Please educate me on the rationality of the new Afghan...US Pact proposal

[Proud Public Servant]

9. I spent several years working on Afghanistan policy

Here's the simple, not-so-secret truth: it's not about Afghanistan. It's about Pakistan. The U.S.'s greatest fear is that Afghanistan will collapse into civil war after we leave, and one of three things will happen: (1) Pakistan will back the Taliban again, and we'll end up with the Taliban in power again, and the last 12 years will have been for nothing; (2) Pakistan will back the Taliban, Iran will back the northern alliance, and Afghanistan will become the staging ground for a proxy war that will destabilize the whole region, or (3) The Afghan Taliban will not only come to power (either on their own or with an assist from Pakistan's ISI), but will embolden the Pakistani Taliban, who in turn will destabilize Pakistan's government and end up with control of Pakistan's nukes.

Any of those are plausible. All of them should keep you up at night. I am very decidedly not a fan of our Afghanistan strategy, but I understand the corner we've painter ourselves into.