CIA Director William Burns said last week that the Taliban is engaged in offensive operations across Afghanistan and that the group is probably in its best military position in decades. “The Taliban are making significant military advances; they’re probably in the strongest military position that they’ve been in since 2001,” Burns told NPR in a July 22 interview. Burns’ remarks came in response to a question about purported warnings in a U.S. intelligence assessment, as reported by multiple media outlets in late June, that the Afghan government could collapse as soon as six months after the American military withdrawal from the country is completed. The CIA director acknowledged the seriousness and urgency of the Taliban threat, repeatedly referring to the predictions as “trend lines” that he called “troubling.” At the same time, he cautioned against predicting the collapse of the Afghan government, which he insisted “retains significant military capabilities,” as inevitable. “The big …