should call me. I’m the elected President.”

In 2016, Ghani brought to the negotiation table and signed a peace agreement with Gulbadin Hekmatyar, the leader of Hizb-e-Islami, a political and militia party that had been fighting in Afghanistan since the soviet war. The former John Hopkins University’s anthropology professor Ashraf Ghani is also one of the most prominent experts on Afghanistan and the region. The 71-year-old author of “Fixing Failed States” has a unique experience in international development form working at the World Bank for over a decade. He also served as Finance Minister under former president Karzai’s administration where he brought tremendous reforms. His expertise must be utilized not ignored.

The Biden administration is failing to fulfill its promise of restoring diplomacy.

Trump’s legacy continues.