AFP
Washington, Sept. 10 : Stunning the world by saying he was canceling secret talks with the Taliban, President Donald Trump is again displaying his trademark unpredictability -- at the cost, critics say, of weakening US credibility.
After his three made-for-television summits with North Korean strongman Kim Jong Un, and as he voices openness to meeting Iran's leadership, Trump showed like never before that he is eager to talk to US adversaries by inviting the Taliban, the Islamist militants who have been fighting US troops for nearly two decades in Afghanistan.
But in revealing the bombshell, Trump had a dual surprise -- the talks focused on a US troop withdrawal, which were to be held at the Camp David presidential retreat on Sunday, were off. He pointed to the Taliban's killing of a US soldier on Thursday in a bombing in Kabul, the latest in a string of deadly attacks.
Aaron David Miller, a longtime presidential aide who helped arrange the ultimately unsuccessful Israeli-Palestinian-US summit at Camp David in 2000, believed that Trump was trying to put the brakes on a bad deal -- and, as usual, to put himself in the middle.
"This clearly plays to the president's instincts and his need to be at the center of attention," said Miller, now a distinguished scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars.
He questioned why the president -- not a special envoy or secretary of state -- would lead negotiations and why they would take place at Camp David, where a 1978 summit brought peace between Israel and Egypt.
"It looks bad symbolically, and practically. Look at the result now. The president has suspended any negotiations with the Taliban," he said.
"He appears to have made the situation worse," he said, branding Trump's approach "the summit of the vanities."
Both the Trump administration and the Taliban have however kept the door open to future talks.
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