President Trump made calls to end the war in Afghanistan a regular feature of his 2016 presidential campaign, not to mention his political commentary for years prior.
“Afghanistan is a complete waste,” Trump wrote in a tweet in 2012. “Time to come home!” Again and again, he insisted that American blood and taxpayer dollars should not be spent on a fight that cannot be won militarily, especially because counterterror measures can be implemented at any time without a permanent ground presence.
Since taking office, Trump continued to hit on this theme. Until he didn’t.
Yes, Trump pushed for a political settlement and force reduction in Afghanistan in his 2019 State of the Union address because, as he put it, “Great nations do not fight endless wars.” It is not the United States’ job to “be the policemen of the world,” he has argued as president. “We’re spending tremendous amounts of money for decades policing the world” in Afghanistan and beyond, “and that shouldn’t be the priority.”
But for now, unfortunately, this demand for a new direction appears to be gone. The president seems to have been brought to heel by the Washington foreign policy establishment. In comments made to reporters on Sunday, Trump reversed himself on every one of his commitments to transforming our foreign policy strategy and ending our longest war.
“We’ve really got [U.S. troop presence in Afghanistan] down to, probably, 13,000 people, and we’ll be bringing it down a little bit more, and then we’ll decide whether or not we’ll be staying longer or not,” he said. “I think it’s very important that we continue intelligence there, in all cases, because it is somewhat of a nest for hitting us. So there’s a big argument to be made [for keeping a U.S. military presence]. And I buy that argument. We’re like a police force, and that’s it, frankly.”
From rejecting Washington’s self-appointed role as world police, Trump has embraced it. From recognizing that effective counterterrorism does not require endless occupation, Trump has forgotten it. From promising a new course after nearly two decades of mission creep, strategic stagnation, and nation building, Trump has backtracked to tout more of the very foreign policy mistakes he campaigned to change.
The White House may attempt to downplay this difference, but it is impossible to miss the magnitude of the shift the president has made here. Trump’s explicit use of the “police force” language he once decried is telling, but so is his talk of keeping “very significant” intelligence capabilities intact, apparently forever. This is essentially a rebranding of the standard train-advise-assist policy we’ve pursued in Afghanistan for years.
And just like that prior label, Trump’s latest policy has no end in sight.
The president’s claim that the United States must keep Afghanistan from becoming “a laboratory for terror” is likewise more of the same, a familiar excuse for prolonging this intervention indefinitely. Trump is not using former President Barack Obama’s preferred phrasing — he tended to speak of denying terrorists a “safe haven”— or former President George W. Bush’s “fight them over there so we don’t have to fight them over here” arguments. But the absence of these exact words does not negate the fact that in this about-face Trump is betraying his supporters and adopting the failed policies of his predecessors. He is pledging to dig deeper into the rut he told voters he would help our country escape.
Why? Well, the president has foolishly surrounded himself almost exclusively with hawkish advisers who want to keep the United States in Afghanistan indefinitely. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, national security adviser John Bolton, and Sen. Lindsey Graham all have the president’s ear on foreign policy, and all three are unapologetic war hawks and interventionists.
“The problem is that several of [Trump’s] advisers that he has appointed don’t necessarily agree with him” about leaving Afghanistan, Sen. Rand Paul (one of the few more prudent voices Trump heeds on foreign affairs) has mused. The Kentucky Republican said “So they either countermand his sentiments or talk him into delaying actually ending the war.” It is long since obvious that Trump has been swayed from his better instincts on foreign policy, but Sunday’s remarks make clear just how far he has swung.
Still, it is not too late to swing back.
Negotiations with the Taliban led by U.S. Envoy Zalmay Khalilzad could be seen as promising signs of progress, but at this point, the United States must end our war in Afghanistan regardless of the diplomatic situation or any agreement with the Taliban. Trump got it right the first time: We should not be risking American lives in a no-win conflict that is neither bringing peace to Afghanistan nor adding to our security. And permanently policing Afghanistan is costly and counterproductive, blowing limited defense resources on an occupation that is fostering anger and chaos.
It is, as Trump noted seven years ago, time to come home.
Bonnie Kristian is a fellow at Defense Priorities and contributing editor at The Week.
