President Trump may be the author of The Art of the Deal, but how can someone who knows so well that the Obama-Kerry agreement with terrorist Iran was a bad deal, and who understood the importance of annihilating ISIS at the same time think the terrorist Taliban in Afghanistan will be restrained by a piece of paper backed up by no credible U.S. military pressure?
There is simply no way to negotiate successfully with an anti-democratic aggressor without military force hanging close over that aggressor's head. And yet President Trump has already announced that U.S. troops in Afghanistan, where the Taliban has been making territorial gains for years, will soon be reduced by more than a third, from 14,000 to 8,600.
"In late 2001, the CIA led a campaign to topple the Taliban with the support of the Northern Alliance, the Taliban's foe inside Afghanistan," the Brookings Institution's Bruce Riedel wrote in 2009, noting that, "The results were spectacular and came quickly. By early 2002 the Taliban were routed, al-Qaida was on the run and the two were retreating into Pakistan."
Bush had described to the nation the relationship between al-Qaida and the Taliban in Afghanistan, where some of the "Thousands of these terrorists in more than 60 countries are trained in the tactics of terror." And the 43rd president pledged: "Our war on terror will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped, and defeated." Anticipating the kind of criticism Riedel and other liberals leveled about the Iraq war sucking away resources needed in Afghanistan, Bush also cautioned that "Americans should not expect one battle, but a lengthy campaign, unlike any other we have ever seen."
The current leader of the Taliban, Haibatullah Akhunzada, has been described as "a Stone Age mullah"; he issued fatwas endorsing terrorist operations against U.S. personnel, and advised Mullah Omar, the now-deceased Taliban leader at the time of 9/11, who was the current leader's junior.
Significantly, Akhunzada, unlike others in the Taliban leadership, never fled Afghanistan during the U.S. invasion or later operations there.
The Tehreek-e Taliban Pakistan, the incarnation of the Taliban in Pakistan, are now resurgent in the mountainous Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province bordering Afghanistan, after years of dormancy.
https://issuesinsights.com/2019/09/05/why-is-trump-surrendering-to-the-taliban/
There is simply no way to negotiate successfully with an anti-democratic aggressor without military force hanging close over that aggressor's head. And yet President Trump has already announced that U.S. troops in Afghanistan, where the Taliban has been making territorial gains for years, will soon be reduced by more than a third, from 14,000 to 8,600.
"In late 2001, the CIA led a campaign to topple the Taliban with the support of the Northern Alliance, the Taliban's foe inside Afghanistan," the Brookings Institution's Bruce Riedel wrote in 2009, noting that, "The results were spectacular and came quickly. By early 2002 the Taliban were routed, al-Qaida was on the run and the two were retreating into Pakistan."
Bush had described to the nation the relationship between al-Qaida and the Taliban in Afghanistan, where some of the "Thousands of these terrorists in more than 60 countries are trained in the tactics of terror." And the 43rd president pledged: "Our war on terror will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped, and defeated." Anticipating the kind of criticism Riedel and other liberals leveled about the Iraq war sucking away resources needed in Afghanistan, Bush also cautioned that "Americans should not expect one battle, but a lengthy campaign, unlike any other we have ever seen."
The current leader of the Taliban, Haibatullah Akhunzada, has been described as "a Stone Age mullah"; he issued fatwas endorsing terrorist operations against U.S. personnel, and advised Mullah Omar, the now-deceased Taliban leader at the time of 9/11, who was the current leader's junior.
Significantly, Akhunzada, unlike others in the Taliban leadership, never fled Afghanistan during the U.S. invasion or later operations there.
The Tehreek-e Taliban Pakistan, the incarnation of the Taliban in Pakistan, are now resurgent in the mountainous Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province bordering Afghanistan, after years of dormancy.
https://issuesinsights.com/2019/09/05/why-is-trump-surrendering-to-the-taliban/
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