Afghan solidiers patrol in Khost Province, 2010
Before his ouster as Secretary of Defense on November 9th, Mark Esper sent a worried memo to Donald Trump stating that it was the “unanimous” recommendation of the chain of command for the war in Afghanistan that conditions were not ready for the president’s proposed US troop withdrawal. The generals charged with prosecuting the war in Afghanistan saw Trump’s recent troop drawdown order as counter-strategic folly driven purely by the president’s optics-driven desire to proclaim to his neo-isolationist followers that he ended “endless wars.” According to the Pentagon, none of the conditions required for a troop withdrawal, including the Taliban’s breaking its ongoing and close relationship with Al-Qaeda and negotiating a peace agreement with our Afghan government allies had been met. �