Trump’s “Deal” With the Taliban Set the Stage for Afghanistan’s Collapse – Mother Jones

… Taliban leaders were emboldened by Trump administration moves. According to the Washington Post, a series of negotiated surrenders began across Afghanistan in early 2020, shortly after Trump announced the US would be leaving: "The deals…were often described by Afghan officials as cease-fires, but Taliban leaders were in fact offering money in exchange for government forces to hand over their weapons, according to an Afghan officer and a U.S. official. Over the next year and a half, the meetings advanced to the district level and then rapidly on to provincial capitals, culminating in a breathtaking series of negotiated surrenders by government forces, according to interviews with more than a dozen Afghan officers, police, special operations troops and other soldiers."…

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2021/08/trump-deal-with-taliban-afghanistan-collapse/