As President Trump prepares to address the nation Tuesday, he鈥檚 under withering attack over immigration from once-friendly conservatives.聽But some strategists say the president shouldn鈥檛 underestimate聽his own power to sell some sort of compromise.聽
The Afghanistan peace framework emerging from US-Taliban talks has already generated its share of dark headlines. It calls for a cease-fire leading to US withdrawal, and includes a Taliban promise not to harbor terrorists. Veteran diplomats in 1975. The Senate rebuked the plan. But others see it differently.
Graeme Smith, who covered the war for years, writes movingly in the Globe and Mail about in the past, and states 鈥渢his is the best chance at peace that Afghanistan has witnessed in years.鈥 Anand Gopal, author of one of the most powerful accounts of the war, 鈥淣o Good Men Among the Living,鈥 said in an interview over the weekend that 鈥渢his is the most optimistic moment of the past 17 years,鈥 with a US president serious about leaving and the Taliban serious about negotiating.
Mr. Gopal, who covered the war for the Monitor for several years, argues a withdrawal and some kind of settlement may not hold, but is a necessary step. 鈥淎t some point there would be a settlement if external powers weren鈥檛 propping up certain parties,鈥 he says.
Many concerns loom, including about gains in education and . But has severely constrained progress in broad swaths of Afghanistan, something that could change with peace.
Gopal says these moves are going to face resistance from those 鈥渨ho offer no plan to end the war.鈥 But, you 鈥渉ave to end the conflict. Ultimately you have to have peace.鈥
Now to our stories looking at the dynamics between commentator Ann Coulter and President Trump, the demise of the INF Treaty, and why, instead of ragging on the New England Patriots, their antagonists should study more closely what has made the Belichick/Brady duo so powerful over so many years.