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Who's Afraid of the Taliban? with Ahmed-Waleed Kakar

The Thinking Muslim

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The Importance of Legitimacy in the Afghan Conflict

Even Barack Obama, by the end of it, came to the conclusion that this was an unwinnable conflict. Why did it take so long for them to extricate themselves from Afghanistan? I think ultimately it comes down to legitimacy. The American installed government just had very little legitimacy amongst ordinary Afghans. Trump was just a lot less sensitive to any reputational risk than Obama ever was.

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