The ballroom of the Sheraton Hotel in Doha was cool, air-conditioned against the desert heat outside. Rows of chairs faced a long table draped in green cloth. The flags of the United States and the Taliban—a white banner bearing the Shahada—stood side by side. The smell of floor polish and faint floral air freshener hung in the air. Men in suits and men in traditional shalwar kameez and turbans filled the seats, the murmur of conversation a low, anxious hum.
When the diplomats moved to the table, the sound of camera shutters became a frantic, mechanical clicking, like a swarm of metallic insects. The scratch of pens on the four-page agreement was inaudible beneath that noise. U.S. Special Representative Zalmay Khalilzad signed. Taliban co-founder Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar signed. There was no handshake. The document promised the withdrawal of all U.S. and NATO forces within fourteen months. In return, the Taliban pledged to prevent terrorist groups from using Afghan soil to plot attacks.
The people in the room knew the weight of the pages. They knew the war had lasted over eighteen years, cost trillions of dollars, and claimed tens of thousands of Afghan lives and nearly 2,500 American ones. They also knew the Afghan government, the nominal ally, was not in the room. Its representatives watched from Kabul, a palpable absence that filled the space as completely as the attendees.
After the signing, the attendees filed out. Some looked relieved. Most looked weary. The agreement was not peace; it was a mechanism for exit. The real war—for the soul of Afghanistan—was merely handed back to the Afghans. The ballroom emptied, leaving behind the empty table, the flags, and the lingering question of what, exactly, had been purchased with all those years.