President Joe Biden will argue in remarks on Wednesday there will never be “ideal conditions” for a clean withdrawal of all troops from Afghanistan and that the U.S.-led coalition has done all it can, so it is time to leave.
Biden will walk to a podium in the White House’s Treaty Room early in the afternoon to announce his decision to end the nearly 20-year-old war in Afghanistan.
“It is time to end America’s longest war. It is time for American troops to come home,” Biden is scheduled to say.
“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,” he will also say, noting that he is the fourth president to oversee troops in the country.
“I will not pass this responsibility to a fifth,” Biden will say, according to excerpts of his speech released by the White House. “While we will not stay involved in Afghanistan militarily, our diplomatic and humanitarian work will continue.”
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Biden will say that the United States will continue to support the government of Afghanistan. A senior administration official told reporters on a White House call on Tuesday that heavy diplomatic and humanitarian work will replace the military presence in an effort to preserve gains for women and girls in education and social services and to preserve the semblance of democracy the U.S. has helped to install.
An end to the war had been paved by President Donald Trump last February, when a peace agreement was signed with the Taliban in Doha calling for the full withdrawal of U.S. troops by May 1. Trump then cut troops down to 2,500 just weeks before leaving office, a number some military experts thought too little to accomplish the mission of rooting out al Qaeda remnants.
The U.S. currently has some 2,500 troops in the country, along with up to 7,000 NATO and partner nation forces, which will also depart. Another 13,000 contractors would also leave before Sept. 11, the 20th anniversary of the start of the conflict.
However, the congressionally mandated special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction has said civil war is likely to erupt in Afghanistan if the U.S. and NATO forces leave the country. Geopolitical strategists have pointed to Afghanistan’s key location close to Iran and Russia and the presence of valuable rare earth elements. America’s adversaries are likely to fill that vacuum, and the Taliban is poised to attempt further battlefield gains amid a fledgling peace process with the Afghan government.
“We went to Afghanistan because of a horrific attack that happened 20 years ago,” Biden is scheduled to say. “That cannot explain why we should remain there in 2021.”
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The Taliban has vowed to start attacking U.S. and coalition forces again if the Trump-era May 1 deadline is broken. Now that the White House has indicated U.S. troops will not be fully withdrawn by that date but will only begin a phased withdrawal, lives will again be in danger. The past year has seen no U.S. combat deaths in Afghanistan.
“Rather than return to war with the Taliban, we have to focus on the challenges that will determine our standing and reach today and into the years to come,” Biden will say in prepared remarks.
