Deja Vue. Another defeat.

[tw]

According to The Economist, The Don wants to end the war in Afghanistan before the 2020 elections. So Zalmay Khalilzad has spent almost all of 2019 shuttling between Doha, Kabul, and Washington trying negotiate a peace treaty with the Taliban. Trump was going to invite the Taliban and Afghan government to Camp David to sign the deal in September. A week before, he canceled it.

It is really a surrender by the Americans to the Taliban. The Afghan government gets noticeably weaker every month. Its forces are now dependent on air strikes to keep the Taliban from overrunning major cities. Last Septembers election meant only 2.7 of 9.6 million voters could vote.

What are we seeing. An American surrender to the Taliban similar to the American surrender to N Vietnam in the 1970s. This time, the Kabul government will be sacrificed just like the Saigon government was some 45 years ago. Since The Don wants a victory before November 2020. It is his nature to throw anybody under the bus to get it - even a country.

Anther $trillion and a 20 year education down the drain.

Meanwhile the same Don tried and was only ten minutes from starting another useful war with Iran. No settlement is possible there as long as Trump supporters adamantly insist none is possible or should be attempted.