Lawmakers and security experts are broadcasting their shock and concern over President Joe Biden’s decision to withdraw troops from Afghanistan, slamming what they see as an “arbitrary” decision to bring troops home by Sept. 11.
The United States had been facing a May 1 deadline set by former President Donald Trump to pull out its remaining 2,500 soldiers plus roughly 1,000 special operations forces. Biden had called that date too logistically difficult to meet but still opted for a full withdrawal later in the year despite the Taliban retaining links to al Qaeda. It was that violent extremist group’s planning and orchestration of the 9/11 attacks that prompted the U.S. military invasion there two decades ago.
“The intelligence community has made it clear that al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations will grow in the coming vacuum,” Rep. Mike Waltz, a green beret who fought in Afghanistan, said in a statement after the White House announced Biden’s decision.
“The Taliban have not lived up to their commitments to break away with al Qaeda and have strategically planned for a total U.S. withdrawal in order to take back power,” he added. “The Biden administration’s plan to withdraw all U.S. troops from Afghanistan is repeating the mistakes of President Obama’s withdrawal from Iraq in 2011.”
Waltz argued that a withdrawal will allow the Afghan government to fall and relinquish strategic basing options for great power competition with Russia, China, and Iran.
BIDEN TO WITHDRAW TROOPS FROM AFGHANISTAN BY SEPT. 11
Military commanders and a congressionally appointed special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction assessed that the Taliban was not meeting several of the conditions of a deal struck last year with the Trump administration.
‘No one wants a forever war’
Senate Armed Services Committee ranking Republican Sen. Jim Inhofe called the Biden decision “reckless and dangerous.”
“No one wants a forever war, but I’ve consistently said any withdrawal must be conditions-based,” the Oklahoman said. “Arbitrary deadlines would likely put our troops in danger, jeopardize all the progress we’ve made, and lead to civil war in Afghanistan — and create a breeding ground for international terrorists. We’re talking about protecting American lives here.”
Former Wall Street Journal Kabul correspondent Jessica Donati told the Washington Examiner that abandoning the Pentagon’s conditions-based approach and setting an arbitrary departure date departs from two decades of defense policy and puts U.S. gains in jeopardy.
“The problem is that there was never going to be a condition that allowed the U.S. to leave comfortably,” said the author of Eagle Down, a book about U.S. special forces in Afghanistan.
“That’s a huge U-turn, and that’s all we’ve heard for the last 20 years,” she said. “The other surprise was that they would pick the September 11th anniversary, just because they’ve spent so long saying we’re not going to set arbitrary deadlines. I don’t think you could get much more arbitrary than an anniversary to decide to end your engagement in a war.”
Donati pointed to a recent United Nations report indicating that al Qaeda and the Taliban still have close links.
“The judgment that al Qaeda are operational has been very fluid,” she said. “The amount of information that they have about al Qaeda numbers seems to change. And it’s hard to say how effective counterterrorism operations have been when you’re measuring it only in the fact that there hasn’t been an attack on U.S. soil.”
Trump administration strategy
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken will be in Brussels on Wednesday to discuss Biden’s decision with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. NATO and coalition forces still have up to 7,000 troops in Afghanistan and have said they will withdraw troops when the U.S. pulls out.
Meanwhile, Democratic members of Congress have reacted favorably to Biden’s decision.
“I applaud President Biden for achieving an impossibility here in Washington: ending a forever war. It is an act of extraordinary political courage and vision,” said House Armed Services Committee member Rep. Ro Khanna, a California Democrat.
“After 20 years, thousands of lives lost, and trillions of dollars spent, we are finally bringing home our troops from Afghanistan,” he added in a statement. “Only through diplomacy and negotiations will the war in Afghanistan, which has taken the lives of thousands of civilians, come to an end.”
Donati said the Biden decision to leave Afghanistan is not surprising, given his opposition to the surge backed by Obama in 2009.
“Biden has long been a skeptic of the Afghan war,” she said. “It’s probably not such a great surprise that he chose to go with the Trump administration strategy.”
Whether Taliban leadership calls for restraint against departing American troops or not, Donati believes U.S. lives will be at risk, and Afghan cities may begin to fall to the Taliban in the coming months.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
“You’re going to see the Taliban have to figure out, first of all, do they believe the U.S. is going, and what is the calculus if they inflict really serious losses? Will the U.S. still be able to leave without having to review the policy?” she said. “At the end, you could see attacks on cities. Perhaps a couple of Afghan cities might even fall. Then again, the question will go on to the U.S.: What are they going to do? Are they going to send in special forces to save these cities?”
She added: “Are they just going to let things collapse as they leave? So, I think what the Taliban decide to do is going to be critical here, and they haven’t said anything yet.”
