The Trump Administration and the NATO crowd in Washington and Brussels seem to have different policies towards the U.S./NATO presence in Afghanistan. In an interview with Politico posted yesterday, National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien said that if the Taliban don’t live up to their obligations as part of the peace deal, “they understand there will be strong and swift response from the United States, but for now this is what they’ve agreed to.” He declared that the U.S. hasn’t had a combat death in Afghanistan since the deal was signed. Asked about the dispute with the Pentagon over how many troops to withdraw and how quickly, he said: “The military’s not a separate branch of government” and “they don’t have an Afghanistan policy that’s different from the administration’s policy.”
“The President is the Commander in Chief, and he has a policy on Afghanistan,” he said.
