President Biden hosted Afghanistan‘s president and top peace negotiator at the White House Friday, vowing to maintain U.S. support for the embattled Kabul government even as the last American and NATO troops leave and fears mount of a major Taliban offensive.
“The partnership between Afghanistan and the United States is not ending. It’s going to be sustained,” Mr. Biden said upon receiving Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah, who chairs Afghanistan‘s High Council for National Reconciliation and is heading stalled attempts to negotiate a long-term power sharing agreement with the Taliban insurgency.
“Our troops may be leaving but our support for Afghanistan is not ending in terms of support and maintenance of helping maintain their military as well as economic and political support,” Mr. Biden said.
Mr. Ghani expressed gratitude, saying he and Mr. Abdullah had traveled together to Washington in a show of unified “respect” and “support” for the Biden administration’s decision to withdraw U.S. combat troops. The Afghan president also said he wanted to “pay tribute to the 2,448 Americans who paid the ultimate sacrifice” during the 20-year U.S.-led military campaign in Afghanistan.
“Over a million American veterans,” Mr. Ghani said, “have served with honor and dignity for your security and our freedom. The United States has not spared any effort in blood or treasure during these years. As a grateful nation I want to acknowledge that and ask you, thank the Gold Star families” of Afghan war veterans.
The sober moment came at the start of the delicate three-way meeting in the Oval Office on Friday evening — a meeting that coincided with rising concern over territorial gains being made by the Taliban as the militants rush to fill a security vacuum being left by the U.S. and NATO troop pullout after two decades of war.
Mr. Biden imposed a Sept. 11 deadline for the withdrawal — the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks that were plotted by al Qaeda operatives who had been given safe-haven by the Taliban. U.S. officials say the troop pullout actually is on track to be completed much earlier — despite growing signs that Afghan security forces are ill-equipped to fend off a highly motivated and emboldened Taliban army.
The U.S. intelligence community has recently concluded that the government of Afghanistan could collapse as soon as six months after the American military withdrawal, according to a Wall Street Journal report citing officials with knowledge of the assessment.
Mr. Ghani brushed off questions about the dire prediction during a visit to the Pentagon Friday, hours before appearing at the White House.
“There have been many such predictions and they have all … turned out false,” Mr. Ghani said during a brief exchange with reporters inside the Pentagon.
The Afghan president sought to project confidence about the security dynamics in Afghanistan. “We’ve assured [U.S. officials] that they should not be over-worried,” he said.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, who hosted Mr. Ghani and Mr. Abdullah at the Pentagon, pushed the Biden administration’s message of ongoing support for the U.S.-backed government in Kabul. “Let me reaffirm America’s commitment to an enduring partnership with Afghanistan, especially our strong defense relationship,” Mr. Austin said.
Rising fears
Those comments came after Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters on Friday that the Biden administration is aware of the Taliban‘s “elevated attacks on the Afghan security forces and in certain parts of the country compared to a year ago.”
Mr. Blinken, who made the remarks while traveling in France, stressed that there has been “no increase” in Taliban attacks targeting the small number of U.S. and NATO troops still in Afghanistan. He also added that he believes the current surge in Taliban activity would have happened even if U.S. and NATO forces had committed to remain in the country.
“The attacks that we’re seeing now and other attacks almost certainly would have commenced, including potentially attacks on provincial capitals,” Mr. Blinken said.
“But we’re looking very carefully at the situation on the ground in Afghanistan, and we’re also looking very hard at whether the Taliban is at all serious about a peaceful resolution to the conflict,” he said. “We continue to be engaged on the [diplomatic front], but actions that would try to take the country by force are, of course, totally inconsistent with finding a peaceful resolution.”
Whether or not U.S. forces should remain in Afghanistan has long been a subject of heated debate.
“The U.S. troop withdrawal, I think, is a decision we’re likely going to regret,” retired Army Gen. Jack Keane said during an appearance on Fox News on Friday.
He compared the current developments to the Obama-era U.S. withdrawal from Iraq in 2011 that he said allowed the subsequent rise of the Islamic State terror group there.
Mr. Ghani expressed confidence at the White House, asserting that Afghan forces have spent the past 24 hours rolling back recent Taliban gains.
“Just for your information, today, the Afghan Defense and Security Forces have retaken six districts, both in the south and the north,” the Afghan president said.
Those comments came after Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters on Friday that the Biden administration is aware of the Taliban‘s “elevated attacks on the Afghan security forces and in certain parts of the country compared to a year ago.”
On the other side, those advocating against U.S. military intervention abroad say the troop pullout is long overdue from the war zone where tens of thousands of Afghans have also perished over the past two decades.
“After twenty years, tens of thousands of casualties and $2 trillion, the U.S. has wasted far too much trying to stabilize Afghanistan,” retired Lt. Col. Daniel L. Davis at the Defense Priorities think tank in Washington said this week.
“It’s true Afghan security forces will struggle to hold ground in a post-U.S. Afghanistan. But the alternative of keeping U.S. forces in the country to prop them up will not solve their problems,” Mr. Davis said in comments circulated to reporters. “Extending the U.S. deployment would trap thousands of U.S. soldiers in a civil war they cannot win, and risk more unnecessary American casualties.”