Afghan peace talks will fail, leaving US open to another 9/11, warns ex-Trump adviser in new book
- HR McMaster says White House is ‘not a well-oiled machine’ and criticises president’s handling of coronavirus pandemic
- In Battlegrounds: The Fight to Defend the Free World, he critiques Trump’s approach to North Korea, Afghanistan and other global hotspots
US-backed peace talks in Afghanistan are doomed to end in “failure” and the risk of another September 11-style attack on America is “very high”, President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser HR McMaster says in his new book.
The United States is “in many ways more at risk today than we were on September 10, 2001,” McMaster told USA TODAY in the first print interview about Battlegrounds: The Fight to Defend the Free World.
In a wide-ranging conversation, McMaster lamented the politicisation of the military, said the Trump administration has mishandled the coronavirus pandemic and expressed grave concern about a “destructive cycle” in American politics that has weakened the country.
“We’re creating this destructive cycle and these centripetal forces that are pulling us apart from each other,” said the former Army lieutenant general. “We’re forgetting who we are as Americans.”
McMaster served as Trump’s second national security adviser, and was appointed to the job in February 2017 after Lieutenant General Michael Flynn was fired for lying about his contacts with the Russian ambassador. Flynn had served in the post less than a month, and McMaster said the White House was not the “well-oiled machine” the president claimed when he arrived.
But his book is not a dramatic tell-all documenting his 13 months in the White House. McMaster said he had no desire to write another “palace intrigue” memoir. Instead, he offers a critique of US foreign policy and a restrained assessment of Trump’s approach to North Korea, Afghanistan and other global hotspots.