“Unbeknownst to almost everyone,” Mr. Trump wrote in a series of tweets, Taliban leaders and the Afghan president, Ashraf Ghani, were headed to the United States on Saturday for what would have been a politically fraught meeting at the president’s official Camp David retreat in Maryland.
But Mr. Trump said that “in order to build false leverage,” the Taliban had admitted to a suicide car bomb attack on Thursday that had killed an American soldier and 11 others in the capital of Kabul. “I immediately cancelled the meeting and called off peace negotiations,” he wrote. “If they cannot agree to a ceasefire during these very important peace talks, and would even kill 12 innocent people, then they probably don’t have the power to negotiate a meaningful agreement anyway,” Mr. Trump added. “How many more decades are they willing to fight?”...
A surprise summit at Camp David with leaders of an insurgent group that has killed thousands of Americans since the October 2001 invasion of Afghanistan would have been a sensational diplomatic gambit.... A senior administration official said the meeting had been planned for Monday, just two days before the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, which were plotted from Afghanistan and led to the United States’ invasion of the country....
Several people familiar with the diplomacy between the Trump administration and the Taliban puzzled over Mr. Trump’s stated decision to cancel peace negotiations entirely in response to one American casualty, however tragic. The Taliban had not agreed to halt their attacks on Americans in advance of a formal agreement. That raised the question of whether Mr. Trump might have been looking for a pretext because the talks had run into trouble....
Afghan government officials who have been briefed on the negotiations privately said [Trump’s special envoy Zalmay] Khalilzad did not force enough concessions from the Taliban to ensure stability as the American military leaves Afghanistan... Rather than requiring a nationwide cease-fire, it calls for a reduction of violence in Kabul and Parwan.... If anything, said one Afghan official, the negotiations appear to have only emboldened the Taliban....
September 8, 2019
"President Trump said on Saturday that he had canceled a secret meeting at Camp David with Taliban leaders and the president of Afghanistan..."
The NYT reports.
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207 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 207 of 207mockturtle:
Correct you are.
Sorry for the error.
I'll leave narciso's link here.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iran-nuclear-iaea-exclusive/exclusive-iaea-found-uranium-traces-at-iran-atomic-warehouse-diplomats-idUSKCN1VT0L8
Ev'rybody's talking about
Revolution, evolution, masturbation,
Flagellation, regulation, integrations,
Meditations, United Nations,
Congratulations
Dirty hippie
"'perhaps we should be thinking along the lines of cooperation and powers held in mutual check for collective benefit, with no one nation holding dominant power.'
"Uh-huh. And I know of some desert property you might be interested in...."
So...because, historically, balance of power treaties tend to break down over time, there is no point in even trying? No reason to think that a balance-of-power agreement that lasts for a few decades is at least better than nothing? Should we just assume all nations are only and forever out for themselves, and seek to maximize our advantage and power to the greatest extent while we can, at whatever expense to us domestically and to the world at large?
That's a fast way to global conflagration.
https://freebeacon.com/national-security/iran-further-breaches-nuclear-deal-says-it-can-exceed-20-enrichment/
Who could possibly have seen this coming?
Robert Cook:
Point to the treaties you imagine worked.
And by worked I mean was followed by the parties.
Or, contrarily, prove human nature has changed.
The one is just as easy as the other.
Hey Farmer, why did you delfect and lie about this?
Fen: "In the 2000s, the revelation of Iran's clandestine uranium enrichment program raised concerns that it might be intended for non-peaceful uses. The IAEA launched an investigation in 2003 after an Iranian dissident group revealed undeclared nuclear activities carried out by Iran."
Your 100% certainty that "we will catch them again" is based on us getting lucky. SMH.
The "we will catch them again" is obviously not a direct quote of you, it's a summation of your earlier assertion that Iran can't evade inspections. But you chose to take offense at that "misquote" so you could avoid my larger point that we only caught Iran because we got lucky with intel from dissident.
Very dishonest of you. I'll post it again to give you an opportunity to address the gaping hole in your position that Iran can be held in check with an inspections regime:
"In the 2000s, the revelation of Iran's clandestine uranium enrichment program raised concerns that it might be intended for non-peaceful uses. The IAEA launched an investigation in 2003 after an Iranian dissident group revealed undeclared nuclear activities carried out by Iran."
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