Thread by @HalMarshall2309

Hard to believe, but Trump lied. The Taliban cancelled the summit.

"The Camp David meeting, according to Afghan, Taliban, and Western officials, was actually a failed gamble by the Trump administration." nymag.com/intelligencer/…

"The summit, which the Trump team proposed late last month, was an attempt rush a conclusion to the negotiations by flying Taliban and Afghan leaders to the U.S. so that the parties could iron out the remaining details and conclude with a big peace deal announcement and photo op.

"U.S. and Taliban negotiators have reportedly made real progress in nine rounds of talks over the last year, suggesting America’s 18-year war in Afghanistan may finally soon be over.

"But finalizing the end of an almost two-decade war is not like finishing the production of a television-show season. Though Afghan president Ashraf Ghani — who is facing reelection at the end of month and had been mostly excluded from the talks — had agreed to the summit, ...

"Taliban leaders objected to the plan. They insisted that they would not meet directly with the Afghan government or travel to America until after the deal with the U.S. had been finalized. That didn’t happen, so the hastily arranged summit was scrapped and the Taliban blamed."

As "the U.S. came close to announcing the deal, there were signs it was falling apart. NBC News reported on Thursday that Afghan leaders balked at the proposed agreement, which they had no part in negotiating.

"In particular, the Afghans have been worried that the quick U.S. drawdown would just lead to more Taliban attacks — and the Taliban has been exacerbating those fears by ramping up the violence while peace negotiations were taking place.

"U.S. officials had hoped that the tentative deal would prompt the Taliban to cease hostilities, but that didn’t happen.

"In addition to two suicide attacks last week in Kabul, the militant group launched offensives in three other parts of the country, and kidnapped six Afghan journalists on Friday."