Trump claims Afghanistan withdrawal would have been 'much more successful' if he were president. Would it?
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
WASHINGTON – Even before the Taliban marched into Kabul on Sunday, former President Donald Trump blamed Afghanistan’s collapse on the man who replaced him in office, President Joe Biden.
Trump said in a statement last week that if he were still president, the withdrawal of U.S. troops would have been "much different ad much more successful."
"I personally had discussions with top Taliban leaders whereby they understood what they are doing now would not have been acceptable," Trump said.
What Trump didn’t say: It was Trump, not Biden, who negotiated the agreement to pull U.S. troops from Afghanistan. Biden delayed the original deadline set by Trump, which was to pull all troops by May 1.
Analysts disputed Trump’s assertion that things would have turned out differently if he had been in charge.
“The former president’s comment stating things would be different isn’t based on any facts,” said Jack Weinstein, a former Pentagon official and an expert on international security.
There is “zero evidence” Afghan security forces would have operated any differently under a Trump administration or the Taliban would have agreed to any security arrangement, said Weinstein, a professor in Boston University’s Pardee School of Global Studies.
If Trump had made the same decision as Biden – pulling forces out quickly around the same time of year and telegraphing a clear timetable for their departure – “I do believe that the same collapse of Afghanistan would have occurred,” said Harry Kazianis at the Center for the National Interest, a Washington-based think tank founded by Richard Nixon.
“It would not have mattered who was sitting in the Oval Office,” Kazianis said.
More: Taliban's Afghanistan advance tests Biden's 'America is back' foreign policy promise
What Trump did – and didn't do
The original May 1 timetable for withdrawal of U.S. troops was part of an agreement the Trump administration forged with the Taliban in February 2020. Under that deal, the United States agreed to withdraw all its forces. In exchange, the Taliban promised to sever ties with al-Qaida and end attacks on American forces. Though the Taliban did not target American soldiers, the militant group escalated attacks on the Afghan government's security forces and civilian casualties remained high. The Trump administration began a drawdown of U.S. forces.
“The Trump administration started this problem in the immediate sense,” said Stephen Biddle, a professor of international and public affairs at Columbia University and an adjunct senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. "Biden didn’t make that decision. He didn’t change it, which I think he should have. But he didn’t make it. Trump did. So it’s hard for Trumpy Republicans to come out foursquare against the withdrawal when their hero wanted the same thing.”
As Trump prepared to leave office, the Pentagon announced plans Nov. 17 to reduce troops levels to 2,500 in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The withdrawal of U.S. troops “is something that the former president vowed to do,” Weinstein said. “He just didn't have the courage to do it.”
The drawdown announcement came a week after Trump sacked Defense Secretary Mark Esper, who advocated for reducing the American presence in Afghanistan only when security conditions allowed.
More: Biden sends 5,000 troops to Afghanistan as the Taliban captures northern city
Trump installed acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller, an Army combat veteran who served in Afghanistan and Iraq, who called the reduction prudent, well-planned and coordinated.
A senior Defense Department official, who was not authorized to speak publicly, said at the time that two conditions had been met: Security in the USA would not be threatened, and the remaining troops would be able to assist the government in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The United States had troops stationed in Afghanistan since October 2001 after an invasion launched under President George W. Bush in response to the 9/11 terror attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon outside Washington. U.S.-led forces targeted the al-Qaida terrorists who had planned the jetliner attacks and received support from the militant Taliban government.
‘No possible life’ under Taliban rule: Afghan women fear murder, oppression after US withdrawal
'No matter who is commander in chief ...'
The withdrawal of U.S. forces would have been no different under Trump, said Paul Rieckhoff, a national security and political analyst and founder of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America.
"This is actually the kind of hasty, poorly planned, arrogant, irresponsible withdrawal we would have expected from Trump," Rieckhoff said. "Most of us in the national security space expected Biden to know better. Especially since he’s the lone president who has had a child serve overseas since 9/11. And many of us were screaming for him to listen for the last few months as the hasty pullout was underway."
Still, it was clear the United States was getting out of Afghanistan, no matter who was elected president, Rieckhoff said.
"The important question that wasn’t pressed on either candidate in any of the debates is what was their plan to do it," Rieckhoff said. "Biden clearly didn’t have a good plan. And now, America, the Afghan people and the world are paying the catastrophic price. The question now for Biden: ‘What is the plan for what comes next?’”
Kazianis said one thing might have been different under Trump.
"President Trump more than likely would have been much more open to launching a massive air campaign to try and stop the Taliban advance, trying to limit the damage politically back home," Kazianis said. "Trump was all about trying to create good optics out of bad situations, and I think an air campaign would have given him the cover to show he tried to do something while placing the blame on the Afghan government for what happened later."
Even so, the outcome in Afghanistan would have been the same, Kazianis said.
"Afghanistan was never going to be a rock solid stable country by any stretch of the imagination, despite nearly $1 trillion in taxpayer dollars ... no matter who is commander in chief," he said.
Michael Collins covers the White House. Follow him on Twitter @mcollinsNEW
Contributing: Deirdre Shesgreen, Tom Vanden Brook
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Would Trump's withdrawal from Afghanistan be different than Biden's?
