America’s gamble

If Brexit seems like a never-ending problem, try fixing Syria and Afghanistan. In Syria, Bashar al-assad has clung to power with the help of his Russian and Iranian allies and, let us be honest, the tolerance of the West – but the country remains a tinderbox. At the weekend, the US launched an attack on al-qaeda leadership in Idlib. The Russians accuse the Americans of endangering a ceasefire. The contrary argument is that any peace that provides cover for terrorists to regroup under is hardly a peace at all.

But that’s the gamble America is taking in Afghanistan. Taliban assaults on Afghan cities come, believe it or not, in the midst of peace talks with the US. They send a message. The Taliban has shown that it can carry out military attacks; the Afghan government that it can hold the line; and the US that it remains committed to the country, even as it is effectively negotiating its own withdrawal. The idea of the US sitting down to talks with the Taliban will shock many, but this conflict has gone on for 18 years and Donald Trump wants to wind it down.

One of Washington’s conditions is that the Taliban doesn’t offer a base to international jihadists – and that’s the real tension in US policy. Mr Trump wants to get out of the Middle East and Central Asia but this would leave behind a dangerous vacuum, filled either by hostile states (Russia, Iran) or by terrorists who will eventually bring the fight to America itself, as al-qaeda did in 2001. Nevertheless, the President is prepared to take that risk, and it’s easy to see why. Whether he wins re-election in 2020 or not, the White House is unlikely to go on bleeding its country dry in defence of an already bloody status quo.