Taliban

It threatened to disappear under the viral haze of COVID-19, but February 29 saw representatives from the US and Taliban, loftily acknowledged as the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, sign the “Agreement for Bringing Peace to Afghanistan”.  After two decades of conflict, the agreement sets in motion the process that should see American troops leave Afghanistan within 14 months.  Initially, 8,600 troops will leave over a 135-day period; the balance is set to do so after 9 months.

A funny thing happened on the way to remote Central Asia following the events of 9/11.

Submitted by George Callaghan…
Uncle Sam is going home with his tail between his legs. John Bull is going with him. Johnny Cancuk, Marianne, Fritz and all the gang have also been humiliated. It is a defeat of unexampled ignominy.

Is that it? Nearly two decades of war – America’s longest-ever, almost twice as long as the Vietnam War – and now, finally, a dubious peace deal.
It’s a “deal” that could have been signed years ago by previous U.S. administrations, thereby saving hundreds of thousands of casualties and trillions of dollars in damages.

It seemed an unlikely prospect.  The International Criminal Court has tended to find itself accused of chasing up the inhumane rogues of Africa rather than those from any other continent.  It has also been accused of having an overly burdensome machinery and lethargy more caught up with procedure than substance.  Critics fearing a behemoth snatching soldiers from the armed forces of various states could rest easy, at least in part.

President Trump, who is up for re-election this year, has added another “peace” deal to his credentials, a deal that the president, his re-election campaign and his supporters have promoted as proof that Trump is willing and able to resist the U.S. foreign policy establishment and its ceaseless push to keep the U.S. embroiled in “forever wars.”

History is filled with examples of Neville Chamberlain’s Folly: Old fools like the British prime minister in 1938 selling out Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union to the merciless bloodlust of Adolf Hitler and proclaiming “peace in our time” when there was no peace.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s new deal with the Taliban in Afghanistan may prove to be a classic example of the opposite phenomenon: A hollow non-deal that only generates universal skepticism and zero expectations but that still might work.

The Duran’s Alex Christoforou and Editor-in-Chief Alexander Mercouris discuss US President Trump’s negotiated deal with the Taliban to orchestrate an end to the US troop presence in Afghanistan.

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Nineteen years after September 11, 2001 and 17 years after launching its war against the Taliban in Afghanistan, the U.S. seems ready to cut a deal with the Taliban in order to freeze out its Eurasian rivals.