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So here's what seems to have happened w/r/t Taliban + Camp David as best I can tell
1) Zalmay Khalilzad was running a negotiating process. About Sept 1, he reached an interim agreement of some kind w Taliban representatives. This was not "peace," but it was a possibility
1) Zalmay Khalilzad was running a negotiating process. About Sept 1, he reached an interim agreement of some kind w Taliban representatives. This was not "peace," but it was a possibility
2) Trump over-optimistically convinced himself that the interim agreement meant "peace" was at hand in Afghanistan - and then became transfixed about gaining the credit, and thereby a Nobel Peace Prize, for himself.
3) Determined to insert himself into the middle of the historic moment - like Carter with Begin-Sadat but MUCH BIGGER! - Trump insisted on inviting Taliban reps to Camp David.
4) Trump national security staff though the idea of Taliban at Camp David on 9/11 quite crazy - so Trump cut them out of process, ran it himself with a coterie of especially abject inner aides. Only ...
5) The Taliban representatives insisted on signature first, visit to America only later. There was in fact no deal, Trump's Nobel fantasy began to drift out of reach ...
6) And at that moment, he decided: They would not refuse him - he would refuse them! He would show the Taliban who was boss! He found his excuse in the latest in an unceasing series of Taliban atrocities. He took to Twitter to announce "YOU'RE FIRED" - just like the old days
7) At which point, the cut-out national security staff were cornered by reporters - and constrained to confess that the Trump-Taliban Camp David summit concept was all typical Trump vaporware. He had cancelled a summit that had never been booked.
8) Which is probably just as well, because if Trump had negotiated with Taliban as he negotiated with Kim Jong Un, they would have walked away from Camp David with Trump's lunch money in their pocket and an empire stretching to Uzbekistan
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