Whereas if they weren’t doing anything provocative, they’d walk in with less cards to play with us.

So, I think it’s interesting that North Korea has kept these missile tests below a certain threshold by which the U.S. would be forced to escalate or respond with some more sanctions or some more punishment.

But Secretary of State Pompeo made it explicitly clear that he was looking to talk to North Korea. He made multiple entreaties to them both before the trip and during the trip that he was looking to meet, and he also made clear that there were discussions going on behind the scenes.

So, I would not say that we’re at a total impasse right now, but I think things are going on quietly, and that the momentum is there for talks to resume.

Davis: What’s the state of affairs in Afghanistan right now, and what are the president’s realistic goals there on the ground?

Peterson: Well, I think when you talk about timelines, Secretary Pompeo said something on the plane flight over. He said … I’m paraphrasing here, but he’d rather get something done quicker just for the sake of saving American lives.

The timeline is just to get America to the point where we don’t have service men and women in danger any longer. There’s no artificial marker based on an election. That was the point he made.

Yeah, talks are ongoing with the Taliban. The Taliban has said that it wants to strike a deal with the U.S. for troop withdrawal before it’s willing to talk to the Afghan government.

So, I think the Afghan government feels a little bit left out right now because the Taliban, their overarching objective before they start talking about a long-term peace deal is they want to get American troops out of the country.

Davis: So what leverage does the Taliban have right now? Because I know that—

Peterson: Violence.

Davis: OK.

Peterson: Violence is their leverage.

Davis: Because I know that after 9/11, we displaced them. They were no longer in power. You have an alternative Afghan government.

So, if the Afghan government’s still in place, what’s the Taliban doing? Are they just a rebel group [carrying out] guerrilla warfare?

Peterson: Yeah, I think Afghanistan is not necessarily a unitary country, like we might consider here in the United States or another Western country. And the Taliban, they have de facto control over a lot of the country.

So, I think after 18 years of war, I think reality is that they’re a force in Afghanistan, and that they’re not going to be wiped off by any U.S. military action.

The U.S. adopted an advise-and-assist mission in Afghanistan a few years ago. So, we don’t have a direct combat presence per se in the country. But yeah, I think there is now movement toward some sort of solution with Afghanistan.

I think the question is now, “Do we leave the country completely, or do we remain there providing assistance and advice to the Afghan military as they move forward?”

There’s other examples of the United States doing this quietly in places around the world like Kosovo, where I visited earlier this year, where we still have U.S. forces. They’re helping the cost of our government and their military, but it’s not obviously a military combat operation.

But yes, I think there is some movement. The U.S. is trying to talk to the Taliban to get some sort of ceasefire arrangement. But as a veteran of the war in Afghanistan, and having been a witness to what the Taliban represents, I don’t know how you can trust them.

I think any deal you strike with them, I mean, you have to walk into it with eyes wide open knowing that the minute America pulls out, you no longer have a way to modulate that violence, and it’s very likely that a lot of the progress that Afghanistan’s society has made, particularly freedoms [for] women, will be reversed if the Taliban is able to claw back to power.

Davis: Do you think Iraq could be a possible analog or a model for how to go about this? I mean, we withdrew from Iraq. Obviously, ISIS grew up after that because we pulled out so quickly, but we do still have some military presence there even though we’re not running things politically.

Do you think there’s some comparison there, that there’s a way to keep some influence in the country without actually being an “occupying force”?

Peterson: Yeah, I mean, I think there’s obviously different layers of differences between just the cultures and the histories of those two countries.

But I think in general, the lesson from Iraq is we left too early. The security situation wasn’t shored up. We had to return because, basically, the threat we had been there to defeat … originally, it was to defeat Saddam Hussein, but over the years, it was to defeat that Islamist extremist insurgency, but that returned after we left.

There is certainly a threat that if we leave Afghanistan, that the Taliban can take the country over again. There is a strong Islamic State presence in Afghanistan right now.

So, I think the possibility that the country could revert to being a safe haven for terrorists with designs on global strikes is certainly there. It’s a really tricky spot for America.

I think we do have to ask ourselves the question, though: After being at war for 18 years, at what point do we have to say that we have to leave?

In some regards, we did displace the Taliban from power after 2001. The Afghan government has made strides toward establishing this legitimacy. So, there are some who say that if you’re looking at a definition of victory in Afghanistan, perhaps that’s as good as it’s going to get, and perhaps we are looking at the apex of what we can achieve in that country.

Then, maybe it is time to pull back and see how things go without our overt presence in the country. I don’t know. I think it’s hard to say how things would go.

I think there’s not a great track record of these countries having robust democracies after we leave, and I think it’s important to note that that sort of global Islamist threat still exists even if it is in the shadows, and it’s not quite as powerful as it was before Sept. 11, 2001. It’s still there, and there is a risk of it coming back.

Davis: Well, you did some excellent reporting over the last week, and I really encourage our listeners to go check out Nolan’s work at The Daily Signal. When do you head back to Ukraine?

Peterson: Tomorrow morning, so I’m still trying to figure out what time zone, day, and continent I’m on.

Davis: Don’t get too comfortable with the U.S. time zone.

Peterson: Yeah, I won’t. I won’t.

Davis: Nolan, thanks for being back on.

Peterson: All right. Thank you.

This first appeared in The Daily Signal here. 

Image: Reuters.