The United States "has no intention of leaving Afghanistan" says Stephen Lendman, an author and political commentator in Chicago.

Recently peace talks between the US and Afghan Taliban militants were cancelled after months-long negotiations in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

In bilateral talks, which had excluded the Afghan government, US forces withdrawal from Afghanistan had been a main Taliban demand. “Whatever the US may do in talks with the Taliban -- which have been going on at a neutral site for a number of months, unclear what they are accomplishing -- what is very clear is that the US has no intention of leaving Afghanistan,” Lendman remarked in an interview with Press TV on Tuesday.

US President Donald Trump claimed on Saturday that he cancelled scheduled peace talks with leaders of Afghanistan’s Taliban insurgents in a resort near Washington after the notorious militant group killed an American soldier and 11 others in a recent attack in the Afghan capital city, Kabul.

“The fact that a meeting that was scheduled did not take place with the Taliban -- between Trump and Taliban officials -- at Camp David simply doesn’t matter one way or the other because the US aims to stay in Afghanistan,” Lendman noted.

Lendman said Trump's goal is to pave the way to exploit and plunder Afghanistan’s rich natural resources. “What’s important about Afghanistan is that it is rich in natural resources maybe worth trillions of dollars that the US wants handed over to its corporations to exploit,” he said.

Lendman noted that the US war in Afghanistan, which has been going on for 18 years already, could go on for 18 years more. “This is the US policy in Afghanistan, and all its other war theaters. That is the reality of the US political agenda,” he concluded.



