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This is Intelligence Matters with former acting director of the CIA, Michael Morel. Brought to you by Lockheed Martin. Your mission is ours.

So the PSTO that was just signed between the United States and the Taliban, why do you think these talks succeeded?

Well, not to be unkind about it because I think the effort deserves to be made, but this is not a peace deal.

What it really is, it's a discussion about the circumstances under which the United States withdraw its troops from Afghanistan, which is the principal Taliban aim.

I'm afraid the Taliban version of this is they've defeated the United States. The United States is leaving the unpredictability of President Trump.

And they continued reports that he's would very much like to remove the American presence of four elections, although that might not even be physically possible.

That undermines the credibility of the attempt to get into any kind of serious peace negotiation.

No negotiator can really negotiate against an artificial deadline, let alone against a deadline which could come up in a tweet in any moment.

And that's a huge difficulty with what is happening now.

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James Cunningham served as US ambassador to Afghanistan from August 2012 to December 2014.

Jim during his career at the State Department also served as US ambassador to Israel,

Council General to Hong Kong and Macau, and Deputy US permanent representative to the United Nations.

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