US Army troops return from a deployment to Afghanistan, December 2020 (John Moore/Getty)


President Joe Biden directs that all US combat troops are withdrawn from Afghanistan by September 11, concluding an intervention that has lasted almost 20 years.

A “senior Biden administration official” told reporters that Biden had overruled the Pentagon’s desire to retain troops until Afghan security forces could overcome the Taliban.

The Taliban were removed from power in Kabul two months after the attacks of September 11, 2001, but they still control much of the fragmented country. The senior official said, “The President has judged that a conditions-based approach…is a recipe for staying in Afghanistan forever.

The intervention has cost about $2 trillion. About 2,400 US personnel have been killed, and at least 100,000 Afghan civilians have been slain or wounded.

Officially, between 2,500 and 3,500 US troops are deployed in Afghanistan, with about 7,000 foreign forces in the coalition facing the Taliban.

Donald Trump had arbitrarily pronounced that all US troops would leave Afghanistan by May 1, without coordinating the announcement with the US military and other agencies. Officials noted that talks seeking a power-sharing arrangement between the Afghan Government and the Taliban are ongoing.

Biden and advisors spent almost three months reviewing the situation before Tuesday’s decision. “One person familiar with the closed-door deliberations” summarized:

This is the immediate, practical reality that our policy review discovered. If we break the May 1st deadline negotiated by the previous Administration with no clear plan to exit, we will be back at war with the Taliban, and that was not something President Biden believed was in the national interest….

The reality is that the United States has big strategic interests in the world like nonproliferation; like an increasingly aggressive and assertive Russia; like North Korea and Iran, whose nuclear programs pose a threat to the United States; like China. The main threats to the American homeland are actually from other places: from Africa, from parts of the Middle East — Syria and Yemen.”

“Afghanistan just does not rise to the level of those other threats at this point.

The senior Administration official asserted, “We went to Afghanistan to deliver justice to those who attacked us on September 11th…..We believe we achieved that objective some years ago….[The threat to the US is] at a level that we can address it without a persistent military footprint.”

Democratic legislators and groups such as VoteVets praised the decision as “the best choice” from the available options, while Republicans criticized “a reckless and dangerous decision“.

Retired Gen. Joseph LVotel, a former head of the Central and Special Operations Commands, assessed, “While not impossible, I think this will make it much harder to remain focused on our counterterrorism objectives….[This] requires good intelligence, good partners, good capabilities and good access. All of these will be challenged.”

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid responded, “We are not agreeing with delay after May 1. Any delay after May 1 is not acceptable for us.”

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani’s office said there will be no comment before Ghani’s phone call with Biden “to officially share details of the new withdrawal plan”.

A new round of political talks are scheduled in Turkey for April 24.