Could the Taliban have prevented the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan?

[Yakman]

Of course it was possible... but not politically feasible for Mullah Omar.

He'd have to have greater command of his forces than he probably did, and the USA was coming in anyways. It's likely that a war would have started - after all, Bush's Ultimatum basically said that an invasion was going to happen with or without compliance.

Omar would have had to go to war against bin Laden and al Qaida within his country, and any of their supporters amongst his own Taliban. He'd have to ensure that his people cooperated with the USA and take massive casualties fighting their own people. Additionally, it would have been challenging for him to actually go and get bin Laden, who was surrounded by hundreds, if not thousands, of foreign jihadis with no reason to submit to Taliban authority.

Could it have been done? Possibly. But with the clock ticking as rapidly as Bush set it, and with Bush promising that an invasion was going to happen regardless, I don't think Omar or his leadership saw compliance as a viable course of action, even if they didn't think they could defeat the American armies.

 

[Grosshaus]

Ultimatum required US troops access to all terrorist camps. Who else from US would go there besides military, so basically also complying with the ultimatum would have ended up in an invasion.

 

[gagenater]

I don't agree. What criteria would distinguish "terrorist training facilities" from military training facilities? And even if acceptable criteria could be established, I doubt the Taliban could have closed such facilities without a civil war. The fifth point would have required an American military occupation of the country to accomplish.

If points 1-3 were rapidly produced by the Taliban together with a diplomatic plea for aid in completing points 4 & 5 then I could easily see how 4 & 5 would in fact be completed mostly by the Taliban themselves together with a few US special forces and some state department and/or CIA verifiers. Of course this all requires that the Taliban wanted peace with the US and were insincere in their support of Al Queda. Both these statements are false. The Taliban rally expected to win a war with the US and were sincere in their support of Al Queda.

 

[gagenater]

Ultimatum required US troops access to all terrorist camps. Who else from US would go there besides military, so basically also complying with the ultimatum would have ended up in an invasion.

US and international observers as protected guests watching the Taliban destroy the camps. Just exactly the way Iraq disposed of it's WMD under the supervision of the UN.

In the case of the Taliban there's no way it would actually happen, but there was precedent for it.

 

[DarthJF]

How many al-Qaeda fighters there were in Afghanistan at the time? They would have certainly put up a fight against any "removal of terorrist camps" even if Taliban had gone along with it.