The foreign policy crisis on Joe Biden’s doorstep (Opinion)

Editor’s Note: Peter Bergen is CNN’s national security analyst, a vice president at New America and a professor of practice at Arizona State University. Peter Bergen CNN The meeting with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and Chairman of Afghanistan’s High Council for National Reconciliation Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, comes after a report by the US Congressional Research Service released earlier this month that concluded, “By many measures, the Taliban are in a stronger military position now than at any point since 2001.” In the past days, the Taliban have launched a major offensive in northern Afghanistan far from their traditional strongholds in the south and east of the country. The Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a Washington-based think tank, assesses that the Taliban now control 25 per cent of the Afghan population, while the government controls 40 per cent of the population, and just over a third of Afghans live in regions that are contested between the Taliban and the government The Taliban have seized 50 of the country’s 370 districts since May, according to the United Nations. This has been, to put it charitably, a charade, according to the United Nations, which reported just this month that the two groups remain “closely aligned and show no signs of breaking ties.” The UN report notes that Taliban-al Qaeda ties have actually “grown deeper.” Meanwhile, US presidents going back to Barack Obama have consistently said the United States is leaving Afghanistan, but in the end, Obama left 8,400 troops when he completed his second term. Turkey has long secured the key airport as part of its NATO duties and without security forces at the airport the United States and other nations will likely have to end their diplomatic presence as will international aid organizations, which would be in no one’s interests, including the Taliban who understand how dependent Afghanistan is on international support.