The Biden administration says that a way forward for the peace deal in Afghanistan may be in doubt due to violence from the Taliban. Reuters. The deal was made last year under President Trump and called for US troops to withdraw in May 2021. The Taliban were to make security concessions and not attack the Afghan army in return but they are reportedly not making those commitments at this time. The Biden administration claims that the Taliban are still close to al-Qaeda. 2500 US troops are currently stationed in Afghanistan, the lowest number since the war began in 2001. It is unclear what the Biden administration will do concerning troop levels.
My Comment:
One of the less immediately obvious results of Biden stealing the election is that America's forever wars are going to continue. We have been in Afghanistan for 20 years now and under President Trump there was a real hope that we would finally be pulling out. We have lost more than 2000 troops there and spent billions of dollars and have almost nothing to show for it. The Taliban is still strong, the Afghan government still weak and, even worse, ISIS has taken the place of al-Qaeda as the dominant terror group in Afghanistan.
I am losing hope that we will actually withdraw from Afghanistan in 2021, or ever at this point. The Biden administration is a hawkish and neoconservative when it comes to foreign policy and I don't expect them to be much different than Barack Obama's presidency. Biden will never pull troops out even if he is under massive pressure to do so as he is a servant of interests that demand war. We will be lucky enough if we don't get into a new war, let alone get out of our current ones.
I don't think voters had any idea how terrible Biden was going to be on foreign policy because the subject never came up. If we had a fair or even competent media they would be hitting Biden hard on this issue as pretty much everyone outside of the elite class wants us out of Afghanistan and they want it done yesterday. But I still think that more than a few people think that the Democrats are still the anti-war party despite there being no evidence that is the case.
We really have no reason to be in Afghanistan anymore. Al-Qaeda was the main reason we were there and they have been pretty much been utterly destroyed. ISIS is still a major problem but both the Afghan Government and the Taliban consider them mortal enemies and there is little chance of them taking the county over.
Afghanistan does have massive mineral resources, which remain locked up in their mountains. They do not have any way to extract them though and I have seen no evidence that the Biden administration even cares about that. I could see keeping troops there if we were actually investing on getting these resources but alas, we are not.
Did the peace deal have a chance even under 2nd Trump term? I have no idea. I don't think the Taliban actually want a settled peace. But that's besides the point. We should withdraw regardless of what happens to the Afghan government. We have helped them for almost 20 years now and if they can't stand on their own without our help then that's on them, not us.
And what is the worst that happens if the Taliban come into power? Pretty much the status quo. There is a fear that al-Qaeda could regroup but that could happen regardless. Plus we don't need troops on the ground to bomb the hell out of them if that happens. No, the best thing for the United States would be to pull out our troops and it seems pretty likely that won't happen now...
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