 Good afternoon. Thank you for joining us today as we discuss Afghanistan in light of President Trump's newly announced strategy for the future of the country in terms of where we land and stand in the more immediate future and then long term. Here to join us our discussion today is Yanni Cascinos, John Dempsey and Peter Bergen. I'll give a quick intro and then we'll start with opening remarks from each from there. Yanni Cascinos is a senior fellow here at New America with the International Security Program and he's been based in Afghanistan for the past several years. He is the CEO of Hoplite Group, a company focused on sustainable and innovative solutions to complex problems in the most challenging environments and harshest conditions. Next to him is John Dempsey. He's a fellow here with New America as well and the International Security Program and he's a former senior advisor to Ambassador Richard Holbrook and his successors in the State Department's Office of the Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan where he oversaw US government rule of law and election policies in the region from 2009 to 2016. And to his left is Peter Bergen, Vice President here at New America and Director of both the International Security Program and the fellow's program. So thank you for joining us today. Actually the four of us sat on the stage on June 9th and we had not yet had a strategy announced for the future of Afghanistan. There was no US ambassador nominated even at that time and so much has changed since then. There's been at least some official announcements on both fronts and so why don't we just start with opening remarks from each of you to provide your points of reflection on President Trump's speech on the 21st and the strategy and then we'll have some follow-up questions from there. Yanni, do you want to get us started? Yes, absolutely. Thank you again. Obviously for being here. Thank you for coming. It's Friday. We tend to have these on Friday just before the weekend. So these are the true dedicated professionals that actually show up to these things. So I'll open up just like we did last time with just some initial thoughts, you know, the perspective but and I'm sure that John and Peter, you'll add yours but it's really important that we get the questions and the reflections afterwards. I think that's the best part of the discussion. So I'll keep my comments very short. The two words, you know, or the two bookends that we heard during the speech that I think are important to distinguish are that somehow some way this is much different than the 2009 announcement and campaign and that there's a distinct difference as to what is happening today and forward versus what was happening then and until now. There's also an argument that is made that we are not doing nation building. We're doing, you know, the killing of terrorists and pursuing it with a limited objective. I like to think that when a president stands up and says something like that, we need to understand that he has to lay out a foundational argument but there's a lot of room that needs to be filled in in those sentences afterwards by a lot of the professionals that are going to develop the strategy. So rather than zero in on those key things that he said and say right, wrong, left, right, I like to focus in on what I think needs to be, you know, identified post this speech and by speaking to that I'll say that I think the arguments that we're talking are slightly dated. I think we're past the concepts that are being described in that speech. So what I think we need to do as, you know, academics, consultants, assistants, however you want to think of us or describe us, to the national security apparatus is to actually speak to some of the outdated aspects of it. For example, nation building has been a term that's been used to identify what we're doing in Afghanistan but the reality is that the Afghans are going to build their country. In fact, as recent as a few weeks ago, the chief executive Abdullah mentioned, you know, post the President Trump speech that it's up to the Afghans to build Afghanistan. So we're not necessarily going to build it and let's be frank about it. We have not been very successful in dumping money into a problem set, thinking that it's going to solve the challenges and we haven't been doing so well. $70 plus million dollars thrown at a customs problem set that, you know, quite frankly didn't go anywhere. Hundreds of millions of dollars in schools that don't have teachers or have fallen apart. Roads to nowhere, health issues and programs in Afghanistan and today, if my friend wants to go and have a checkup, they have to fly to New Delhi. You know, it's not something that you can do there. You buy medicine and you don't know if it's a 70 percent medicine or 30 percent medicine, you know, in Kabul and God forbid you try to get it out in the provinces. So the building part we've not been so good at. So I would hope that the Afghans do that part. The killing part, well, you know, we've been killing terrorists for a long time and it's not necessarily been very effective. I mean, we've killed some and had some impact, but we didn't kill, you know, many terrorists in Afghanistan until about 2006, 2007. You know, we killed them in 2001 to 2002, but then we took a big old break and allowed a lot of things to go wrong. So once we started killing them inside, I think we just, you know, started killing them by the bushel and a lot of not necessarily terrorists got killed in the mix and it's created some bigger problems in the aftermath. So the precision of these targeting, you know, enterprises needs to be seriously considered. But again, the reason why I think this is dated is because we've spent an enormous amount of time and effort trying to build the security forces of Afghanistan who should be doing the killing or who should be doing the work in that. So both nation building, in my humble opinion, and I would advise the president, and the killing of terrorists needs to be something that is done by the Afghans with our help in both cases, but it needs to be done with the Afghans. Or otherwise, you end up with something bad that happens, like, you know, a leaflet drop, let's just say out of nowhere, a few days ago that is so atrociously bad that, you know, it actually does more harm than good. And it's one of those, you score your own goal, you know, and that's not good. So the point that I'll try to make throughout this conversation, and I hope I stay on point, is that the Afghans need to do what we're asking them to do. So in effect, it's not a bookend solution of nation building and killing terrorists. It's an entirely same screen that says strengthening Afghanistan, strengthening our allies. We tend to have a very enemy focused strategy instead of an ally focused strategy. And the ally focused strategy is, I think, the winning solution here. Strengthening Afghanistan rather than building it or killing it is really the right answer in my humble opinion. The last thing is conditions-based. Again, I won't argue whether that's been done before or not. I mean, I think anybody who's focused on Afghanistan can formulate their own opinion, but I would say that if it's condition-based, we have some timelines and milestones that we need to set to achieve those conditions. Whatever those may be, and we haven't really identified them, 2019 is supposed to be a presidential election in Afghanistan, 2018-ish may be a parliamentary election. We need to, you know, I'm a military planner by trade. You know, that's what I did for a living for a long time. So it's kind of hard to get out of the habit that we need to plan backwards from the objective. So if 2019 is this or 2022 is your objective, you got to have certain things that get you, you know, to, I mean, you can't show up to the gate at the airport. You kind of have to consider, I have to order Uber and I have to go to this and I have to get there. And I have to, you know, so getting to the airplane is a process. So with that, I'll pause there. I hope the questions come, but over to you. Thanks for having me and coming out on a Friday. Yanni raised a lot of the same things I was going to as well. And so I'll try to keep this quick. You did this to me last time. Everything I have. Yeah, I'm just going to lift from what you just said. But I'll try to be brief because I know it's, we don't have a lot of time today and there's probably a lot of questions from you. So a few quick thoughts on the strategy. I think President Trump, the speech he gave outlining the new strategy to South Asia had some strong points. But it also raised some serious concerns and questions. And let me say that in subsequent conversations I've had since he gave that speech with senior U.S. officials who are involved in the interagency discussions over the last few months and who are also involved in helping to craft the speech. Many of the questions and concerns that I had after listening to the president have been pretty well addressed and some things have been helpfully clarified. So overall, I mean, taking those conversations together with the speech, I think the policy process seems to have worked pretty well and that we're potentially on track now for a stronger approach to Afghanistan than we have been. And that we are at a moment of great opportunity. But there are, as always, a number of key challenges that we're still going to face going forward. On the upside, as Yanni alluded to, I mean, I think the decision to move to a conditions-based approach from a time-bound one is very welcome. And certainly the Afghans themselves were over the moon with the president's speech and his assertions that we will win and we're here for victory. And even President Ghani and Chief Executive Abdullah were embracing and laughing together after the speech in a rare moment of unity, it seemed. I've heard some people argue, well, it's not really a shift from President Obama. He had already reversed his drawdown decision and left the troops in there to allow the next president to make a decision on the approach going forward. So President Obama himself had looked at conditions on the ground and shifted his own position, which is accurate. But that was quite late in his administration. And I think there's been a sense that Obama never really believed in the mission and in the effort in Afghanistan that he wanted an escape hatch from the moment he announced the surge in 2009 when he simultaneously announced the drawdown plans. And I think he only begrudgingly went along with slowing the drawdown pace and focused overwhelmingly on troop numbers as opposed to a broader strategy. I also think President Trump was sincere when he said his instinct was just to wrap it up and go home. And I found him uncharacteristically humble when he noted how sitting behind the desk in the Oval Office actually puts a burden of responsibility on someone that you just can't fathom until you're actually sitting there. And as a result, after a very deliberative process that I think went quite well, and wasn't rushed by any means, he came to realize that the consequences of a hasty withdrawal were both predictable and unacceptable. And it could be catastrophic. And I think he's right on that. And he was right to make that decision and to reverse the position he would have had going forward. Where I was more concerned was that he never really defined what the conditions on the ground are before we decide the job is done and that we can actually go home. And so that therefore, you know, that allows for without knowing what the objective is and how we define victory when he says we will win. It allows for, you know, constantly moving of goalposts that are never defined in the first place. So how does he define victory? I mean, the speech overall was quite bellicose. He talked about crushing the enemy. He talked about obliterating terrorists, which had no doubt had inspired people in Afghanistan and particularly in the Afghan security forces who've been bearing the brunt of the war over, you know, the last few years. But aside from some tactical changes to the military's rules of engagement, I'm not sure how adding a few thousand more US troops is going to make a significant difference that's going to lead to some sort of military victory in Afghanistan when we couldn't win with 140,000 troops there. I mean, I know that the, the indefinite duration of our commitment, I think is a significant step in the right direction. But I'm not sure that having a few thousand more troops on top of what we have now, and expanded authorities to attack the enemy is going to bring about a fundamental shift, but it might buy some time and it might tilt the balance a bit more in our favor so that we can look to other outcomes that will be sustainable. And similarly, as Yanni also talked about on the remarks on no nation building, I think it's pretty clear why he said that politically. You know, he's playing to his base that thinks we should be building the nation here at home and building infrastructure here and why are we spending billions of dollars in Afghanistan on roads and bridges and, you know, capacity building and ministries when we have serious problems here in the United States. But again, it made me concerned that he was therefore going to turn his back on our civilian efforts and to try to, to focus on a military solution to the problem. But without a functioning state and state institutions and governing bodies and ministries that were able to provide basic services to the Afghan people, not just in Kabul, but out in the provinces, people will probably not have much faith in the government. It won't have a lot of support. And particularly if corruption remains high, I think that the Afghan people are not going to feel that this the state represents them and their interests. And so therefore, if we were to leave, I don't know that there'd be a state that would be able to function for very long before the Taliban were able to start making inroads again, particularly if the Pakistan problem hasn't been addressed. And it also leaves open the question of the potential for for terrorists to come back in and to ungoverned spaces. So I think focusing on the governance issue is going to remain a key. But also in subsequent conversations after the speech I had with senior officials, I've been assured that by no nation building, he meant no nation building for a nation building sake that we're not here for charity to because the Afghan people need assistance that this is in America's national security interest. And so the amount of money we committed at Brussels last year on civilian assistance, we're committed to provide, we're committed to continue to build state institutions. And but rather than calling it nation building, they want to call it reform of state governing institutions. I think the name is irrelevant, but that there has to be a focus simultaneous to the military effort to build up the state. And then the final points I'd have are actually more questions. And one is what are we doing on Pakistan? There was a lot of talk about pressuring Pakistan, encouraging Pakistan to do the right thing about terrorists. We've done a lot of this in the past, had these discussions many times over the years, but really where's our leverage? I mean, we do have security assistance we can cut certainly or put on hold, put more conditions on them. But we also need the lines of communication through Pakistan if we're going to be able to supply our military in Afghanistan. And we're not going to bring it through Iran for obvious reasons. Doesn't seem like we're going to be able to bring it through Russia and Central Asia either these days. So and we can't airlift everything. So without Pakistan, allowing those lines of communication to remain open, we're sort of stuck relying on them for certain things. Also, they have a relationship with China. Clearly, the Chinese have been promising billions of dollars in investment in the coming years, tens of billions. So even if we were to withhold a few hundred thousand or few hundred million dollars of security assistance, I'm not sure that it's going to make much of a difference. And what was the point of signaling a greater Indian involvement and the need for that at the same time, we're saying Pakistan needs to change its behavior. It seems like the focus on India, even if that's what we want, is counterproductive. On the peace process, there was a mention that someday there may be room to have an effective peace process, but only after an effective military approach has had time to work. But I don't know how we'll define what is effective or what he means by someday. And in the meantime, do we pursue avenues to try to keep peace processes alive? Or does the administration think that a willingness to put talks aside and focus on a military solution will increase our leverage with the Taliban and Pakistan? Peace processes take a long time. So rather than taking steps, I think like shutting down the Doha office, we might consider steps like improving channels of communication, private outreach, et cetera, but without seeming like we're desperate for a peace deal. Like I think we sometimes seem to in the past. The strategy has been called the South Asia strategy, which I think is a misnomer. This is about Afghanistan. It's not about broader issues in South Asia like India, Pakistan relations, Pakistan nuke concerns that we have not to mention other issues in other parts of South Asia. It's an Afghanistan strategy that involves key partners in South Asia, but it also involves key partners around the world like China, Russia and Iran in the region, who without them being on board, we're not going to have sustainable peace and stability in Afghanistan. So I think we need to make sure that the administration looks at this from a regional perspective, not just from the India pack. And then finally, as Yanni mentioned, the 2019 elections are just around the corner. And I think that's the big elephant in the room, because I don't think we'll make sufficient military inroads or inroads on a peace process before those elections take place. But if those elections go poorly, like they did in 2014, there's a potential for real fracturing and a collapse of the system. I mean, the good thing about the United States is we do learn from our mistakes. And we've made three mistakes that truly policy makers are aware of. In 1989, we closed our embassy in Afghanistan. He rode out a to one of the poorest countries in the world and were blind as the Taliban. During the civil war, the rise of the Taliban, al-Qaeda are coming in. There's a reason that our initial response to the 9 11 was, you know, was readily in kind of incompetent. We had very little knowledge except for the agency. And so that would turn out to be a mistake. Then we made another form of this mistake in O2, as Yanni sort of gestured to, which is basically we kind of turned off Afghanistan and turned on the Iraq channel. And then 2011, we made another version of this mistake when we got out of Iraq. And we know the history that follows. And because the United States doesn't think of itself as an empire, we're very uncomfortable with actually the fact that we do have empire like arrangements. And so, you know, I'm one of them is in Afghanistan, which is, as I already know, one of the poorest countries in the world, and which we do have a national security interest in making sure it's a semi stable Central Asian state that isn't the host to a wide variety of terrorist groups, some of which are planning to attack us. And so, you know, as John said, you know, this is the first time I can recall that President Trump said, yeah, I was actually wrong about something and people got me to change my mind. I mean, he's never said that as far as I can tell in his 71 years of life. I mean, it would be an interesting question to kind of go back and look. So here's the and he's publicly admitting it. He doesn't have to. And so why did he publicly admit that? I think you're probably, I think many of us in the room would kind of agree that he did the math. And there's various ways the math looks like. So let's do the thought experiment where he did pull that. Afghanistan, the Taliban took Kunduz. And then maybe they took a couple of other major cities. And ISIS said, hey, you know, we're losing in Syria and Iraq. But, you know, Afghanistan, after all, is where we came from originally. And this look now looking pretty hospitable place for us to go back to. And, you know, I'll try to, you know, in Syria says, wow, there's really an opportunity. After all, we're doing pretty well in Syria. Let's also go back and do pretty well on Afghanistan. And then five years down the road, there's a, well, let's say three years down the road, there's an attack in the United States that's somehow traceable to one of these groups. And the political cost of this would be just enormous. And of course, and then also, it would be very detrimental to our national security interests. So it's very obvious how he came to this speech. Now, what is the substance of this speech? The substance of this speech, I think, could have been delivered by Hillary Clinton, actually, who, after all, before 9 11 was publicly talking about the Taliban and their terrible record with human rights. There was not a great deal of, as Yanani and John have said, there was not, there was very little detail in the speech. So when I was listening to it, I was like, okay, what is actually the news? So the news was three things. It was, one, we are not leaving and there are no withdrawal data. And obviously, that is a big change, really, from the Obama administration. Because, as John pointed out, it was always about trying to leave. And so to me, that was enormously helpful. Because it's, we're not going to leave Afghanistan. So even to say, look, it makes no sense to say something publicly, even if it were true. And it isn't true. We're not going to leave Afghanistan anyway, for all the reasons I've laid out, because it makes no sense. And then to say it publicly, what's the point? I mean, even if you plan to leave, why would you say that? Because you're undercutting anything that you're doing. So it may no sense for President Obama to say these things on December 1, 2009. It was at West Point when he gave the speech. It was too clever by half. It didn't work as counterproductive. So here we are in a different phase where there is no date certain. And after all, there is a strategic partnership agreement that I'm sure John was involved in negotiating till 2024. So we already have the kind of infrastructure for this in place. So that was the first piece of news. The second piece of news was we're going to get heavy with Pakistan. And I was like, whenever I hear that, I'm like, okay, we've been telling the Pakistanis the same thing for 15 years. And how do you operation like that? And after all, they did launch a very big operation in north Waziristan, which basically, you know, they lost a lot of people. And it's something we've been demanding for a long time. So the message, do more, do more to Pakistan. They're very resistant to it. They feel that they've done a lot. How do you get them to do more? What are the actual policy implications of that? What are we going to get them to do? Or what are we going to do to them? And as John Abily pointed out, they have a lot of leverage over us. Because, you know, kind of our airport was the busiest airport in the world at the height of the search. Why was it the busiest airport in the world? Because our planes were flying through Pakistani airspace to land there. So whether it's the air corridor or the land corridor, we need that for the Afghan project to succeed. And, you know, if you're sitting in the Situation Room giving advice about what is, how do we get heavier with the Pakistanis? I mean, there are some things you could do. One of them would be expand the drone campaign outside the tribal region. Well, you know, there might be some real blowbacks against that. We've only taken one strike of the three, you know, many, many hundreds of strikes outside the tribal regions, and that was the one that killed the former leader of the Taliban in Baluchistan. But if you kind of expanded it, I mean, that is one thing you could do. But, you know, there would be some pretty big blowback on the Pakistani air. You might designate some more people and go be more public. But I, you know, I fundamentally, and I did a strong point there, by encouraging, by publicly encouraging the Indians to invest in Afghanistan, which was a third piece of news and the speech, you have really helped the Chinese Pakistani relationship. After all, what is the one country that India is most concerned about? It's, you know, there are two countries, the Indian is the most concerned about Pakistan and China for different reasons. And the signaling and the speech is bound to bring Pakistan and China more closely together. And it's, I think the figure is 54 billion of memory serves that the Chinese, so as you say, like if we withhold 300 million dollars versus 54 billion, it's not a particularly persuasive kind of lever. So I think I'll leave it there. John raised an interesting question. And I will ask him a question, perhaps. So if indeed, I mean, I do think there was a, there's a public signaling about we're going to send three more troops for a longer time. There's a public signaling aspect of that. Then there obviously there is some military advantage. But as John asked the question, well, we had 100,000 there or 2009, if we have 15,000 at the end of this year, you know, what's the difference? I mean, well, one difference could be the Afghan National Army is in better shape than it was in 2009. That would be, and if I was, you know, trying to talk about this publicly with the government official, I'd be saying like, you know, we're not throwing this into a void. I mean, the Afghan National Army is really, you know, taking a lot of casualties is a much more effect. I don't know if this is true or not. I think I suspect it is. It's a more effective fighting force. They, you know, they really need the help. This will be a kind of force multiplier. And that, and that kind of makes it, it's not just several thousand. It's a much bigger thing about using Johnny's time strengthening the Afghan National Army. So it's really, that's a question, not a statement. I mean, what do you think? Or what does Johnny, what do you think? I mean, I'm not a military expert on the Afghan National Security Forces. I think they probably have improved somewhat since 2009. Certain forces significantly, special forces in particular. Their Air Force is going to become much stronger, I think. We've just committed to giving them 150 helicopters. And, and training, I think adding a few thousand forces there by some time. It helps us so that if the crisis erupts in Helmand, like last year, we are able to send Americans down to assist the Afghans on the ground in these districts. And if a crisis erupts in Kunduz and Helmand at the same time, we might actually have the number of people there who'd be able to take on a couple of provincial capital, you know, defenses simultaneously. But it's, I don't think, you know, we're not going to be doing marja operations again. And I'm clearing key terrain districts all across the south and then hoping that we can hold and build them indefinitely. Putting in these troops, I think, helps to motivate the Afghan Security Forces that we have their backs so that could cut attrition. I think it sends a signal to the Taliban in Pakistan that they're not going to win, you know, even though Nicholson describes it as a stalemate. It's sort of been a stalemate that the Taliban have had in their direction over the last few years as they've gained more and more territory. So while we're there to help the Afghans prevent a catastrophic failure militarily, we have to simultaneously be doing everything we can to ensure that there's some sort of political settlement to this that ultimately ends the conflict. I think so. Actually, no, I know so. I've seen it mature. I've seen it become a much more formidable force from my first experience in Afghanistan in 2005 to now. I mean, it's not even the same country in terms of the security apparatus that is in place. But what I worry about is the solutions that we are proposing are sort of similar to previous solutions. It's just that we're doubling down on it. You know, we're putting more, you know, seven billion dollars worth of additional Air Force hardware is coming over there. That's okay. And in plain terms, you say more is better. Okay. So that's good. But I'm more of a detailed guy. So I'd want to see where that seven billion dollars, how it's used, what's the planning, you know, we can say that we're going to send another 6000 Humvees over there. But if the 6000 Humvees are going to turn into 4,000 that go to the Taliban because somebody dropped their weapons and they took over their base, you know, that that that is not a good plan. So I'm not so focused on the hardware, although it is a good thing, you know, quality, you know, quantity has a quality of its own kind of thing. But I'm more concerned with with making sure that we have the right mechanisms in place. For example, we say we're going to give you some more advisors because we're going to increase the number of special forces in Afghanistan, they are Afghan commandos. We're taking it from a brigade to a core. So we're going to have multiple brigades. Well, that doesn't happen overnight. That that takes time, that that takes both the logistics footprint that we tend to forget, you know, and the background support, not just the guys with guns, it takes a lot more helicopters, it takes a lot more support mechanisms. So I'm more, you know, worried about the detail now. And I think now that we have a little bit more time, maybe we can put those details together. But what I what I have, what I what I warn people against is that, you know, even in our own vernacular, special forces are not created overnight after emergencies happen. So please don't assume that these are things that will be instantaneous, or that we won't have to make adjustments for them. But they're a good start. And that's that's where about where I am. That's where we are today. We're in a triage situation. I mean, this play the whole thing was going down the tubes, right? I mean, so in sense, talking about nation building is, of course, it was totally ridiculous because that's not the problem. The problem now is trying to stabilize. What is probably the worst situation since 9 11? Is that a reasonable diagnosis? For Afghanistan? Absolutely. Look, I mean, the entire force that we're talking about even the special forces, you're using them as a 9 11 force. I mean, not the 9 11, you're talking about the 9 11 that the call comes, Kunduz is falling, send in a special forces, you know, battalion. Sorry, Paul. There is mass atrocities against the Hazaras. There's the, you know, you know, mass graves, send in the special forces. Governor Prata, maybe, you know, having a problem up there with General Dostom coming back, let's, let's flex the muscles, you know, let's send some special force. I mean, it's this, this sort of thing that happens that, that, that we use it. But it's, you know, what about the other 320,000 people in the Afghan security apparatus? What about them? What about the fact that when people enter Kabul, they enter Kabul and the counter terrorism operations that take place are reactive in nature? Okay, what about going after them in the Kabul surroundings preemptively? Those, those getting to those levels where they're reacting in a, in a much more cohesive and, and, and more comprehensive approach. That's where we need to do. And that takes time. The maturation of a force is not overnight. Even, you know, in our own army, I know you guys have probably heard that there is a consideration of creating counterinsurgency or low conflict advisory brigades. Well, you know, we've been fighting a counterinsurgency fight for 16 years, and it's going to take years for those advisory brigades to come online. So for us to think that we're just going to be able to, you know, recreate these things in an austere environment with, you know, an ongoing war is very difficult to swallow. I want to be mindful of time and just making sure there's some time, you know, just for the Q and A, just to get to the audience questions before, I'm sure I know Peter and I have some more follow questions from there. But David, yeah, just great for the, you too. Yeah. So I'm David Wood. I'm a fellow here at the Future of War program. I want to ask you what we know about the Taliban, pardon me, about the Taliban, because my impression is that it's slowly been transforming from a sort of a grassroots guerrilla organization into one man primarily by foreign fighters. If that's the case, then the kind of thing that had some chance of working some years ago, like the village stability operation, sort of grassroots stabilization efforts don't really matter. If this is a foreign army that we're fighting, then, well, I guess the question is, is this a foreign army we're fighting? And if so, do those kinds of stabilization efforts really make sense anymore? I'll take a start. David, it's not, it's not. I mean, let's just stop there. It's not a foreign army. Does they have some foreign mercenaries of sorts? Absolutely. Does it have some elements of it that are marriage of convenience and they can, you know, the Islamic movement of Uzbekistan has, you know, fighters inside of Afghanistan, but, you know, they've been there for multiple decades. And quite frankly, they need a home because they, there are an enclave inside. And they will fight for whoever it is, you know, they'll fight for the Taliban, they fought for the Pakistani Taliban, they blew up airports in Pakistan, and then they come back and they've been bulldozed back into Afghanistan. But all in all, it's a, it's an Afghan movement where I think some people are mistaking the movement as a purely Pashtun movement. It is not. There are segments of the country that it is purely Pashtun, but there are segments in the north that you have Uzbek, Tajik, Hazara, Taliban. And to not think that is to ignore that it is a localized movement. It's just that the localities dictate the flavor. Even in some localities, like in Kunduz, for example, you have Taliban that are of the Pashtuns of old, you know, and you have the newly, the Kandahari Pashtuns almost, you know, that were replaced in that part of the country. So even inside that, it's not a homogenous, but there's still a flavor of locality. So it is, it is a local movement. Pakistan is a different country. They may not recognize the Duran line, but the, I mean, how Pakistani, the leadership, I mean, were located in Pakistan or what is the influence? Because I always, I'm always very skeptical of either Afghans or Americans who spend a lot of time in Afghanistan, say all our problems are because of Pakistan, which is a very common thing. I don't agree with that. I mean, I, I, there are some specific aspects that are undeniable. Mullah Musur had a Pakistani passport. Right. Okay. You know, when, when we are died and across, you know, when, when, when the, when the consultations on who the next leader is going to be you know, those were in Quetta and they were videotape. They were alive. You know, these are not deniable issues. You know, Pakistanis have been clear about the fact that they nurtured this movement that we should have reconciled in 2001 to and we didn't. But, you know, we, we, they nurture them back to health. They moved them out there. So they're there, but in my opinion, again, but I think a lot of folks would agree that the Taliban cannot, will not do something that they don't want to do. That is the notion that we somehow think that the Pakistanis are going to change the Taliban's, you know, sort of mentality or thinking because they just said so. And even when they built them back up in 2002 onward, they built them back up because they wanted to be built back up. They didn't force them to do it. This wasn't a concentration camp that they said, you need to become this. They actually wanted to. So they can nudge them in the direction that they generally want to go towards. So I don't want to put too much emphasis on the Pakistanis, but Pakistan has influence. It's undeniable. It's just that I think we overplay their influence. What is Pakistanis, you know, impact inside of Afghanistan? Sorry, John, but just trying to answer, is that the Pakistanis would say that you guys are supporting PPP inside of Afghanistan. They're going to say that the leadership of PPP is actually in Koonama. You know, so they they flip the safe haven card that we play on them and they say, no, but the safe haven is on on your side. And that's not untrue. There is some element of truth to it, but ungoverned space is ungoverned space. Right. Okay, I mean, that's not to say that the Afghan government is in control of Nur-I-San, Koonar and portions of, you know, Balochistan and all that stuff. I mean, or, or, or Badaqshan, sorry. So there are those things. There's the element of ISIS, you know, those are heavily Pakistani influenced elements. Some of them are flipped. But now you have Afghan Taliban who have flipped into the ISIS mode. So the longer it remains, the more it changes and manifests into something different. I think sanctuary in Pakistan is one of the main, if not the main driver of the conflict in Afghanistan. And if that was to go away, then the six, then our strategy is more likely to be successful in Afghanistan and helping to both defeat the Taliban and or induce them to come to negotiation. But when they have that safe haven across the border, and it may be safe because Pakistan gives it to them or it may be safe because it's ungoverned space, as Yanni said. And and they're able to be untouchable there. We have to do something about their ability to go to Pakistan and be relatively safe. What does that look like? I mean, building a real wall along the 1500 mile border or, or, you know, or using ground strikes in Quetta, as we've been doing in Raqqa. Or I mean, I think, let's try and think through what does that actually look like? Because I mean, it's certainly, if you look at the academic literature, it's always, if an insurgency has a safe haven, you know, makes a big difference. But I, as far as I can tell, I think we're at the outer limits, you know, maybe of what we can do in Pakistan to affect their behavior. Because they're going to, they have some cars they can play, and they have a rather rich patron, which is about to become the richest country in the world, and they will already be. So I, what is, what is it that we can actually do, accepting that you're, you know, even if you, I think it's debatable if their safe haven went away, the Taliban, I think will continue to be less effective. But let's, let's assume for a minute that that's true. What, what will we do? I think, I mean, Pakistan's main concern in Afghanistan is India. And trying to, and they may be entirely paranoid about India's intentions inside Afghanistan. They may vastly overestimate the amount of assistance, the number of spies, the amount of hardware that India is providing to the Afghans. But nonetheless, their view is that this is what India is trying to do. And, you know, we can try to disavuse them of that notion. We've been unsuccessful to date. I think there, we should continue as we try to build and work with the Afghans to get India to take certain steps that might make Pakistan feel that it's not the threat that it is, for example, like not encouraging India to provide helicopters to the Afghan National Army. But that's the running of all of the Afghan help from India. Yes, but I think that, you know, then we have to make tough choices and perhaps we get somebody else to provide that type of assistance if the Afghans really need it. Or we get the Indians to take some sort of steps that will assure them that any assistance that they're providing is not to help build airstrips in, you know, Takhar province that are going to be used to bomb SWAT, but that but that they're actually building schools or they're building things that are going to be less of a threat to Pakistan. I'm not saying that this is going to be a game changer, but I think it's the sort of competence building measure that you need to put in place to start to make Pakistan feel, okay, you know, we can not feel that we need to tell about as a strategic asset like we once did. We can start to maybe take some steps. And if they don't work, we can always revert back to our old ways. But let's see if we start to put some pressure on the Taliban in Quetta or other parts of Balochistan, what impact that has. But I don't think we've done that sufficiently thus far. One one one side note. Obviously, I do the floor. We we tend to over focus on military aspects of this. And when that's sort of all of our tendencies, but with seven billion dollars worth of new aircraft coming in, we don't need Indian helicopters. Number one, number two, with China spending $4.9 billion a year on building up the China Pakistan economic corridor. I think that we'd be better off not arguing so much about what Pakistan can do on a military front towards the Taliban. And we would be better off arguing, how do we actually get Mezinak, the copper mind in Logar, which was had gone to the Chinese to actually have, you know, the railroad you guys promised as part of the bidding process to go south towards water or or or Karachi, you know, literally riding the wave from the China Pakistan economic corridor. But to do that, but to do that, you need to have an Afghan Ministry of Mines that doesn't have tumbleweeds going through it because it doesn't have the necessary capacity to actually accomplish the contracting associated with a Mezinak, you know, enterprise. So we need to focus a lot more on, you know, the what is the synergy and the possibility of convergence rather than keep on focusing on what's what are the items of divergence, like such as, you know, the, I mean, the safe haven. We need to tackle that. I agree with you 100 percent, but we don't need to over focus on on that without any other synergistic aspect. Question in the back from and the UNSS. I wondered if anybody on the panel could comment on what you see Russia up to in Afghanistan? I mean, I think Russia looks at Afghanistan as part of its overall global strategy and foreign policy and so it's one piece of the much larger puzzle in its, you know, sort of recent tensions that there have been between Russia and NATO and the US, etc. If you look at it from the lens of simply the Afghanistan picture, I think partly it was the uncertainty as to what the United States was going to do going forward. Were we going to leave or were we going to commit to that country? And there was a real fear that perhaps fear, I shouldn't say fear, but there was a real thought that we are actually going to leave and that ISIS is becoming a legitimate threat in Afghanistan as they lose the ability to stay in Syria and Iraq and that that could potentially pose a threat to Russia as radical ISIS ideology spreads through Central Asia towards Russia and so they started to hedge their bets that the United States was not going to stick around and that security was going to worsen and ISIS was going to have greater ability to make a foothold in Afghanistan and so therefore the enemy, if your enemy is your friend and we're actually going to start supporting the Taliban which seems odd given the history but I think that they took that threat seriously. There's a question as to how much assistance they actually provided to the Taliban. I mean I've not seen any serious reports that show that they've been providing serious hardware and military assistance to them but certainly I think that they've had dialogue with Taliban leadership and have been exploring ways that they can help to work together to contain ISIS. The last leader that was killed, the last Taliban leader that was killed was killed coming back from Iran and although I obviously don't have the access to know what he was actually doing in Iran the rumors are that he was coordinating some kind of support from Iran towards the Taliban. Iran has a problem obviously the exact description that John pointed out that ISIS is a problem. They don't want it to move away from Afghanistan and grow so they'll give some support to the Taliban, same with Russia. Both of them get the benefit of giving the US a black eye in Afghanistan and the added bonus of perhaps letting them fight it out in Afghanistan and not have the cancer grow. So I agree. In the front why don't we start with you and then we'll go to the studio. I'm trying to under I'd like to dig a little bit deeper on what Peter raised which was what makes this different. Why is this moment distinct so that this new or this approach actually has some chance of success. It seems like all of the dynamics of this conflict remain the same as they have for the past 16 years. My my sense is that you're never I mean with Pakistan we're just not we're never going to be we're not going to be able to change their calculus. We have tried for years and have not been able to do that. You still have a problem with the political crisis at the heart of this conflict. You have weakness of NSF despite pouring billions every single year into this force since 2008. I mean every element remains the same of this conflict and I'm trying to understand what makes this moment distinct that increases the chance of success with adding a few thousand troops. It just it seems like a complete mismatch. So if we could just dig a little bit deeper on that. I mean the problem is as you said I mean the basic kind of if you think about as Rubik's Cube I think about Syria as a Rubik's Cube where like there are so many different players and you can like climb changes in every way but you're going to disadvantage some of the key players. I think this is a less complicated Rubik's Cube than Afghanistan and Pakistan but it's still very complicated because you move pieces this way it's going to piss off the Russians or the Indians or the Pakistanis or the Afghans or the Americans. I mean there's no really good solution to this. I mean a radical solution very unlikely would be a Kashmir repeat deal because then what John referred to would kind of dissipate and the Kashmir repeat deal being essentially a proxy for a rapprochement between Pakistan and India that's not even on the table because I mean it seems so unlikely. Another approach would be the Afghan government recognizing the ground line which after all might go some way to kind of actually a rapprochement between Afghanistan and Pakistan from a political point of view that would be very difficult to do. So the real solutions are almost impossible. The underlying issues are pretty much the same as they've been you've been following this for as long as anybody else and this conversation could have happened in 2002, 2003 and while the details of the troop size and the amount of commitment will be different the central problems will all be the same. And so that's a very disappointing place to be but that is where we are. And so then if you're a government official your response to that is okay what is the least bad solution to this problem? Not the actual you know what is politically doable and the American public is certainly not looking for a giant insertion of troops and that probably would be counterproductive. And so you kind of can't you end up with this solution which is not that different but is probably the best available solution given the real world problems and that's a very unsatisfactory answer and you certainly can't say that in a speech when you're announcing the new policy. But that's where we are. I mean it's sad but I do think that the policy the big difference was this you know the real big difference was to say we're not going to turn off a light and leave. I mean that and that was very important as John mentioned it's gone over well in Afghanistan you live there you know I think you actually will be interested in drilling down on you know due to what extent they believe that's true or what their reaction was but I you know this is a very hard problem and it's not amenable to and also there are sins of commission and omission in all these things which we made a lot of mistakes on both sides of that and I think hopefully we're somewhat of a learning organization United States. I'll answer one thing I know you're trying to get as many as you can and I part of the problem is that we don't we choose who we want to hold to account but we choose the most difficult possibly element that we could ever hold to account as our primary target for the accounting. So we want to hold the Pakistani to account we want to hold you know the Taliban to account we need to hold the Afghan government to account for the reforms that they promised and a system in achieving those reforms I think that that will go a lot further in establishing a much more stable social state than you know any security achievement that we may have down the road but we choose to bypass that which is the thing that we actually have the most influence on we pay for just about everything we are there we could be embedded with them but we choose to leave that one to the side and tackle these other mythical creatures out there so that I think that that's part of the challenge that we don't we learn from some mistakes but we have blind spots and those blind spots are are the real killers of a strategy. The dynamic hasn't been the same over the last 16 years and in fact like in 2002 the likelihood of a successful outcome was much greater than it is today and there were opportunities missed it's easy to say in hindsight but I think it's become much more complicated I think what's distinct right now is as Peter said we're not going to turn out the lights we're gonna remain committed for at least the foreseeable future we'll see how long that actually lasts I think there is a greater understanding of the importance of engaging the region in this although the speech only focused on Pakistan and India China has a much greater stake right now in stability in Afghanistan and so if we can continue to work with the region on that in a meaningful way there are possibilities I think we see the elections coming up two years from now we've learned from the prior debacles of 2014, 2009 of what not to do at least and we have a little bit of time to potentially help shape the table and by we I don't mean the United States necessarily but people who are able to influence consensus building in Afghanistan as to what the shape of their leadership team should look like so that as opposed to and this is gonna sound rather undemocratic from the rule of law guy but as opposed to trying as hard as you can for a free and fair election in Afghanistan try to get the election sort of endorse an outcome that people have agreed in advance so that we don't have a 51-49 result and massive fraud and no one accepts the outcome as legitimate as opposed to an outcome where people say okay, two thirds of the country wanted this ticket they represent major segments of Afghan society that's the leadership going forward because you're not going to have a peaceful stable resolution to the conflict unless you have a government that Afghans from all walks of life accept even reluctantly and I think we have a new administration here relatively new that's learning and so there's potential to influence them in terms of learning from what we've done in the prior Obama and Bush years and things that we tried in flat tires not to reinvent. We are at one, we have the room for a little bit longer so I wanna be sure to get all the questions so why don't we get the two did you have your question still so we'll start here and then we'll go to the side. Thank you, my name is Firdaus Rahmani I work at the Embassy of Afghanistan back to the question of the Taliban I have a comment and a question for you actually Taliban are kind of coherent organization they have their leaders they have their governance body and mainly they are in Pakistan for example they have Kuytashura they have some other Shura like Peshawar and they have the lead from there the second level is the Taliban who usually travel between Pakistan and Afghanistan and contribute to the chaos and the third level is the firewood of the Taliban who are fighting on the ground against the Afghan national soldiers or army in Afghanistan and bring this chaos so there is a need for political settlement it's not an Afghan war it's like an international and there is a lot of contribution from international terrorist units like ISIS or Daesh or Lashkaratev and others so there is a change in their leadership all the time and there is a change in their strategy so it means it's not only the problem with the Afghan people or the local people in communities the other problem in Afghanistan is that because most of the population is below 25 years old and we should not forget that the younger population in a lot of countries in conflict contribute to the conflict because of poverty or lack of job opportunities employment and a lot of socioeconomic factors so what is the economic solution because America or the US economy was focusing mainly on Pakistan in order to stabilize the region but now that Pakistan is seeking alternative economic power like China is investing in Pakistan over for six million dollars and this is like direct investment or the loan chain so probably Pakistan is not a good option anymore for the US either because they are turning so what's an alternative economic power or a country that can support Afghanistan and stabilize the region because we shouldn't forget that Afghanistan is also a landlocked country we are dependent to Pakistan because of the economic situation and Iran is probably not a good option so what do you think is a good alternative country probably or nation that can support to stabilize the situation? Thank you. I wanted to hear the question your question as well and then sir and then that way we can just kind of the three of you can choose which ones you want to answer and then we'll take the two on that side after New York Times was a photographic essay with the British in 1870 and all the other people since and it makes you ask the question what were the historical conditions in previous eras that prevented people from doing all kinds of different things but getting some kind of control in Afghanistan compared to today why can we six not we but why can these different forces succeed there today when they couldn't in the past for hundreds of years? Great so I mean if you there's a lot of different elements here but whatever you want to address I mean the British occupation of Afghanistan was sort of not like the British occupation of India I mean so I'm very suspicious of the idea of this graveyard of empires and narratives because it's a very superficial kind of understanding of Afghan history the Soviets killed two million Afghans they made six million refugees it was the largest refugee population since World War II and it was a third of the population so the Soviets didn't occupy Afghanistan in the way the British occupied India they destroyed the country I mean one of the reasons we're all sitting around having this discussion is they almost completely obliterated the country so that was one form of occupation obviously that's not a particularly fruitful form the British occupation of Afghanistan was actually as you probably know a rather hands-off affair where Afghanistan kind of had a fair amount of control over its own policies and at the end of the day the British Afghanistan didn't seem like a very promising place to occupy because it didn't have much to make that and of course there was conflict with the Russians where Afghanistan, it's two to both the British and the Russians were Afghanistan to be a buffer state that neither of them fully controlled so we're in a different, I don't think it's that helpful I mean the Afghans I think in general want us, when I say want us when you look at Asia Foundation polling data very large numbers say we want, we understand we need help for our army and police from the international community so that's kind of a different response than the Afghan response to the Soviet occupation of their country or even the British so I don't think history doesn't repeat itself sometimes it rhymes but it isn't I saw the photo spread that you referred to and I thought that's interesting but I didn't say well there's a lot we can learn from these pictures because each of these phases of Afghan history are so different and we wouldn't say for instance wow we should really go back to the mogul invasion of Afghanistan to sort of like try and understand what pointing was like well you know that was you know the mogul invasion really was a success so I didn't think it's tempting to try to like history has much to tell us but some things are just not that analogous and I think the present situation is kind of sufficiently different from the Russian, Soviet invasion or the British which after all was 1500, you know one and a half centuries ago but it's not a terribly helpful useful guy I mean I guess for the Afghan official if you want to maybe just take elements each to respond it's undeniable what you say that you know the leadership resides in Pakistan or at least some elements of the leadership and in some ways we can try to influence that dynamic it's important, it's just that whatever sticks and whatever carrots we've been using have not necessarily worked and I think that we need to rethink how we approach Pakistan I think the notion of using China's economic investment as a lever is important because the Chinese, if you talk to Pakistanis about what is the most crucial enterprise right now in Pakistan, it's CPAC I mean it is absolutely all-encompassing it is the thing that people are focusing in on arguments are which province, what states it's gonna go through so what road is gonna be built associated with this thing so there is something but again, does that mean that we have to engage with Beijing on how to get them to do some things in Peshawar or in Kuwaita I think these are issues that we absolutely need to take hold and to handle much more important than having a conference in the hills of Islamabad with a Taliban it's much more important to have these sort of conversations which don't necessarily need to be in the public view but they need to occur and they need to happen and rather than talking points that we need to all sling at each other in public debates or that make us feel good or make for external consumption we need to achieve some of these results because you're right, Pakistan is complicit in making Afghanistan one of the poorest countries Pakistan is complicit in the war that's going on in Afghanistan but Pakistan has also embraced millions of refugees so it's not always been this negative thing and the fact that Afghans have gotten poor in one the majority of the country over the years but some have gotten richer in other parts that's not necessarily Pakistan's fault again, I agree with you 100% they have a lot to answer for not just to us but to their maker okay, but we also have a lot to answer for right here and I think that we need to concentrate on that Yeah, just on the economic part on Afghanistan I mean, I think it's a highly insecure risky environment in which foreigners are going to invest I think large companies that can afford the risk will potentially go in and try to extract minerals or other natural resources or things if they think they can the Chinese and the Indians have both tried and it hasn't been successful yet I know President Trump in his first call with Ghani after he won the election talked about this and talked about the minerals and the economy and President Ghani was surprised and said in all of my conversations with President Obama over the years, we never talked about the economic potential of Afghanistan it was always about security or can we talk to the Taliban or how many troops are we gonna have there and so I think that this White House is probably going to explore much more than in the past what economic opportunities there are but I think they're gonna run into the same challenges the Chinese and the Indians have faced in terms of helping the Afghan economy grow and getting American companies to actually make the investment Pakistan could take a key step I think that would help the Afghan economy and the Pakistan economy which would be opening the border with India to goods coming out of Afghanistan we helped negotiate the Afghanistan-Pakistan Trends at Trade Agreement back in 2010 I guess which should have allowed for Afghan produced goods industrial goods agricultural products et cetera to go across the border into Pakistan but then onwards to India and to date Pakistan's been unwilling to do that and I think that's problematic and finally I mean on the China thing CPAC is hugely important on the China-Pakistan part of it they have a broader strategy on the One Belt One Road initiative that's looking across Asia presumably they're gonna be looking at Central Asia and how to get Afghanistan into Iran and that opened up so China I think will have a greater interest in looking at economic initiatives and then of course there's the Afghan diaspora who they send a lot of remittances back to Afghanistan but they also often will invest in Afghan enterprises because they know the country better than anyone and they know the risks that there are and how to navigate those There's a final two questions here, Martin and then one more John before I ask my question John the way it came across in the president's speech our involvement with their resources sounded to me at least more like exploitation than it did development saying in effect well we'll be there because there's money to be made there because they've got the resources I don't know if others heard it the same way but I didn't hear it in terms of we're gonna be doing all the things that are necessary to develop the infrastructure and so on that's the building end of it but I like so much about what Yanni said here about it's the Afghans themselves and it's what they are able to put together that is the thing that we have to stress I think so much because I think we all know that the additional troops and so on what it does in effect is it buys time it's essentially what we're doing and an honest speech would have said that we've got to do that because the trajectory of the situation there is such that maybe a small increment here can stabilize it for at least for a while and if we need more we may have to put in more later to stabilize it but what we're doing is we're buying time for you to put your act together and if you can't put your act together you can leave the least impression that we won't be there forever I just but to instead tie our putting the troops in here with the bravado of we're gonna beat we're gonna smash them that I don't think any of us take that seriously but I think what we can take seriously here is that we don't wanna give up on the Afghans at this point when there's still is a possibility here that they can improve the situation economically and security and reconcile among themselves the political leaders they can do all that then maybe they can outlast and ultimately and I'll stop here ultimately I think what's gonna make the difference here is when those Taliban fighters say you know what we think now that time is on the side of the government and not the Taliban that's when we can see a successful outcome I think. I'll take the final question up front and then you guys will have your time to respond and then we'll close up from there yeah. Hi I'm Jack Kropansky on the affiliated my question is what is how closely allied are the Taliban and ISIS and the current day al-Qaeda in the sense that with the new policy if we wanna go after ISIS and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan do we have to fully engage the Taliban militarily or can we just work around them and possibly use that as a way to you know maybe put a wedge between them so that we could politically negotiate with the Taliban eventually but at least in the short term go after ISIS and al-Qaeda. Navadabad showed that al-Qaeda was reaching out and in communication with Mullah Omar's private secretary who was leading the reconciliation efforts when that was happening. So I mean I think that speaks for itself that they have a relatively close relationship despite some scholars who've said otherwise because the documents don't lie I mean that's their internal documents they didn't expect to come see the light of day. Taliban and ISIS are fighting each other al-Qaeda and ISIS are fighting each other and Freud has a very useful expression about the narcissism of minor differences and this is a pretty good example of that. So I, you know, but at the end of the day there's more in common between these groups than not in my view, ideologically. And it was always naive I think to think that al-Qaeda and the Taliban were super distinct and there was no, you know, the Taliban were always just a bunch of misunderstood back woodsmen who kind of, no, I mean the Taliban have never said anything really about what their vision is for Afghan society, so you've got to assume their vision is the same, which is women, no jobs, no education, turn back, turn back to 1399 and that's a clock that looks pretty good to ISIS and al-Qaeda, so they, these groups will sometimes, you know, have internal disagreements about tactics and personalities, but fundamentally I think they're more similarities and differences. Marvin, I had some, you know, feedback to your points if you want to respond and then we'll close out. The speech itself, I didn't remember that part of his speech, somebody actually yesterday referenced exactly what you had said and sounded like he was looking more to exploit rather than go in there to help develop, which is probably true. I think the problem I would have with the way he may be thinking about it, and I'm just trying to glean here, is that, you know, what he said during the campaign, why didn't we take the oil in Iraq and similarly in the speech you probably could have taken away from that remark, you know, if we're gonna go in here and do all of this, then we deserve the minerals, don't give them to the Chinese and forget about fair and open transparent procurement practices, we're gonna get it because we put our men on the line and we deserve it. Whereas if it's just, you know, does he intend to go in there to exploit things for American business interests and American economic interests versus the interest of the Afghans in development, I think that's probably something we face all over the world all the time and that we do go in there for American interests primarily, but there's sometimes these things can be done to mutual interest of both the host country and the investors themselves, but again, the problem would be if he thinks that we, Ghani has to give all the contracts to American multinationals simply because when they're fighting in the Chinese army. I think he would be smart if he did that because he would bind a hell of a lot of American enterprises with the Afghan enterprise I mean there's a reason why the F-35 has survived an enormous amount of budget cuts because they have like all 50 states have some factory in there. So the notion of not tying US business interests with Afghanistan's growth, economic growth and have that as something totally negative I think is missing somewhat the point. I think that we need to just make sure that we're doing it with everything transparent upfront and in the best possible business practices in whatever sector that we're in because I assure you that the way that the Chinese won Mezinak was not in a fair and transparent way. I mean there are rumors of suitcases of money that were exchanged with the minister of minds at the time or 17% royalties associated with a project that incomparable best business practices royalties would have been in the low teens is unheard of in the high teens it's ridiculous and low percentages in single digits is much more appropriate. So I think we need to examine all these things in the specific thing that we're looking at rather than generalities. My comment to you sir is that I think that there's a big difference between a lawyer from Chicago speaking and a businessman from New York speaking and the transmission and reception to all our ears may be something that's happening right now that we need to take your account. I don't think that that speech just like you mentioned was an honest speech that could have been given by others not just President Trump and because of that I worry when people say well now we have time my friends we don't have time we're still living on borrowed time with Afghanistan the interest on Afghanistan wanes we need to capture it right now and take advantage of the fact that it's here because when a president says you know my first inclination was to walk away his second inclination was to stay I worry about his third inclination you know a couple down the years so we have to convince him that there's a reason why we need to stay and the point that I'll end my comment if I can on this note what you mentioned earlier I think sometimes there are certain triggers that give all of us something of a charge or you know your hair stands up I am actually hopeful because Afghanistan has the youth at 25 years old as 75% of the country I am hopeful when I hear that 170,000 kids went and took their college entrance exam and the person that got it was a young Azar kid whose dad is a municipal street sweeper and he weaves carpets to make ends meet that is what's hopeful to me that the kid is going to medical school because of hard work so when anybody wants to talk about why we should be there it ain't the minerals it ain't Al-Qaeda it ain't Caliban it is this it's a huge uncapped potential of people that have been troubled for so long and they really really really want to get out of this mess they want to get out of this mess more than any of us could ever imagine so they don't believe us to your point earlier none of them that I talked to they breathe a sigh of relief that we're not walking out but they want they want to do this themselves they just want a chance they don't want us to do it for them they just want a chance to get out of this and that's a great note to end on so thank you for that thank you Peter, John and Yanni for joining us today and thank you all for your patience and staying a little bit past our slot of time so thank you