This week’s White House visit by Pakistan’s prime minister, Imran Khan, was a step towards ending the 18-year war between the Taliban and the US. The diplomacy was overshadowed, however, by President Trump’s remarkable assertion that the US could end that war in a matter of days. As he put it:
If we wanted to fight a war in Afghanistan and win it, I would win that war in a week. I just don’t want to kill 10 million people. Does that make sense to you?
Reinforcing the comment, he added:
I have plans on Afghanistan that, if I wanted to win that war, Afghanistan would be wiped off the face of the earth, it would be over literally in 10 days. I don’t want to go that route.
For a number of commentators, this had to mean the use of nuclear weapons, a prospect that seems incredible with the Cold War era now thirty years in the past.
