With a peace deal all but finalized, and an announcement potentially
days away, President Trump backed out not just of the deal, but the
entire process. The Taliban, unsurprisingly, reacted with anger after eight months of effort went down the tubes.
The Taliban warned primarily that the lack of a deal at this point would
hurt the US more, both tarnishing America’s putation as a negotiator
and exposing Trump’s “anti-peace approach.”
The Taliban further warned that in extending the war, more lives would be lost, including
on America’s side. With Trump centering his justification for scrapping
the talks on a single soldier killed in a bombing, the reality is that
untold additional Americans may be killed as the war continues to drag
on.
Moreover, the war continues to be lost. The Taliban has been winning
battles for months in Afghanistan, and is threatening multiple
provincial capitals this weekend, With no apparent US military plans to
turn the tide of battle, the strategy seems to be to just keep losing
until they decide on something else to do, which will almost certainly
closely resemble the peace deal they could have right now.
