Robert Crews, a historian at Stanford University specializing in Afghanistan and central Asia, said he believes the Trump administration’s deal with the Taliban last year played a role in the group’s takeover of the country.
The agreement struck last year laid out a 14-month timetable for the withdrawal of “all military forces of the United States, its allies and coalition partners.” The US agreed to withdraw troops and release some 5,000 Taliban prisoners, while the Taliban agreed to take steps to prevent any group or individual, including al Qaeda, from using Afghanistan to threaten the security of the US or its allies.
Crews told CNN’s John Vause that the accord “legitimized the Taliban” and gave them a “road map” to conduct their offensive and oust the democratically elected government.
Crews said the question going forward is can the Taliban establish their so-called “Islamic emirate” in a society that has dramatically changed in the two decades since they were last in charge.
“There is potential for Afghan society to push back against the Taliban once this initial shock is over, and once the Taliban figure out how they will attempt to implement in the 1990s,” Crews said. “The Biden administration has painted us all, Afghans in particular, into a corner, where they have no good choices, and they find themselves at the mercy of this movement over which no one except Pakistan has substantive leverage over now.”
