*bump*
I’ll note that these lines aren’t in the actual article but seem to be a formatting glitch: “Former Acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller claimed that the Trump administration never intended to completely pull of out Afghanistan. Ex-Trump official Chris Miller says Taliban deal was a ‘play’ never intended to pull troops”
Re: 12 - I wonder if that is Miller doing a bit of “ass covering” when he says a force would be left behind in Afghanistan.
Lots of finger pointing to/from all sides.
What is a “known known” is the current situation is on Biden. If President Trump left a bad agreement in place, that’s Biden’s to remediate. He could exit per the agreement as signed or modify once there is buy-in by all sides.
For me, I think what was negotiated by President Trump, and acted on (in part) by Biden was a bad agreement. The military should have retained a military presence from which to provide counterterrorism operations, a contractor presence for aviation support and training, etc. Handing over OAI was a huge blunder.
The US will be flying blind in Afghanistan. Not a good place to be.