The Taliban hardly deserve Camp David talks with a president. What was Trump thinking? - Aaron David

[TomSea]

The Taliban hardly deserve Camp David talks with a president. What was Trump thinking?
Aaron David Miller, Opinion contributor
Published 11:08 a.m. ET Sept. 9, 2019 | Updated 11:16 a.m. ET Sept. 9, 2019

The Afghanistan withdrawal plan is not ready for prime time and certainly not for presidential time, especially as the anniversary of 9/11 looms.

Greeting Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat at Camp David in July 2000, where he had just arrived on the presidential helicopter for a summit with President Bill Clinton and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, I asked him how he was doing. Smiling broadly, his kafiyyah flapping in the summer breeze, he replied: "I’m at Camp David."

And that’s how amazed and bewildered the Taliban would have been, too, if their meeting with President Donald Trump had come off as planned: legitimized and validated by a president obsessed with being on center stage, who appears to have seriously considered offering up a historic summit without thinking through the consequences.

It’s not that talking to your enemies is a bad thing, and under certain circumstances, it is necessary. Indeed, it was encouraging if stunning that Trump revealed a three-way meeting that would have included representatives of the Taliban and the Afghan government, which don’t recognize one another, That is vitally important for negotiating the best deal Trump is likely to get.

Read more at: https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2019/09/09/afghanistan-donald-trump-wrong-to-invite-taliban-camp-david-column/2258582001/