On February 29th, the United States and the Taliban entered into an agreement that would see the complete pullout of US troops from Afghanistan. In return, the Taliban would renounce international terrorist groups, like al Qaeda and the Islamic State, and prevent them from plotting foreign attacks from Afghan soil.
It is worth emphasizing that it was negotiated directly between the United States and the Taliban. The Afghan government, which the United States is ostensibly in Afghanistan to support, was deliberately excluded.
Despite how this has been characterized in some quarters of the media, “This is very much not a peace deal,” says my guest, Michael Kugelman. He is the senior associate for South Asia at the Woodrow Wilson Center. Kugelman communicated to me that this was a point he wanted to emphasize. In the days after the deal, the Taliban launched several attacks in Afganistan. In fact, a few hours before we spoke, there was a major attack at a political rally in Kabul.
In this conversation, we discuss what is included in this deal, what is not included, and what this agreement means for the future of Afghanistan.
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