In the contentious 2020 campaign for the White House and its bitter aftermath, there was a rare issue President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump agreed on: It was time to get out of Afghanistan.
Now even that uncharacteristic bit of comity has dissolved as Kabul teeters on the brink following sustained Taliban gains, with Biden and Trump (and their supporters) pointing fingers at each other.
The Biden administration has said that the Trump deal with the Taliban was different than the peace agreement they would have struck but ultimately tied their hands. “It was preordained,” State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters. “It’s a deal that this administration probably would not have made, certainly not in all the detail. But it’s the deal that we inherited.”
SHADES OF PAST CONSERVATIVE REVOLTS APPEAR IN GOP INFRASTRUCTURE SPLIT
“When I came to office, I inherited a deal cut by my predecessor — which he invited the Taliban to discuss at Camp David on the eve of 9/11 of 2019 — that left the Taliban in the strongest position militarily since 2001 and imposed a May 1, 2021 deadline on U.S. forces,” Biden himself said in a statement Saturday. “Shortly before he left office, he also drew U.S. forces down to a bare minimum of 2,500.”
“We saw the Taliban making advances even before the Biden administration came into office,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said Friday. “We saw the Taliban making advances at the district level before the president made his decision.”
Trump personally struck back at this characterization of the historical record, taking aim at his successor. “Had our 2020 Presidential Election not been rigged, and if I were now President, the world would find that our withdrawal from Afghanistan would be a conditions-based withdrawal,” he said in a statement. “I personally had discussions with top Taliban leaders whereby they understood what they are doing now would not have been acceptable.”
“It would have been a much different and much more successful withdrawal, and the Taliban understood that better than anyone,” Trump continued. “What is going on now is not acceptable. It should have been done much better.”
When Biden announced in April that troops would depart from Afghanistan by the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks that precipitated the war, Trump called the withdrawal “a wonderful and positive thing to do” but criticized the timing.
“First, we can and should get out earlier,” Trump said at the time. He added that “September 11th represents a very sad event and period for our Country and should remain a day of reflection and remembrance honoring those great souls we lost.” He took credit for substantial troop drawdowns while he was in office. “I planned to withdraw on May 1st, and we should keep as close to that schedule as possible,” he concluded.
But Trump was never able to complete the withdrawal, facing resistance from the Pentagon and some of his own advisers. After then-Defense Secretary James Mattis’s resignation, Trump ordered 4,000 additional troops to Afghanistan.
“My original instinct was to pull out, and historically, I like following my instincts, but all of my life I heard that decisions are much different when you sit behind the desk in the Oval Office,” Trump said when announcing the decision, similar to but smaller than former President Barack Obama’s Afghan troop surge in 2009 — which Biden, then vice president, advised against.
Trump continued to question the strategy in Afghanistan, and Mattis ultimately departed the Cabinet after the two clashed over troop withdrawals. Mattis warned against “precipitous” withdrawal in 2019, though he has so far remained silent under Biden.
“These ‘forever wars’ have to end. I support drawing down the troops,” Biden told Stars and Stripes last year, adding that some forces would need to protect the United States from terrorism.
Trump used similar language in discussing Afghanistan and Iraq. “Great nations do not fight endless wars,” he said in his 2019 State of the Union address.
Polling shows bipartisan support for leaving Afghanistan. But as the troops began to leave, the Taliban promptly began toppling provincial capitals, restarting partisan rancor on the issue.
The Biden administration ordered 3,000 troops back to Afghanistan to facilitate the evacuation of at least some diplomatic personnel, though they remained adamant Friday that the embassy in Kabul would stay open.
Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, a Trump appointee who may seek the GOP presidential nomination, wrote in an op-ed that “it appears Team Biden may not have planned adequately. They look panicked. This will embolden the Taliban and encourage Al Qaeda.”
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE IN THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
One person who has been consistent on Afghanistan regardless of which party holds the White House is Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell. The Kentucky lawmaker called Biden’s withdrawal a “risky rush for the exits” and said Trump’s proposal to do the same “would hurt our allies and delight the people who wish us harm.”
McConnell compared withdrawal under both presidents to “the humiliating American departure of Saigon in 1975.”
