CNS Fellow and CNN’s national security analyst, Peter Bergen, argues that the Trump administration’s tentative peace agreement with the Taliban is a political move prompted by the presidential election season in order to show his supporters that he’s kept his promise of “getting the United States out of its longest war.” The tentative agreement “stipulates that the US will draw down to 8,600 soldiers from the current 12,000 or so stationed in Afghanistan now” and, in exchange, “ the Taliban… will have to guarantee that they will not host al-Qaeda or other jihadist groups on their territory.” Pending reductions in violence, the US-Taliban agreement could evolve to include the full withdrawal of U.S. forces.
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