US will be forced to reinvade Afghanistan, says Lindsey Graham

LONDON: Republican Senator Lindsey Graham made an ominous prediction on Sunday when he said the US will be re-deploying troops into Afghanistan 'like we went back into Iraq and Syria' because the Taliban will turn the conflict-ridden country into a 'safe haven' for radical Islamists.

'They're going to give safe haven to Al Qaeda, who has ambitions to drive us out of the Mideast writ large and attack us because of our way of life,' Graham said on the BBC. 'We will be going back into Afghanistan like we went back into Iraq and Syria.' Graham's remarks came less than a week after the US completed its military evacuation from the country and ended its 20-year engagement in America's longest war. 'Hang on - you seriously think the United States will once again in the foreseeable future put troops back into Afghanistan?' BBC host Stephen Sackur pressed.

'We'll have to,' Graham answered. 'We’ll have to because the threat will be so large.' 'Why did we go back to Syria and Iraq? Why do we have 5,000 troops in Iraq today? Because of the caliphate rising, projecting force outside of Iraq, killing Americans, killing the French, attacking the British.' The South Carolina senator said Afghanistan will soon be 'a cauldron for radical Islamic behavior.'

Taliban officials have repeatedly sought to project a relatively more modern, revitalized image to the world in their quest for international legitimacy. In a peace deal struck under former President Donald Trump in 2019, the Taliban pledged they wouldn't allow terrorist groups to grow and pose a threat to western forces.

Since taking Afghanistan the Taliban promised blanket amnesty to people who worked with the US government and said women would have freedom to hold jobs and go to school. 'The Taliban are not reformed, they're not new, they have a view of the world out of sync with modern times, they're going to impose a lifestyle on the Afghan people that I think is going to make us all sick to our stomach,' Graham said on Sunday. He expressed doubt the Taliban would remain in control of Afghanistan because he said they were 'hated by the Afghan people.'

Graham predicted the country and the government the Taliban were trying to build would soon collapse. 'The entire country is going to fracture in the next year, creating a perfect storm for western interests to be attacked,' he said.