When is us pulling out of afghanistan

Who expected that the results of American involvement in Iraq would look relatively better than in Afghanistan? Much depends on how the United States handles the immediate aftermath of its withdrawal: how it cares for those Afghans it got out and for those at risk it did not, how the US deals with the Taliban and whether the Taliban consolidates control over Afghanistan, how the US deals with the threat of international terrorism again taking root in Afghanistan.

Much also depends on what lessons the United States learns from the Afghanistan War. Good lessons should be those of operational realism: what is and is not achievable in a given situation, when to use military force and when not to, when to follow up with long-term presence and when not to. But even wise lessons are easier to articulate than to apply.

The US went into Afghanistan for good reasons and stayed for reasons that seem right at the time. Nobody in policymaking sets out to blow it. There are bad lessons as well. These principles steered American grand strategy for generations and, despite blunders, failures, and hypocrisies, American leadership produced much good. Ukraine has its failings. The post-Afghanistan period starts now. We can start it right—with humility over our failures, with confidence in our enduring principles, with determination to learn from mistakes but stand with our friends as we want them to stand with us.

History will judge the United States not by the decision to withdraw from Afghanistan, but by the appalling manner this withdrawal was executed, communicated, and planned—twice. The US government made catastrophic mistakes by undercutting both evacuation effort timelines and not expanding the airport perimeter to have more protection from attacks and allow more access points to the airport. The aggregate of this miscalculation, and many others, resulted in the deaths of US service members, the creation of effective Taliban checkpoints, an inability to retrieve US persons throughout Kabul and the rest of Afghanistan, and a humanitarian disaster at the gates of Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul.

Afghanistan has now become a warzone ruled by terrorists and violent jihadi extremists that is exponentially more dangerous than before the US withdrawal.

This threat is compounded by the risk of having abandoned Americans in Afghanistan. The United States must hold to its promise that every American citizen, permanent resident, and special immigrant visa SIV applicant who wants to leave Afghanistan can do so. Until then, this mission is not complete, but rather it is a failed mission. American citizens, legal permanent residents, and SIV applicants are located all over the country, with the largest non-Kabul cohorts located in Herat, Kandahar, Mazar-i-Sharif, and Jalalabad.

Furthermore, some Afghans have already begun traveling north—Uzbekistan should gear up for a flood of refugees. Nongovernmental organizations, the United States, and European allies should help Afghans as they evacuate north by harnessing commercially available imagery to plot safe routes away from Taliban-concentrated areas, navigate the routes, and plan for difficult circumstances like weather events.

It is perhaps time to consider a blue helmet-like role for the international community in Afghanistan. History will also judge our inaction and lack of compassion. How would we wish to be remembered? Even before the US-led NATO invasion in seeking to oust al-Qaeda from its base of operations in Afghanistan, the United States and the international community have tried to split the Taliban and al-Qaeda, to little apparent avail.

Abandoning any pretense of nation-building in Afghanistan, US and Western security interests now focus on two key goals: 1 prevent the country from becoming a safe-haven for al-Qaeda and other terror groups intent on striking the West, and 2 protect human rights and civil liberties from the predilections of the ruling Taliban. Military intervention will not be a credible point of leverage for the foreseeable future, which means that the United States must resort to a soft-power approach to pursue those goals.

The United States has dangled recognition—and the international aid that represents around half of the economy—as a reward for the Taliban governing responsibly. The stick to that carrot is the renewed use of sanctions. Washington must move quickly now that troops are safely gone to assert the full scope of the UN-mandated asset freeze and full reach of US sanctions authorities to give it much-needed leverage over the Taliban and thwart efforts by Beijing and Moscow to play spoiler.

Speed is of the essence if the United States is to preserve any gains from the last twenty years of war. Before August 29, no one agency was in charge on the civilian side. The Department of State issues visas. DHS admits those who pass through the gauntlet of reviews. This civilian effort was quietly ramped up in mid-July , but it should have been significantly ramped up in February when President Donald Trump agreed with the Taliban to pull US forces out of Afghanistan in fourteen months.

Instead, the Trump administration deliberately slowed down SIV processing. Efforts could have been ramped up when President Joe Biden in April set withdrawal for the end of August. The US government needs now to commit the people and resources necessary to clear the number of SIV and refugee cases by a reasonable but ambitious target—say, 95 percent of the cases by the end of the year.

Congress should approve money for overtime and for bringing back retired homeland security, intelligence, and military personnel to clear this backlog. The United States needs to honor its debt to those Afghans who risked their lives for the United States by reviewing their claims, thoroughly and fairly, before the end of this year. Previously he was the deputy assistant secretary for counterterrorism policy at the US Department of Homeland Security. The complacent and haphazard withdrawal from Afghanistan impacts US interests, increases the threat against Americans, and puts our security cooperation relationships at risk.

In turn, US and European national security and economic security will incur new risks beyond transregional terrorism. For NATO to invoke Article 5 for the very first time in history was not just a treaty obligation, it was also a manifestation of trust and an affirmation of the integrity of American security cooperation. Now, nearly twenty years later, the debacle in Kabul, including the tragic recent deaths of Americans, further stress-tests the integrity of American security cooperation, but concurrently highlights the blunt necessity of staying the course on security cooperation.

Well before August 16, foreign partners were already questioning the reliability of America at a time where the debate in Washington about our global posture along with security assistance and arms-transfers policies appears to be more politicized for domestic posture. The changes over the past weeks have been dramatic. Taliban militants—who still have close ties to al-Qaeda and other transnational terrorist groups—now control Afghanistan.

The withdrawal of US and other troops has left the country without a government or political system, its population without protection, as well as an ingrained economic and humanitarian crisis. When combined with dire socioeconomic conditions and a gaping power vacuum, the recent Kabul airport attack created conditions that are ripe for insurgency.

US diplomatic efforts must also address the economic and humanitarian crises. With China, Russia, and Iran poised to build closer relationships with the Taliban, it is crucial that Washington start a new phase in its relationship with Afghanistan.

But other governments might worry that the United States could pursue actions that demoralize their armed forces—as occurred when the White House struck a deal with the Taliban without the participation of the Kabul government.

He said the US had no vital interest in Afghanistan, and tried to reframe US foreign policy as depending less on military deployments and more on diplomacy and international cooperation to face adversaries like China and Russia. Public opinion polls show Americans still support the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, although many are unhappy with how Biden oversaw the exit.

White House officials say they hope, as time passes, that the nation will be grateful for what the president accomplished and forget the details of how it ended. Have you been personally affected by the issues raised in this story? Tell us by emailing: haveyoursay bbc. Please include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist.

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