This is John Batcher, conversation with my colleague Bill Raggio, the Foundation for the Defense of Democracy,

Long War Journal, and our conversation with Ambassador Hasehahani, former Ambassador from Pakistan

of the United States now at the Huston Institute

about the Taliban, about the threat of Taliban, working with Tehran to intervene

in the Gaza conflict or the Hezbollah conflict underway.

Tehran, linking to the Muslim Brotherhood in sanctuary in Turkey.

The Taliban vouchsafing al-Qaeda camps throughout Afghanistan?

The question is, how is it that three Presidencies, as Bill says,

looked at these facts and concluded that the Taliban was

not a threat.

Is Bill Rajo to explain what was not ever secret or hidden and yet three presidents ignored or chose not to speak of these matters.

It's not too late, but here we are. Bill Rajo, Foundation for the Defense

of Democracy, the threat of the Taliban, 2024. More of this later. John, first, the Ambassador Haakani is absolutely correct and that plays into the answer of your question here.

No, there was no forward thinking at the time and even before you had three successive presidents

President Obama wanted to leave Afghanistan but recognized he couldn't get a deal with the Taliban

President Trump signed the Doha Agreement but never pulled

the trigger on the withdrawal and President Biden executed the withdrawal. They just wanted

to leave Afghanistan.

And in order to get to that point,

and again, this is something we talked about for years,

they essentially lied about al-Qaeda strength in Afghanistan,

the Taliban's relationship with al-Qaeda's strength in Afghanistan, the Taliban's relationship with al-Qaeda, the Taliban's

...