US exit.

A MAJOR development in the Afghan theatre has been the apparent US decision to speed up the withdrawal of troops from the country. While Donald Trump has been ambiguous about his exact intentions, the numbers point to a more concrete reality: the American president wants to get his soldiers out of the Afghan war zone as soon as possible. According to reports in various media outlets, the US drawdown of troops is happening faster than expected, and if sources are to be believed, the last American soldier in Afghanistan may be out of that country before the November presidential elections in the US, instead of May 2021, the deadline set by the peace deal signed by Washington and the Afghan Taliban in Doha in February.

While Mr Trump has not been a big fan of American military involvement in overseas conflicts, here purely domestic concerns, namely re-election, may be driving his Afghan policy. After nearly two decades of involvement in Afghanistan, the Washington establishment seems to have realised that the nation-building/counterterrorism experiment launched by another Republican president - George W. Bush - in the aftermath of 9/11 has failed miserably and the time is ripe to cut losses and 'bring the boys home'. The Taliban are far from defeated, which is apparent by the fact that the Americans are suing for peace with the hard-line militia, while a wobbly coalition is sputtering on in Kabul. These are far from ideal conditions, therefore Mr Trump, his generals and advisers have arrived at the apparent conclusion that further...