It’s time to end America’s longest war: Joe Biden
“We cannot continue the cycle of extending or expanding our military presence in Afghanistan hoping to create the ideal conditions for our withdrawal, expecting a different result,” the US president said
US President Joe Biden announced Wednesday that the remaining US troops will leave Afghanistan by September 11, the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks that took them there in the hunt for Al Qaeda. He said American forces cannot stay on in the hope of creating the ideal withdrawal conditions and “it’s time to end America’s longest war”.
The drawdown is not based on conditions and will start before May 1, the earlier deadline negotiated by the Trump administration with the Taliban. After September 11, US military presence in Afghanistan will be confided to providing protections to diplomats, according to officials.
“We cannot continue the cycle of extending or expanding our military presence in Afghanistan hoping to create the ideal conditions for our withdrawal, expecting a different result,” Biden said, adding, “I am now the fourth American president to preside over an American troop presence in Afghanistan. Two Republicans. Two Democrats. I will not pass this responsibility to a fifth.”
There are an estimated 2,500-3,500 US troops in Afghanistan, in addition to 8,500 deployed by coalition allies.
“We went to Afghanistan because of a horrific attack that happened 20 years ago,” Biden said referring to the terrorist attacks carried out by Al Qaeda on September 11, 2001. “It is time to end America’s longest war. It is time for American troops to come home.”
The US president also sought to reassure Afghans and the world that the withdrawal of troops will not end US engagement in that country. The US will continue to support the Afghan government and the peace process and will also keep providing assistance to Afghan security forces.
A senior Biden administration official had told reporters earlier while previewing the plan announced by the president, the US will begin an “orderly drawdown of the remaining forces before May 1st and plan to have all US troops out of the country before the 20th anniversary of 9/11”. And it will not be be linked to conditions because the president “judged that a conditions-based approach, which has been the approach of the past two decades, is a recipe for staying in Afghanistan forever”.
“Remaining military presence in Afghanistan will be the force required to protect our diplomatic presence”, the official said.
As a candidate for the White House, Biden had backed a drawdown plan that left behind a residual force for counterinsurgency measures and training Afghan troops. And there had been speculation, after he took office, he still would do that, so as to not squander the gains of the last 20 years of fighting, as many had argued including India. But he was clearly not convinced.
The American president is facing criticism already for the drawdown. “After a brief and seemingly halfhearted effort at diplomacy, Mr. Biden has decided on unconditional withdrawal, step that may spare the United States further costs and lives but will almost certainly be a disaster for the country’s 39 million people — and, in particular, its women,” The Washington Post wrote in a scathing editorial. The president, it added, “has chosen the easy way out of Afghanistan, but the consequences are likely to be ugly.”
Senator Jeanne Shaheen, a Democrat, said, “I’m very disappointed in the President’s decision to set a September deadline to walk away from Afghanistan. Although this decision was made in coordination with our allies, the US has sacrificed too much to bring stability to Afghanistan to leave without verifiable assurances of a secure future.”
The Biden administration official had said, perhaps anticipating the criticism, that it has long been known that “there is no military solution to the problems plaguing Afghanistan, and we will focus our efforts on supporting the ongoing peace process”.
The official had added: “But what we will not do is use our troops as bargaining chips in that process.”
Hours after the announcement of the Biden timeline, the Taliban said they will not attend a 10-day UN-led and US-backed peace initiative in Istanbul, Turkey till all foreign troops had left Afghanistan.
“Until all foreign forces completely withdraw from our homeland, (we) will not participate in any conference that shall make decisions about Afghanistan,” tweeted Mohammad Naeem, spokesman for the Taliban office in Qatar.