WASHINGTON – Imagine if, back in 2011, President Barack Obama had not only withdrawn all U.S. forces from Iraq, facilitating the rise of the Islamic State, but also invited Islamic State leaders to Camp David to sign an agreement cementing his withdrawal plan. Obama’s decision to pull out American troops was catastrophic, but even he was not dumb enough to seek a photo op with terrorists. Yet this is precisely what President Trump tried to do when he initially invited the Taliban to Camp David for a meeting this past weekend.
Here is the image that would have been broadcast across the Muslim world: Taliban leaders sitting at the very table where U.S. officials planned the overthrow of their regime, accepting what they would have portrayed as the terms of the United States’ surrender – right before the 18th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.
It gets worse. The Taliban team with whom the Trump administration has been negotiating includes five senior Taliban commanders – the “Taliban Five” – who were held at Guantanamo for 13 years before Obama freed them in exchange for U.S. Army deserter Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl. They include Mullah Fazel Mazloom, who according to his Guantanamo military file is “wanted by the UN for possible war crimes while serving as a Taliban Army Chief of Staff” and has “operational associations with significant al-Qaida and other extremist personnel.” They include Mullah Norullah Noori, “wanted by the UN for possible war crimes” and “associated with members of al-Qaida.” They include Abdul Haq Wasiq, Taliban deputy minister of intelligence who “utilized his office to support al-Qaida and to assist Taliban personnel elude capture … [and] arranged for al-Qaida personnel to train Taliban intelligence staff in intelligence methods” and “assigned al-Qaida members to the Taliban Ministry of Intelligence.” They include Mullah Khairullah Khairkhwa, who was “directly associated to [Osama bin Laden] and Taliban Supreme Commander Mullah Muhammad Omar.” And they include Mohammad Nabi Omari, “a senior Taliban official” who was “a member of a joint al-Qaida/Taliban [anti-coalition militia] cell in Khowst and was involved in attacks against U.S. and Coalition forces,” including one that killed two Americans.
It is an outrage that Obama freed them. But for Trump to even consider allowing leaders of a designated terrorist organization to set foot in Camp David is worse than an outrage; it is an insult to all those who died on 9/11 and the American troops who gave their lives fighting them in Afghanistan.
Trump’s defenders say this would have been no different from his diplomacy with Kim Jong Un, or his offer to meet with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. Yes, it is. First, Kim and Rouhani are heads of government. Taliban leaders are terrorists. They claim to be the heads of a state – the “Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.” Hosting them at Camp David grants them undeserved legitimacy.