Charade

President Trump claims to have cancelled a “summit” at Camp David next weekend with the Taliban, in response to an attack in Kabul that killed one American soldier. That’s unlikely to be the real story. There is no indication that the Taliban, who have refused to accept a ceasefire during the negotiations with the United States, had agreed to the meeting. As Barney Rubin, who knows Afghanistan as well as any American, put it on Twitter:

My tentative suggestions: whatever just happened, it’s about Trump, not Afghanistan. He wanted a photo op and a high-ratings TV show, and when it didn’t work out, he canceled it.

There are a few lessons here:

1. A ceasefire during negotiations is important. I doubt it was wise to talk with the Taliban without one.
2. Trump’s need for personal involvement is a hindrance, not a help to negotiations. We’ve seen this in both Afghanistan and North Korea.
3. If the Taliban will agree, as Kim Jong-un did, Trump may turn the meeting on again as suddenly as he turned it off.
4. Trump has repeatedly telegraphed his desperate political need to remove a big slice of US troops from Afghanistan before the US election. The Taliban need do nothing to get a part of what they want.
5. In the end, it’s all about TV for Trump. He doesn’t give a hoot about Afghanistan or the US soldiers killed there.

The guy at real risk these days is Afghanistan President Ghani. The Americans were about to conclude an agreement with the Taliban from which he was excluded and after which he was expected to reach some sort of powersharing agreement with them. Collapse of the negotiations may make that unnecessary, but the US withdrawal is likely to take place anyway. Ghani needs to figure out how he can survive in a military situation that is already tilting heavily against him.

Trump is a master of creating impressions that are far from reality and sticking with them despite the facts. His “cancellation” of a non-existent meeting is a fine example, much more credible than his prediction of Dorian’s storm track. But every example of this showmanship undermines US credibility abroad, even if 40% of the American people seem to be ready to swallow the charade.