The Big Question: What Price Peace in Afghanistan?
A Q&A with Laurel Miller, former U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, on what to hope for in peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban.
What happens to all this?
Photographer: Wakil Kohsar/AFP via Getty Images
(Bloomberg Opinion) -- This is one of a series of interviews by Bloomberg Opinion columnists on how to solve pressing policy challenges. This conversation has been edited and condensed.
James Gibney: Peace talks started in Doha, Qatar, on Sept. 12 between the Afghan government and the Taliban. More than 2,400 American troops have died in Afghanistan since 2001, more than 20,000 have been wounded, and the U.S. has spent close to $1 trillion fighting the Taliban and supporting the government. From 2013 to mid-2017, you were the deputy and then acting Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan at the State Department, and your work at the RAND Corporation and now the International Crisis Group still focuses heavily on Afghanistan. What goals should the U.S. have for the successful conclusion of these talks?