This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Monday, April 15th, 2019.

I'm Caleb Brown.

As difficult as it may be to admit, Donald Trump deserves some credit in his planned drawdown in the war in

Afghanistan.

Cato's Emma Ashford recently back from Afghanistan says broadly the Trump administration

has taken some important steps that fundamentally

recognize key facts on the ground.

So if we're going to talk about Afghanistan in particular I think I think Donald

Trump does actually deserve some credit. We started moving towards peace talks

with the Taliban at the end of the Obama administration, but Donald Trump has actually taken that and he has run

with it, he appointed a special envoy they're having

actual direct talks with the Taliban he's talking about drawing down US forces that's

really good this is actually a great foreign policy decision. I mean, of course, as always in the Trump administration, there are significant implementation problems.

So you mentioned the Obama administration speaking with the Taliban in a way.

What does, why is that a good decision?

So with the Obama administration it was mostly indirect,

and with the Trump administration they've actually started having direct talks now.

The reason it's good is we have been fighting them for over 18 years at this point, and we've not

actually sat down and had peace talks.

We've not actually tried to figure out what it is that the Taliban

wants in order for them to stop this civil war and instead we've basically just

pursued a policy of sort of absolute defeat.

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