WASHINGTON: President Joe Biden defended the US pullout from Afghanistan Monday, saying he stood by the policy and that it was time to leave after 20 years of conflict.
“I am president of the United States of America and the buck stops with me,” Biden said in a much-awaited televised address from the White House, after several days of silence on the momentous developments.Biden said the crisis unfolding in Afghanistan is “gut-wrenching” for US veterans who fought there over the past 20 years. For them,he says, “this is deeply deeply personal. It is for me as well. I’ve worked on these issues as long as anyone,” he continued.
Biden said he was “deeply saddened” by the turn of events — and promised to “speak out” on the rights of women now facing a return to Taliban rule.But he was steadfast in insisting he did not regret pulling out America’s troops — despite a torrent of criticism of the chaotic end to two decades of US-led military intervention.
“I stand squarely behind my decision,” Biden said. “After 20 years, I’ve learned the hard way that there was never a good time to withdraw US forces.”The US leader acknowledged that the Afghan government collapsed more quickly than he expected — and suggested that they had lacked the will to stand up to the Taliban.
“The truth is, this did unfold more quickly than we had anticipated,” Biden said.The US president said the Afghan government failed to take his advice and negotiate a political settlement with the Taliban.
“Mr Ghani insisted that the Afghan forces would fight. But obviously he was wrong. While Biden said he took responsibility for the fate of the US mission, he lashed out at the former Afghan government and military commanders who were put in place, organized and supported by Washington over the last 20 years.
Instead of standing up to the advancing Taliban — a highly experienced guerrilla force but more lightly armed than the US-supplied Afghan army — the government fled. “We gave them every chance to determine their own future. We could not provide them with the will to fight for that future.”
Biden reiterated however that the US national interest in Afghanistan was always principally about preventing terrorist attacks on the US homeland — and that America would continue to “act quickly and decisively” against any terror threat emanating from the country.“The mission in Afghanistan was never supposed to be nation-building,” he said.
And the US president issued a stark warning to the Taliban not to disrupt or threaten the evacuation of thousands of American diplomats and Afghan translators at the Kabul airport.“We will defend our people with devastating force if necessary,” he said. Biden said that a longer war in Afghanistan would have benefited China and Russia, even as his top diplomat consulted the two adversaries on the swift Taliban victory. “Our true strategic competitors China and Russia would love nothing more than the United States to continue to funnel billions of dollars in resources and attention in stabilizing Afghanistan indefinitely,” Biden said in a nationwide address as he staunchly defended his decision to pull troops.
Meanwhile, the United States State Department said that it would only recognize a Taliban government in Afghanistan if it respects the rights of women and shuns extremist movements such as Al-Qaeda.
“Ultimately when it comes to our posture towards any future government in Afghanistan, it will depend upon the actions of that government. It will depend upon the actions of the Taliban,” State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters when asked about recognition.
“A future Afghan government that upholds the basic rights of its people, that doesn’t harbor terrorists and that protects the basic rights of its people including the basic fundamental rights of half of its population — its women and girls — that is a government we would be able to work with.”
He said that the US negotiator on Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, remained in the Taliban’s diplomatic base of Qatar and that US officials have been in talks with the insurgents in the Gulf state.
The Taliban on Sunday took over Kabul with surprising ease, overthrowing a government backed by a two-decade military involvement that President Joe Biden has ended.The Taliban imposed draconian rules on women during its 1996-2001 rule ended by a US invasion including banning education for girls.
Earlier, Secretary of State Antony Blinken nonetheless discussed Afghanistan with the foreign ministers of Russia and China, both of which have moved quickly to work with the Taliban.Russia said Blinken and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov discussed Moscow’s outreach to various Afghan political forces that is aimed at “helping ensure stability and public order.”
The two “agreed to continue consultations with the participation of China, Pakistan and other interested nations to establish the right conditions to begin an inclusive inter-Afghan dialogue under the new conditions,” a Russian foreign ministry statement said.
Both Russia and China stepped up contacts with the Taliban after the United States decided to withdraw from Afghanistan, ending a 20-year military involvement and setting off the swift crumbling of the government in Kabul.
Moscow, which in Soviet times spent a decade in a costly occupation of Afghanistan during which it battled Islamic guerrillas then backed by Washington, has kept its embassy open in Kabul and plans discussions with the Taliban.
Russia has said it sees the Taliban “restoring order,” while China said Monday it wanted “friendly and cooperative” relations” with Afghanistan under the Taliban.Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told Biden that Beijing sought an “open and inclusive political framework.”
“China stands ready to communicate with the United States to push for a soft landing of the Afghan issue, so that a new civil war or humanitarian disaster will be prevented in Afghanistan and the country will not relapse into a hotbed and shelter for terrorism,” Wang said, according to state news agency Xinhua.
China, which according to human rights groups has incarcerated more than one million mostly Muslim people from the Uyghur and other minorities in a campaign Washington considers genocide, is eager to stop Islamic radicalism on its soil and is allied with Pakistan, the Taliban’s historic backer.
US negotiator Zalmay Khalilzad regularly consulted Russia and China during his unsuccessful diplomacy to encourage a peaceful power-sharing agreement as the United States withdrew.In a related development, Washington DC police closed Lafayette Park on the north side of the White House. The park has been the scene of angry protests against the US withdrawal since the fall of Kabul on Sunday.
