advisers and with general mattis, general mcmaster, the national security adviser for him to really comprehend and understand the history in afghanistan, the complexitity of the engagement there, the repercussions in some of these neighboring countries in the region, and understand all of the different power levers he may be able to pull as the president. his inclination all the way through out was to try to withdraw, get out of this mess. he viewed it as a disaster, a 16-year war that never seems to end with no victory in site. he came around deciding with his generals, i think he felt pressured to do that. and we re going to give this a shot. it s going to be long and complicated and perhaps messy. another fascinating tid bit, i believe it was from your piece, h.r. mcmaster showing the president a picture of afghanistan back in the a s 70s, where women were wearing mini-skirts will trying to convey to him it was somewhat
secretary tillerson, i know you don t want to talk about the military, but you were just using some military terms. i know and understand why the administration does not want to talk about tactical moves. strategy, don t the american people deserve to know approximately how many more of their sons and daughters will be going back to afghanistan in a war that s lasted 16 years? i don t want to speak for secretary mattis. i think what the president has conveyed and i agree with him. we are not going to signal ahead what our plans are we re not going to signal ahead an increase, a decrease, the timing of any of that. it will be driven by conditions on the ground. the only way we can defeat an enemy that is as nimble and cagey as this enemy, we have to be as cagey and tactical as they
india is emerging and has played an important role supporting the afghan government they ve provided developmental assistance, economic assistance. they re hosting an important conference in india this next week. all of that is important to stabilizing afghanistan as a nation get their economy functioning. stabilize the country so they can provide new opportunities for their citizens. the effort is a reasonable effort, put pressure on the parties to understand this fighting is going to take everyone nowhere and it s time to begin a process. of reconciliation of peace accord afghanistan can choose its form of government that best
going to do in terms of withholding additional fundses, they didn t certify pakistan was doing enough to fight the network, they withheld 350 million in military aid. there will be a sticks part of this, and the carrot part, look at what they keep saying with the trump administration saying about india. that is, they re going to have india play a bigger role economically, inside of afghanistan and they want everyone to sort of have a regional approach. that s not going to go over real well in islamabad. that to me is, they re bolstering the indians. pakistan not on good terms with india. negotiating with the taliban. to go back and say, there are
to how they re dealing with the numerous terrorist organizations that find safe haven inside of pakistan. it s in pakistan s interest to take those actions when we say no preconditions on the talks. we re saying, the government of afghanistan and the taliban representatives need to sit down and sort this out. it s not for the u.s. to tell them, it must be this particular model, it must be under these condition conditions i think that s what the president means when he says we re no longer nation building. we ve taken certain principles and forms around the world. we re going to be there to encourage others, but it s going to be up to the afghan government and the representatives of the taliban to work through a reconciliation process of what will serve their needs and achieve the american people s objectives, which is security, no safe haven for