This 'fundamental flaw' in Trump's Taliban deal ultimately created the 'roadmap toward surrender': historian

A Stanford University historian is shedding light on the fundamental flaw in former President Donald Trump's Taliban peace deal that ultimately created the "roadmap toward a surrender."

Speaking to CNN International, Historian Robert Crews broke down the timeline leading up to the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan. Trump's deal, brokered in February 2020, marked the beginning of a 14-month schedule for U.S. troops to be withdrawn from Afghanistan.

Under that same timeline for the U.S. troops, allied forces, coalition forces and approximately 5,000 Taliban prisoners were also set to be released. According to Crews, that was actually the beginning of the chaos.

"The fundamental flaw was beyond the vision of 2001, to follow [Donald] Trump's plan to respect the peace deal with the Taliban, which essentially created a roadmap toward a surrender, toward diminution of the status of the Afghan state that Washington essentially backed," Crews said, "that legitimized the Taliban and really gave them a roadmap to launch the offensive that they have pulled off so brilliantly in the last two weeks."

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Despite Republican lawmakers' current attempts to place blame solely on the Biden administration, Crews also acknowledged that the problem spanned multiple presidential administrations. However, the historian also noted how those efforts contributed to Afghanistan's evolution into a much different country.

"There is potential for Afghan society to push back against the Taliban once this initial shock is over, and once the Taliban figure out how they will attempt to implement in the 1990s," Crews said. "The Biden administration has painted us all, Afghans in particular, into a corner, where they have no good choices, and they find themselves at the mercy of this movement over which no one except Pakistan has substantive leverage over now."