Foreign service veteran Ryan Crocker believes the Trump administration’s deal with the Taliban will lead to its control of Afghanistan -- just as it was when Osama bin Laden orchestrated 9/11.
In an interview with Foreign Policy, the recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom and former U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Syria, Kuwait, and Lebanon, said the reported framework deal with the Taliban is a betrayal of the democratically elected Afghan government.
“The Taliban don’t recognize the [Afghan] government. They won’t deal with it,” he said. “So whatever guarantees we think we’ve got, the outcome, I’m afraid, is going to be sadly different. If we withdraw as we’re talking about in an 18-month timeline, you will simply see the Taliban move in and retake the country.”
“The president has made it pretty clear publicly he wants out,” he added. “So I don’t think we’re going to see the time and focus on longer-term consequences.”
Crocker asserted “sooner or later” the Taliban will take over the Afghan government.
“As we’ve seen in the last year-plus, that the Taliban are gaining ground. They are not the juggernaut that some accounts seem to make of them, but they control more and more and the government less and less. So to think they would now stop and say, ‘OK, we’ll respect the constitution and seek legal changes,’ that isn’t going to happen.”
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