(PresidentialWire.com)- President Joe Biden’s order to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan isn’t going too well so far, but the Senate Armed Services Committee Chair Jack Reed, a Democrat, has suggested that he believes Kabul will hold even as the Taliban advances.
The Taliban has slowly begun encroaching back onto Afghan territory since U.S. forces began to withdraw, and even made a diplomatic mission to Moscow, Russia, in recent days to secure ties with the Kremlin.
Speaking to Chuck Todd on NBC News, Reed said that he believes Kabul will hold, but the question is how long it will take to achieve a political solution that the Taliban and Afghan government can agree on.
He described how much of the Taliban’s encroachment was done without military action, with most occurring simply through the power of persuasion and local leadership. Reed described how the Taliban has been preparing to take over huge sections of Afghanistan for many months.
Todd asked Reed if he believes the peace agreement negotiated by the Trump administration last year in Qatar was a mistake, to which he said he thinks it was. Reed criticized the fixed date put in place by the agreement and said it would have been more beneficial to put in place conditions for America’s withdrawal. At the same time, however, Reed admitted that most of the conditions put in place against the Taliban were unenforceable…so it’s unclear what he thinks the Trump administration should have done.
One thing that we can safely say, however, is that former President Donald Trump would have been unlikely to continue with the withdrawal if it appeared as though the Taliban was not abiding by the terms of the deal agreed in the first place…which it seems like they are not.
Despite the encroachment, the Taliban has suggested that it remains committed to a peace agreement with the Afghanistan government, but a new proposal has yet to be presented. With the recent mission to Moscow, however, it looks like the Taliban is preparing for a full takeover of the country.
