Under-fire US President Joe Biden pins blame on Trump as Taliban re-conquers Afghanistan

United States President Joe Biden appeared to deflect the criticism he received over the situation in Afghanistan, to his predecessor Donald Trump. In a statement on August 14, while cataloguing all the steps he has taken amid the Taliban offensive in Afghanistan following his decision to withdraw US troops from the South Asian country after two decades, Biden also said that he inherited the deal cut by Trump which ultimately left the extremist group “in the strongest position militarily since 2001.” 

The US President also said that Trump reduced American soldiers in the war-torn country to just 2,500 shortly before he left in January. However, Biden also pledged that the US war in Afghanistan will not be passed on to the next US President after already being presided by at least four Presidents.

Biden said, “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. Shortly before he left office, he also drew U.S. Forces down to a bare minimum of 2,500.”

“Therefore, when I became President, I faced a choice—follow through on the deal, with a brief extension to get our Forces and our allies’ Forces out safely, or ramp up our presence and send more American troops to fight once again in another country’s civil conflict. I was the fourth President to preside over an American troop presence in Afghanistan—two Republicans, two Democrats. I would not, and will not, pass this war onto a fifth,” he added.

Regardless, it is certainly not during Donald Trump's time that the Afghanistan government has capitulated to a degree that the Taliban conquered the nation without fighting in most cases. Just days back, sources in the US intelligence were claiming to foreign publications that the Taliban would still take a month to reach Kabul. Instead, on Sunday, the US is hurriedly evacuating its personnel, having been forced to make threats to ensure people's safe passage. 

US sends 5,000 troops to Afghanistan as its position unravels

Biden issued the statement on the ongoing situation in Afghanistan which his critics have blamed on the rushed withdrawal of the US troops by the 9/11 anniversary. He said that “based on the recommendations of our diplomatic, military, and intelligence teams, I have authorized the deployment of approximately 5,000 US troops to make sure we can have an orderly and safe drawdown of U.S. personnel and other allied personnel and an orderly and safe evacuation of Afghans who helped our troops during our mission and those at special risk from the Taliban advance.”

Meanwhile, United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken on August 15 said that he spoke with Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani amid the ongoing Taliban offensive in the South Asian country. This was also the second time in two days that Blinken and Ghani spoke on the phone. The US Secretary of State said on Sunday that he and the Afghan President discussed the “current security situation” and “urgent diplomatic political efforts” to stem the raging violence in Afghanistan. It is unknown what came out of these talks.

IMAGE: AP