essay on us withdrawal from afghanistan

Timeline of U.S. Withdrawal from Afghanistan

Key decisions by two administrations determined to end America's longest war

By Eugene Kiely and Robert Farley

Posted on August 17, 2021

The blame game has begun over who lost Afghanistan.

The fact is, President Joe Biden and his predecessor, Donald Trump, were both eager to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan and end what Biden referred to in his Aug. 16 speech as “America’s longest war.”

The Trump administration in February 2020 negotiated a withdrawal agreement with the Taliban that excluded the Afghan government , freed 5,000 imprisoned Taliban soldiers and set a date certain of May 1, 2021, for the final withdrawal.

And the Trump administration kept to the pact, reducing U.S. troop levels from about 13,000 to 2,500 , even though the Taliban continued to attack Afghan government forces and welcomed al-Qaeda terrorists into the Taliban leadership.

Biden delayed the May 1 withdrawal date that he inherited. But ultimately his administration pushed ahead with a plan to withdraw by Aug. 31, despite obvious signs that the Taliban wasn’t complying with the agreement and had a stated goal to create an “Islamic government” in Afghanistan after the U.S. left, even if it meant it had to “continue our war to achieve our goal.”

Biden assured Americans last month that a Taliban takeover of Afghanistan was “not inevitable,” and denied that U.S. intelligence assessed that the Afghan government would likely collapse. But it did — and quickly.

Here we lay out many of the key diplomatic decisions, military actions, presidential pronouncements and expert assessments of the withdrawal agreement that ended the U.S. military’s 20-year war in Afghanistan — a war that has “taken the lives of nearly 2,500 U.S. servicemen and servicewomen, cost a trillion dollars, and occupied the attention of four presidential administrations,” as the Afghanistan Study Group put it in a February report.

Trump Strikes a Deal

Feb. 29, 2020 — U.S. and Taliban sign an agreement that sets the terms for a U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan by May 1, 2021, but do not release two classified annexes that set the conditions for U.S. withdrawal. At the time of the agreement, the U.S. had about 13,000 troops in Afghanistan, according to a Department of Defense inspector general report.

The withdrawal of U.S. troops is contingent on the “Taliban’s action against al-Qaeda and other terrorists who could threaten us,” Trump says in a speech at the Conservative Political Active Conference. (U.S. withdrawals, however, occurred despite the fact that the Defense Department inspector general’s office repeatedly reported that the Taliban worked with al-Qaeda.)

The pact includes the release of 5,000 Taliban fighters who have been held prisoners by the Afghanistan government, which is not a party to the agreement.

March 1, 2020 — Afghan President Ashraf Ghani objects to a provision in the agreement that would require his country to release 5,000 Taliban prisoners. “Freeing Taliban prisoners is not [under] the authority of America but the authority of the Afghan government,” Ghani says . “There has been no commitment for the release of 5,000 prisoners.”

March 4, 2020 — Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley tells the Senate Armed Services Committee that the Taliban pledged in the classified documents not to attack U.S. troops and coalition forces or launch “high-profile attacks,” including in Afghanistan’s 34 provincial capitals. “[T]he Taliban have signed up to a whole series of conditions … all the Members of the Congress have all the documents associated with this agreement,” Milley says.

Despite the agreement, the Taliban attack Afghan forces in Helmand province, and the U.S. responds with an air strike.

March 10, 2020 — Under pressure from the U.S., Ghani orders the release of 1,500 Taliban prisoners, but at the rate of 100 per day.

May 19, 2020 — In releasing its quarterly report on Afghanistan, the DOD inspector general’s office says the U.S. cut troop levels in Afghanistan by more than 4,000, even though “the Taliban escalated violence further after signing the agreement.”

“U.S. officials stated the Taliban must reduce violence as a necessary condition for continued U.S. reduction in forces and that remaining high levels of violence could jeopardize the U.S.-Taliban agreement,” according to the report, which covered activity from Jan. 1, 2020, to March 31, 2020. “Even still, the United States began to reduce its forces in Afghanistan from roughly 13,000 to 8,600.”

Aug. 18, 2020 — In releasing a report that covered activity in Afghanistan from April 1, 2020, to June 30, 2020, the Defense Department inspector general’s office says, “The Taliban did not appear to uphold its commitment to distance itself from terrorist organizations in Afghanistan. UN and U.S. officials reported that the Taliban continued to support al-Qaeda, and conducted joint attacks with al-Qaeda members against Afghan National Defense and Security Forces.”

Sept. 3, 2020 — Afghanistan release s the final 400 Taliban prisoners, as required under the U.S.-Taliban agreement, clearing the way for intra-Afghan peace talks to begin.

Sept. 12, 2020 — After seven months of delays, Afghanistan government officials and Taliban representatives meet in Qatar for peace talks. The U.S.-Taliban agreement called for the first peace talks to begin on March 10.

Sept. 16, 2020 — The Taliban continued attacks on government forces. The Voice of America reported that “Taliban attacks in three provinces across northern Afghanistan since Tuesday killed at least 17 people, including six civilians, and wounded scores of others even as a Taliban political team was negotiating peace with Afghan government representatives in Doha, Qatar.”

Sept. 18, 2020 — At a press conference, Trump says , “We’re dealing very well with the Taliban.  They’re very tough, they’re very smart, they’re very sharp.  But, you know, it’s been 19 years, and even they are tired of fighting, in all fairness.”

Nov. 16, 2020 — Congressional Republicans, responding to news reports that the Trump administration will rapidly reduce forces in Afghanistan, warn of what Sen. Marco Rubio calls “a Saigon-type of situation” in Afghanistan. “A rapid withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan now would hurt our allies and delight the people who wish us harm,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says.

Nov. 17, 2020 — Acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller formally announces that the U.S. will reduce U.S. forces in Afghanistan to 2,500 by Jan. 15, 2021.

On the same day, the Defense Department IG’s office released a report for the quarter ending Sept. 30, 2020, that said the peace negotiations between the Afghan government and Taliban representatives had stalled and violence increased. “At the same time, the Taliban increased its attacks against Afghan forces, leading to ‘distressingly high’ levels of violence that could threaten the peace agreement,” the report said.

Dec. 2, 2020 — After past false starts, Afghan and Taliban negotiators agree on a framework to govern peace negotiations. “At the same time, the Taliban continued its ‘fight and talk’ strategy, increasing violence across the country to increase its leverage with the Afghan government in negotiations,” the Defense Department IG’s office said a quarterly report covering this period.

The IG report also continued to warn that the Taliban was apparently violating the withdrawal agreement. “This withdrawal is contingent on the Taliban abiding by its commitments under the agreement, which include not allowing terrorists to use Afghan soil to threaten the United States and its allies,” the report said . “However, it was unclear whether the Taliban was in compliance with the agreement, as members of al-Qaeda were integrated into the Taliban’s leadership and command structure.”

Jan. 15 — “Today, U.S. force levels in Afghanistan have reached 2,500,” Miller, the acting defense secretary, says in a statement. “[T]his drawdown brings U.S. forces in the country to their lowest levels since 2001.”

Afghanistan’s First Vice President Amrullah Saleh tells the BBC that the Trump administration made too many concessions to the Taliban. “I am telling [the United States] as a friend and as an ally that trusting the Taliban without putting in a verification mechanism is going to be a fatal mistake,” Saleh says, adding that Afghanistan leaders warned the U.S. that “violence will spike” as the 5,000 Taliban prisoners were released. “Violence has spiked,” he added.

Biden Follows Through

Feb. 3 — The Afghanistan Study Group, which was created by Congress in December 2019 and charged with making policy recommendations for a peaceful transition in Afghanistan, releases a report recommending changes to the agreement with the Taliban. “The most important revision is to ensure that a complete withdrawal of U.S. troops is based not on an inflexible timeline but on all parties fulfilling their commitments, including the Taliban making good on its promises to contain terrorist groups and reduce violence against the Afghan people, and making compromises to achieve a political settlement,” it said.

Feb. 19 — Biden reiterates his campaign promise to bring U.S. troops home from Afghanistan, saying during remarks at the Munich Security Conference, “My administration strongly supports the diplomatic process that’s underway and to bring an end to this war that is closing out 20 years. We remain committed to ensuring that Afghanistan never again provides a base for terrorist attacks against the United States and our partners and our interests.”

March 7 — Secretary of State Antony Blinken tells Afghanistan President Ashra Ghani that, despite future U.S. financial assistance, he is “concerned that the security situation will worsen and the Taliban could make rapid territorial gains.”

March 25 — Gen. Richard Clarke, commander of the U.S. Special Operations Command, tells the Senate Armed Services Committee that “it is clear that the Taliban have not upheld what they said they would do and reduce the violence. While…they have not attacked U.S. forces, it is clear that they took a deliberate approach and increased their violence…since the peace accords were signed.”

March 25 — During a press conference at the White House, Biden says “it’s going to be hard to meet the May 1 deadline. Just in terms of tactical reasons, it’s hard to get those troops out.” He assures that “if we leave, we’re going to do so in a safe and orderly way.” Without committing to a pullout date, Biden says, “it is not my intention to stay there for a long time. But the question is: How and in what circumstances do we meet that agreement that was made by President Trump to leave under a deal that looks like it’s not being able to be worked out to begin with? How is that done? But we are not staying a long time.”

April 14 — Saying it is “time to end the forever war,” Biden announces that all troops will be removed from Afghanistan by Sept. 11.

In a speech explaining the decision, Biden says he became convinced after  trip to Afghanistan in 2008 that “more and endless American military force could not create or sustain a durable Afghan government.” Biden says the U.S. achieved its initial and primary objective, “to ensure Afghanistan would not be used as a base from which to attack our homeland again” and that “our reasons for remaining in Afghanistan are becoming increasingly unclear.”

Biden says he “inherited a diplomatic agreement” between the U.S. and the Taliban that all U.S. forces would be out by May 1. “It is perhaps not what I would have negotiated myself, but it was an agreement made by the United States government, and that means something,” Biden says, adding that final troop withdrawal would begin on May 1.

“We will not conduct a hasty rush to the exit,” Biden says. “We’ll do it responsibly, deliberately, and safely.” Biden assures Americans that the U.S. has “trained and equipped a standing force of over 300,000 Afghan personnel” and that “they’ll continue to fight valiantly, on behalf of the Afghans, at great cost.”

April 15 — In response to Biden’s decision to delay full withdrawal until Sept. 11, the Taliban releases a statement that says failure to complete the withdrawal by May 1 “opens the way for [the Taliban] to take every necessary countermeasure, hence the American side will be held responsible for all future consequences.”

April 18 — In a released statement , Trump criticizes Biden’s Sept. 11 withdrawal deadline saying, “we can and should get out earlier.” He concludes, “Getting out of Afghanistan is a wonderful and positive thing to do. I planned to withdraw on May 1st, and we should keep as close to that schedule as possible.”

May 18 — The Defense Department IG releases a report for the first three months of 2021 that says the Taliban had increased its attacks against Afghanistan government forces during this period and appears to be preparing with al-Qaeda for “large-scale offensives.”

“The Taliban initiated 37 percent more attacks this quarter than during the same period in 2020,” the report said. “According to the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Taliban maintained close ties with al-Qaeda and was very likely preparing for large-scale offensives against population centers and Afghan government installations.”

May 18 — In a House hearing on U.S. policy in Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. special representative for Afghanistan reconciliation, downplays the prospect of a swift Taliban takeover when U.S. forces leave. “If they [Taliban] pursue, in my judgment, a military victory, it will result in a long war, because Afghan security forces will fight, other Afghans will fight, neighbors will come to support different forces,” Khalilzad says .

Later Khalilzad added , “I personally believe that the statements that the [Afghan] forces will disintegrate, and the Talibs will take over in short order are mistaken. The real choices that the Afghans will face is between a long war and negotiated settlement.”

June 8 — Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid tells Foreign Policy that after foreign forces leave Afghanistan the group’s goal is to create an “Islamic government,” and “we will be compelled to continue our war to achieve our goal.”

June 26 — At a rally in Ohio, his first since leaving office, Trump boasts that Biden can’t stop the process he started to remove troops from Afghanistan, and acknowledges the Afghan government won’t last once U.S. troops leave.

“I started the process,” Trump says. “All the troops are coming back home. They [the Biden administration] couldn’t stop the process. 21 years is enough. Don’t we think? 21 years. They couldn’t stop the process. They wanted to, but it was very tough to stop the process when other things… It’s a shame. 21 years, by a government that wouldn’t last. The only way they last is if we’re there. What are we going to say? We’ll stay for another 21 years, then we’ll stay for another 50. The whole thing is ridiculous. … We’re bringing troops back home from Afghanistan.”

July 6 — The U.S. military confirms it has pulled out of Bagram Airfield, its largest airfield in the Afghanistan, as the final withdrawal nears.

July 8 — Saying “speed is safety,” Biden moves up the timeline for full troop withdrawal to Aug. 31. Biden acknowledges the move comes as the Taliban “is at its strongest militarily since 2001.” Biden says if he went back on the agreement that Trump made, the Taliban “would have again begun to target our forces” and that “staying would have meant U.S. troops taking casualties. … Once that agreement with the Taliban had been made, staying with a bare minimum force was no longer possible.”

Biden assures Americans that a Taliban takeover of Afghanistan “is not inevitable,” and denies that U.S. intelligence assessed that the Afghan government would likely collapse.

Asked if he sees any parallels between the withdrawals from Vietnam Afghanistan, Biden responds, “None whatsoever. Zero. … The Taliban is not the south — the North Vietnamese army. They’re not — they’re not remotely comparable in terms of capability.  There’s going to be no circumstance where you see people being lifted off the roof of a embassy in the — of the United States from Afghanistan.  It is not at all comparable.”

Biden adds that “the likelihood there’s going to be the Taliban overrunning everything and owning the whole country is highly unlikely.”

Biden also promises to help accelerate the issuance of special visas for Afghan nationals who helped the U.S. during the war.

July 24 — At a rally in Phoenix, Trump again boasts, “I started the move out of Afghanistan,” adding “I think it was impossible for him [Biden] to stop it, but it was a much different deal.”

Trump says that when he was president, in a phone conversation with the leader of the Taliban, he warned that after U.S. troops leave if “you decide to do something terrible to our country … we are going to come back and we are going to hit you harder than any country has ever been hit.” Trump says he believes the two “had a real understanding” but that after Trump left office “now they’re going wild over there.”

Aug. 6 — The Taliban takes control of its first province — the capital of Nimroz province in Afghanistan — despite the agreement it signed with the U.S.

Aug. 15 — Taliban fighters enter the Afghanistan capital Kabul; the Afghan president flees the country; U.S. evacuates diplomats from its embassy by helicopter.

Aug. 16 — In a speech to the nation, Biden says, “I do not regret my decision to end America’s warfighting in Afghanistan,” and deflected blame for the government’s swift collapse.

“The truth is: This did unfold more quickly than we had anticipated. So what’s happened? Afghanistan political leaders gave up and fled the country. The Afghan military collapsed, sometimes without trying to fight,” the president said. “If anything, the developments of the past week reinforced that ending U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan now was the right decision.”

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The U.S. Withdrawal from Afghanistan and the Fall of Kabul: A Q&A with Allen Weiner

• Sharon Driscoll

This Q&A with Allen S. Weiner was originally published on the Stanford Law School  website.

As the Taliban’s forces closed in on Kabul on Sunday, August 15, 2021, the Afghan President Ashraf Ghani left his country, the acting U.S. ambassador was evacuated, the American flag on the embassy in the country’s capital lowered—and the Biden administration’s plans for an orderly withdrawal of troops, diplomats, and Afghan aids and translators by the anniversary of 9/11 dashed as a scramble for the door becomes more chaotic. After twenty years, 2 trillion dollars, and the lives of almost 2,500 American personnel lost, President Biden said it was time to let the Afghan government and military stand on its own. Here, Stanford Law national security law expert  Allen Weiner , who is a research affiliate at FSI’s Center for Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, and the Center for International Security and Cooperation, discusses the U.S. mission to Afghanistan, its withdrawal, and potential consequences.

What was the American/NATO objective when we invaded Afghanistan almost twenty years ago?

The immediate United States objective at the time of the 2001 invasion was to destroy Al Qaeda’s base of operations in Afghanistan and to kill or capture senior Al Qaeda leaders there.  As those of us who are old enough to remember will recall, the invasion (“Operation Enduring Freedom”) was the U.S.-led response to the 9/11 attacks against World Trade Center twin towers and the Pentagon that were carried out by Al Qaeda. Because the Taliban regime in Afghanistan had a symbiotic relationship with—and provided a safe haven to—Al Qaeda on Afghanistan’s territory, the U.S. and its NATO allies also sought to drive the Taliban from power. At the time, the Taliban was fighting a civil war in Afghanistan and by October 2001 had achieved effective control over most of the country. President Bush and others quickly began to emphasize an additional objective for overthrowing the Taliban— to liberate the Afghan people from the regime’s repressive practices. We sought to promote basic human rights and to end the Taliban’s oppression of women.

Were those objectives met?

The U.S. and its NATO allies largely met those initial goals. Al Qaeda’s training camps in Afghanistan were destroyed, many of its leaders were killed and captured (although some, including Osama bin Laden, managed to escape at least initially), and its ability to plan, finance, and execute major global terrorist operations was severely diminished. U.S. and NATO forces drove the Taliban from power, and after a transitional period, a new government led by Hamid Karzai was established. Women and girls resumed participation in public life in Afghanistan, including education.

But those successes were fleeting?

As we know, the successes did not last. Although Al Qaeda never resumed significant operations in Afghanistan, the organization metastasized, and lethal variants of the organization arose in Yemen, Iraq and Syria, and the Maghreb, among other places. Other terrorist groups, such as the Islamic State and al Shabaab, either grew out of or have affiliations of varying degrees of intensity with Al Qaeda. We have also seen attacks carried out by homegrown terrorist organizations with only loose affiliations to Al Qaeda, sometimes only ideological affinities. So, while Operation Enduring Freedom significantly disrupted terrorist operations originating from Afghanistan, it cannot be said to have eliminated the threat of transnational terrorism.

And the Taliban continued to be a simmering problem in Afghanistan, didn’t it?

The goal of eradicating the Taliban, obviously, also was unmet. Although then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld declared an end to major combat operations against Al Qaeda and the Taliban in May 2003, a revitalized Taliban renewed an intense civil war in the summer of  2006. That civil war against the Afghanistan government—which appears now to have been won by the Taliban—continued with varying degrees of intensity until the past few days. And if another of the goals of the invasion was to improve the protection of human rights in Afghanistan, we must recognize that civilians suffered terribly during the civil war.

Are there any (hopefully) enduring successes from the twenty-year investment by the U.S. and NATO?

Afghanistan did make significant progress in terms of economic development and the realization of at least some civil and political rights. Per capita GDP rose dramatically in the decades after the U.S. invasion. The status of women and girls improved along many dimensions, including health, life expectancy, education levels, and participation in government institutions. The Taliban’s victory clearly imperils these gains.

The Trump Administration negotiated an agreement with Taliban in 2020 providing for the withdrawal of U.S. Forces from Afghanistan by May 2021, as part of which the Taliban promised not to deliberatively attack U.S. troops during the withdrawal period.  Since then, the Taliban has been steadily gaining control over provinces in the county, and civilian casualties have been rising. Was it pure fantasy that the US was maintaining the peace?

The Trump Administration’s February 2020 agreement with Taliban, in which the U.S. promised to withdraw its forces from Afghanistan in a little over a year, even though the Taliban did not agree to even a ceasefire, much less reach any political agreements with the government about ending the civil war, was the beginning of the end. It clearly signaled to both the Taliban and the government that the U.S. was now concerned only with the security of its own forces, and that the Afghan government was on its own. Given that the Taliban was making progress in gaining territory, at least in the countryside, even with U.S. troops present, many analysts—including the U.S. intelligence community—forecast the eventual overthrow of the Afghan government. It is only the shocking speed with which that happened that is a real surprise.

The fall of the Afghan government has taken many, including apparently some in the Biden administration, by surprise. Why did the collapse of the Afghan military happen so swiftly?  And what role did the Afghan police force and corruption play?

Many commentators who have been critical of the U.S. effort to build up the Afghan military have long expressed doubts about the effectiveness of the Afghanistan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF), and many analysts predicted that the Taliban would ultimately prevail against the government after the U.S. and its NATO allies withdrew from Afghanistan. That said, I don’t think anyone predicted it would happen as swiftly as it did.

Multiple factors have been cited to explain how the Taliban—a force estimated to comprise some 75,000 fighters—defeated the 300,000-member strong ANDSF. First, despite the seeming superiority of the government forces, conditions for ANDSF soldiers were quite abysmal. Many reportedly went months without being paid. They lacked ammunition and even food. There are reports of incompetent leadership within the armed forces, leaving Afghan soldiers exposed in the middle of pitch battles, without reinforcements.

A second factor is the pervasive and corrosive corruption among Afghan government actors.  This helps explain why—despite the U.S. infusion of billions of dollars in military assistance— Afghan soldiers went without pay and lacked adequate ammunition.  It also explains why in some cases, after Afghan forces fighting alongside U.S. forces succeeded in clearing territory of Taliban insurgents, the Afghan government would fail to hold it. The notoriously corrupt and unprofessional Afghanistan police forces—who were in charge of security after territory had been cleared of Taliban fighters by the ANDSF—reportedly engaged in predatory practices targeting the local community or could be bought off by the insurgency to cede ground back.

Third, some critics of the U.S. effort to modernize the Afghan army have long argued that the ANDSF lacked resolve to aggressively engage the Taliban insurgency in the absence of active support from U.S. soldiers. Although there are many stories of Afghan soldiers fighting fiercely, there are anecdotal accounts of Afghan armed forces engaging in “mini non-aggression deals” with Taliban fighters in their area of responsibility in an effort to avoid armed engagement.

Fourth, the lack of motivation of Afghan armed forces was exacerbated in recent years by the unpopularity and perceived fecklessness of the Afghan government led by President Ashraf Ghani. Re-elected in 2019 after an election with sharply disputed results, in which voter turnout was less than 20 percent, the Ghani government was widely seen as ineffective in addressing corruption, effectively managing the country, or confronting the growing security threat posed by the Taliban. It became a common refrain among Afghan soldiers that the Ghani government was not one worth fighting for.

Fifth, it appears that in at least some provinces in Afghanistan, the Taliban, in essence, offered government forces negotiated settlements to cede control of territory. In some cases, this involved offering payments to government soldiers to switch sides—a particularly attractive offer for soldiers who had not been paid in months. It is likely that the Taliban offered broader commitments, e.g., not to engage in retribution against government soldiers who abandoned the fight, although I have not yet seen reports of such deals.

Sixth, there a seasonal calendar to armed conflict in Afghanistan, and the Taliban has typically engaged in its major military operations during the spring and summer.  Delaying the U.S. withdrawal by six months, so that U.S. forces did not leave during the height of what is known in Afghanistan as “fighting season,” might have given the ANDSF more time to prepare to defend Afghanistan’s cities. Although given how swiftly Afghan government forces were swept aside, this now seems doubtful to me.

Finally, from an operational standpoint, the U.S. has invested billions of dollars in Afghanistan to attempt to build up a military that functions in ways that resemble how a NATO army operates, with air power and advanced weaponry. Such a military depends on extremely complex behind-the-scenes logistics arrangements. In Afghanistan, these logistics systems depended heavily on U.S. contractors, who also began withdrawing from the country after President Biden announced the U.S. withdrawal. Many of the aircraft in Afghanistan’s air force, for instance, were grounded because they lacked parts needed for repairs or routine servicing. One of the lessons of the defeat of the ANDSF is that building a foreign country’s military also requires developing indigenous logistics capacity.

Troops had been drawn down to about 3,000 and negotiations that excluded the Afghan gov’t were conducted with the Taliban during the Trump administration. Could Biden, realistically, have rewound the clock–bringing more troops back? Was Biden pushed into a tough corner?

Although the withdrawal agreement the Trump Administration concluded with the Taliban in February 2020 may not have initiated the death spiral for the Afghanistan government and military, it certainly catalyzed it, as I noted above. It did put the Biden Administration in a tough position; the only option would have been to renege on the agreement, leave U.S. troops in Afghanistan, and to seek to renegotiate the agreement. That said, although that may have been a tough position, it was not an impossible one, as evidenced by the fact that the Biden Administration unilaterally changed the agreed upon date by which U.S. forces would withdraw from Afghanistan from May to August.

I’m not a military strategist, so I can’t say whether maintaining a force of 3,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan would have changed the military situation on the ground. But I think if the U.S. had said that it would not withdraw the U.S. military presence until there was a ceasefire and the Taliban and the Afghan government have negotiated a power sharing agreement/end to the civil war, that might have changed the Taliban’s political assessment about how to proceed. I stress that this only “might” have changed the Taliban’s thinking. The fact that the Taliban has been fighting for twenty years suggests that the group was very determined to regain control of Afghanistan and re-establish its vision of life for the Afghan people.

I understand that Russia and other countries have negotiated agreements to ensure the safety of their embassies and diplomatic staff so that they can continue operations in Kabul. Have the Americans done the same? If not, how significant will that be for the future safety of the U.S and the threat of terrorism? Will we have “eyes on the ground” and intelligence sources?

The United States is currently withdrawing all of its diplomatic personnel from Afghanistan and will presumably once again shutter its embassy in Kabul. The U.S. will face a difficult question about whether to recognize the new Taliban regime that will be installed in Afghanistan, and if so, whether to resume diplomatic relations and re-open its embassy. If the Taliban regime pursues the policies that characterized its period of rule in the late 1990s, particularly the severe repression of women and girls, I doubt the U.S. will re-establish relations. Even if the U.S. did re-establish diplomatic relations, it is inconceivable that the Taliban would permit the United States to maintain the large intelligence and security presence we have had in Afghanistan over the past two decades. So, we will not have the ability gather intelligence on the ground or to conduct military operations against any terrorist threats that emerge in Afghanistan.

The Taliban has pledged that it will not allow Afghanistan’s territory to be used by terrorist groups that seek to conduct hostile operations against foreign countries. Although the Taliban learned in 2001 about the potential costs to it of harboring such groups on Afghanistan’s territory—namely, being overthrown by the U.S. and its NATO allies—there are obviously reasons to question the Taliban’s promise.

Is there anything Biden can do now to minimize the damage?

The Biden administration does not have much leverage at this point. The administration will presumably signal to the Taliban that it will closely monitor its conduct with respect to preventing its territory from being used by terrorist groups and its performance on human rights issues, including the treatment of women and girls. Should the Taliban perform poorly on these issues, the U.S. could try to secure sanctions against the Taliban regime through the Security Council; after all, the Council had imposed sanctions on the Taliban in the 1990s in response to its providing a safe haven to Osama bin Laden and its violation of human rights, particularly discrimination against women and girls. Today, however, it is unclear whether Russia and China, which are likely to seek stable relations with the Taliban government, would support such sanctions. That means the U.S. would probably be limited to unilateral sanctions as a way of signaling disapproval of, and seeking to change the behavior of, a prospective Taliban government.

Allen S. Weiner

Biden's afghanistan decision, there's no reason' for trump's move to pull troops from afghanistan, sarah chayes discusses life in taliban-resurgent afghanistan.

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U.S. Withdrawal from Afghanistan: End to an Endless War?

The September pullout will change the calculations of the Afghan negotiating parties and could lead to a recharged civil war.

Thursday, April 15, 2021 / By: Belquis Ahmadi ;  Ambassador Richard Olson;   Scott Worden ;  Johnny Walsh

Publication Type: Analysis

President Joe Biden formally announced on Wednesday that the United States will withdraw troops from Afghanistan by September 11 of this year, the 20th anniversary of the al-Qaida attacks that led to the U.S. overthrow of the Taliban. The decision comes a month after U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken looked to jump-start the moribund intra-Afghan peace talks in Doha, Qatar with a sweeping set of proposals. Although the withdrawal would mean an end to America’s longest war, the implications for Afghanistan’s hard-won progress are immense and many fear the possibility of a rejuvenated civil war after U.S. troops leave.

USIP’s Afghanistan experts examine what the withdrawal means for the peace process, what’s at stake for Afghans and how the troop pullout will impact the strategy of the Taliban, Afghan government and regional actors.

What impact will the extended U.S. withdrawal date have on the peace process?

Worden: Biden’s announcement of the U.S. troop withdrawal this year turns the existing peace process on its head by fundamentally changing the calculations of the Afghan negotiating parties and the neighboring countries who support them. The new policy decision explicitly removes the conditions on the presence of U.S. troops that are in the February 29, 2020 U.S.-Taliban agreement . Namely, that Taliban counterterrorism guarantees, direct negotiations with the Afghan government, discussion of a cease-fire and the withdrawal of U.S. troops are “inter-related.” Now the number one goal of the Taliban — the complete removal of U.S. troops — is likely to be achieved without a political settlement among the Afghan parties to the conflict and without a lasting cease-fire.

This turn of events gives the Taliban significantly more leverage to negotiate favorable terms of a return to a share of power in the Afghan government. The unconditional troop withdrawal also creates a risk that both the Taliban and the Afghan government will want to test their military strength in the absence of U.S. and NATO ground troops — leading to a more brutal civil war.

It remains to be seen whether a high-level peace conference that was just scheduled for April 24 in Istanbul will proceed. Taliban spokesperson Mohammed Naeem on Tuesday said , “Until all foreign forces completely withdraw from our homeland, the Islamic Emirate [as the Taliban refers to itself] will not participate in any conference that shall make decisions about Afghanistan.” Nevertheless, the Afghan parties and the broader region should recognize that a political settlement of the conflict is needed to avoid a net loss for them all. The sooner that negotiation begins, the less hardship there will be.

The Taliban will face fierce resistance from Afghan government forces still funded by the United States as well as militia forces who fear a return of Taliban atrocities against ethnic minorities if they try to take power by force. Regional neighbors do not want a return to full Taliban rule or the lawlessness and refugee flows that would emanate from a ramped-up civil war. Therefore, an intra-Afghan peace process is still necessary and the talks that began in Doha remain the best foundation to build upon. More active mediation by the United Nations and pressure from regional countries to condition future cooperation on responsible negotiations may help to keep the Taliban and the Afghan government at the table.

How can we expect the Taliban and Afghan government to respond and how will this impact their negotiating strategy in peace talks?

Walsh: The Taliban’s public reaction lamented that the United States will not meet the prior deadline to withdraw troops by May 1. As noted above, their spokesperson declared they will not discuss the political future of Afghanistan until all foreign troops have left — if it holds, this is an ominous stance for the peace process. It’s likely, however, that Taliban leaders already understood that U.S. troops would not leave so soon and are pleased at President Biden’s unequivocal statement that they will in fact leave in September. The main question for the Taliban now is whether to continue peace talks to head off a post-withdrawal crisis, or to double down on the battlefield when the Afghan government seems vulnerable. Different Taliban leaders fall on different sides of this question, but all will feel emboldened by the U.S. announcement.

Opinions also vary on the Afghan government side. President Ashraf Ghani expected this decision eventually; for all its drawbacks, he may prefer it to the United States pressing him toward an unfavorable (in his view) agreement with the Taliban. The president’s team projects confidence that Afghan troops can hold the line against the Taliban, though they may harbor private doubts. Their main focus may now shift to hardening the republic’s defenses and shoring up international financial assistance.  

Only a few other Afghan leaders have yet reacted publicly — presidential runner-up Abdullah Abdullah called for renewed peace efforts, while Afghanistan’s parliament speaker said the move was premature. A sense of abandonment or betrayal is likely among the larger cohort of Afghans who have led, or benefited from, the post-2001 republic. Behind the scenes, many such leaders have for years pursued safe landings abroad in case of a drastic deterioration inside Afghanistan. This trend may accelerate significantly in the coming months.

After four decades of war, what’s at stake for Afghans with potential for a U.S. withdrawal absent a peace agreement?

Ahmadi: In short, everything is at stake — all the hard-won progress and gains of the last 20 years. From the rights of women and ethnic and religious minorities, to press freedoms, to education and democratic gains, much hangs in the balance.

Afghan women and girls, in particular, have a lot on the line . They have made huge gains in education, their interests are increasingly incorporated in government decision-making processes and they play critical roles in the country’s civil society and economy. For their part, the Taliban’s approach and treatment of women has not fundamentally changed. For example, in areas under their control, women are not allowed to work outside their homes or go outside without a mahram (a blood relative) and girls’ education is restricted to sixth grade. NGOs have been warned against employing women and instructed to suspend women empowerment projects.

Leaders of religious and ethnic minorities have already started arming men and women to fight if the Taliban regain control of the entire country or their areas. After four decades of conflict stretching back to the 1979 Soviet invasion, a recharged civil war is likely unpreventable. This would inevitably lead to mass migrations and internal displacement. 

On the economic front, investors will most likely pack up and leave if the environment is unsuitable due to spiraling instability and Taliban-imposed restrictions. Afghans experienced the Taliban’s draconian rule in the 1990s — after 20 years of progress, few want to return to those days.

How could the Biden administration’s decision impact regional actors’ posture toward the peace process?

Olson: The immediate temptation for regional actors will be to seek allies within Afghanistan who can serve as proxies to advance their interests as U.S. forces withdraw. This dynamic is likely to intensify the conflict. That said, the Biden administration retains points of leverage, including future assistance packages to Afghanistan and the admittedly variable desire of the neighboring states to maintain good relations with Washington. Moreover, most regional states do not favor the return of the “Islamic Emirate” of the 1990s (since many face domestic threats from Islamists) even if they are prepared to accept Taliban dominance of a new political dispensation. 

By making clear that any significant reconstruction effort in Afghanistan will be contingent on preservation of the past 20 years’ gains (most importantly, women’s and minorities’ rights), the United States can push the region to deliver a concerted message to the Taliban that a return to the 1990s will be unacceptable and only lead to a prolongation of the conflict. The goal should be to modify Taliban behavior as it becomes a more dominant force to make clear that the movement needs to negotiate with other Afghans and accommodate the changes in Afghan society that have taken place over the past two decades.

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Afghanistan after U.S. Withdrawal: Five Conclusions

Barnett R. Rubin assesses the regional responses and the geopolitical situation around Afghanistan after U.S. withdrawal more than a year ago — from an influx of international terrorist groups operating from Afghanistan to the need for a more inclusive Taliban government and a road map for recognition

Barnett R. Rubin, a distinguished fellow at the Stimson Center, has been engaged with Afghanistan as a scholar, activist, and diplomat since 1983. In this photograph, Rubin is speaking with members of a grassroots peace movement who marched across Afghanistan to Kabul in 2018 to demonstrate at the U.S. Embassy and demand an end to the war. (Credit: Courtesy of the author)

More than a year after the United States withdrew its troops from Afghanistan and left Afghanistan to the Taliban, no government has recognized the Taliban’s Islamic Emirate, but no government is supporting a proxy war against it either. Such a war would create a power vacuum that could provide opportunities for both the Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP) and the U.S., the two entities that the most powerful neighboring countries consider preeminent threats. Among the concerns of neighboring countries are an influx of international terrorist groups into Afghanistan, the narrow and fragile power base of the government, retrograde social policies, the economic and humanitarian crisis resulting from the cutoff of aid, the freeze of Afghanistan’s foreign assets, sanctions against Taliban leaders, and the government’s inability or unwillingness to address these challenges. 

Afghanistan’s neighbors had wanted a U.S. military withdrawal as part of a political settlement. With no high-level diplomatic or political effort to reach a settlement that would have incorporated the Taliban into a larger framework, the U.S. allowed the Taliban to seize power by default when the government collapsed. For all of its occasional rhetoric about regional and global stability, the U.S. remained focused on threats to the U.S. “homeland” and U.S. geopolitical interests. 

More than a year after the United States withdrew its troops from Afghanistan and left Afghanistan to the Taliban, no government has recognized the Taliban’s Islamic Emirate, but no government is supporting a proxy war against it either.

Concerns over international terrorist groups topped the agenda of Afghanistan’s neighbors, all of whom are more at risk than the distant U.S. The U.S. withdrew its troops from Afghanistan pursuant to the Doha Agreement of February 29, 2020, between the U.S. and the Taliban. In return for troop withdrawal by the U.S., the Taliban agreed not to “host” or assist any individuals or groups threatening the U.S. and its allies. The killing by U.S. drone of al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri on July 31, 2022, cast a harsh light on the failure by the Taliban to honor the deal. Zawahiri was targeted while on the veranda of his home in the upscale Sherpur neighborhood of Kabul, which belonged to a relative of Minister of Interior Sirajuddin Haqqani. 

Zawahiri’s presence in a house belonging to an extended family member of the Taliban leadership violated their commitment not to “host” those threatening the security of the United States. This event, as well as others, assured that on August 23, 2022, the U.S. voted in the United Nations Security Council against extending the travel ban exemption for peacemaking activities for thirteen Taliban members. China and Russia voted in favor of extending the exemptions, as unlike the U.S., they are actively engaged in negotiations and business deals with the Taliban. Nonetheless both have indicated that the Taliban’s harboring of terrorists is a nonnegotiable obstacle to recognition. 

Chinese Foreign minister Wang Yi led a delegation to Kabul on March 24, 2022. According to the Chinese foreign ministry’s official account of the meeting:

Wang Yi hopes that Afghanistan will take effective measures to provide necessary conditions for normal exchanges between various countries and Afghanistan. The East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) is a terrorist organization designated by the UN Security Council and listed by the Chinese government in accordance with the law. China hopes that the Afghan side will earnestly fulfill its commitment and take effective measures to resolutely crack down on all terrorist forces, including the ETIM.

Scholars from institutes working for the presidency in Tajikistan whom I met in Dushanbe in mid-September estimated that there are 1,400 to 2,000 militants from Tajikistan in Northern Afghanistan, and a larger number of Uyghurs from China. In an attempt to appease China, the Taliban have moved the Uyghurs out of Badakhshan province, away from the Chinese border, but Tajikistan think-tank officials report that Uyghurs have been given Afghan passports (in violation of the Doha Agreement) and are being employed to train the Taliban’s special forces. 

Scholars from institutes working for the presidency in Tajikistan whom I met in Dushanbe in mid-September estimated that there are 1,400 to 2,000 militants from Tajikistan in Northern Afghanistan, and a larger number of Uyghurs from China.

At least publicly, Russia indicates approval of the Taliban stance toward terrorism. In a recent interview with Sputnik , Russian Presidential Special Representative on Afghanistan Zamir Kabulov said, “In foreign affairs, we do not complain to [the Taliban], because they are fulfilling the promise they made to fight terrorism,” by which he meant ISKP. For years the greatest terrorism concern that Russia expressed over Afghanistan was ISKP, and Russia charged that the U.S. was ferrying Islamic State Central Asian fighters from Syria to Afghanistan. 

Pakistan, which provided the Afghan Taliban with a secure safe haven and rear base from which to fight against the U.S.-led forces and the government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, has now expressed concern about safe havens for terrorism in Afghanistan. Pakistan for years has charged that the Afghan government with the support of India was providing support for the Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and Baloch nationalists. The Taliban government has hosted talks between Pakistan and the TTP in Kabul, but the talks have gone nowhere. Instead, the alliance between the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban seems stronger than ever. In his September 23, 2022, address to the United Nations General Assembly, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif opined that Pakistan shared international concerns about "the threat posed by the major terrorist groups operating from Afghanistan, especially Islamic State, ISIL-K [another name for ISKP] and TTP, as well as Al Qaeda, ETIM, and IMU [Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan]." 

In 2001, Iran under reformist President Mohammad Khatami gambled that an American presence in Afghanistan would be less of a threat than Sunni extremists like the Taliban and Al Qaeda. More than two decades of experience have convinced Khatami’s hardline successors that this was a bad bet. Former Foreign Minister and advisor to the Supreme Leader Ali Akbar Velayati has welcomed the Taliban into Iran’s “Axis of Resistance” against the United States. President Ebrahim Raisi’s special representative for Afghanistan, former Qods commander Hassan Kazemi Qomi, repeated the longstanding accusation that the Islamic State, including ISKP, was a creation of the Americans. He also charged that “America is organizing a group under the name ‘Resistance Front,’ which is a lie; they seek to create internal chaos in the name of resistance.” Iran’s former ambassador to Afghanistan, Mohammad Reza Bahrami, publicly contradicted him, and Qomi backtracked, claiming he had been misunderstood. Iranians are satisfied with the Taliban’s opposition to ISKP but wary of their attempts to improve relations with the U.S. and concerned about their mistreatment of Shi‘a populations.

All of Afghanistan’s neighbors — China, India, Iran, Pakistan, Russia, Uzbekistan — have stated publicly that the Taliban government must become more “inclusive.” In his most recent interview, Kabulov said that “inclusive government is the first step towards normalizing society, which includes education for girls and jobs and work opportunities for Afghan women and others.” Iran went so far as to hold a meeting in Mashhad between representatives of the Taliban and the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan but neither of the Afghan sides was prepared to negotiate. Chinese diplomats say that the formation of an “inclusive” government is a necessary condition for recognition. The reason for this common stance is the belief that any government monopolized by one group will not bring stability to Afghanistan.

Both Russia and China are leading separate regional processes aimed at achieving common goals in Afghanistan, in particular effective action by the Taliban against terrorist groups and formation of an inclusive government. Kabulov is hoping that a coordinated effort by Russia, China, Pakistan, Iran, and India (pointedly omitting the U.S.) will be able to persuade the Taliban to agree to form a more inclusive government and is convening a “Moscow format” meeting to that end on November 16, 2022. China is counting on the recurrent meetings it convenes of Foreign Ministers of the Neighboring Countries of Afghanistan, including China, Russia, Pakistan, Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan. The third and last such meeting took place in Tanxi, China, on March 31, 2022. 

Conclusions

• The Taliban will not respond to more sanctions and boycotts after they have, in their view, defeated the United States after more than 20 years of war. 
• The Taliban are equally unlikely to respond to engagement that is unaccompanied by a credible, even if conditional, offer of recognition. They would be more likely to respond to it if the offer were made by a coalition led by the U.S., but such an offer by such a coalition is now virtually impossible. 
• If the sole goal of U.S. foreign policy were to bring peace and stability to Afghanistan, the best policy would be to engage with China, Russia, Iran, Pakistan, India, and the UN to seek a common platform for engagement with the Taliban on the basis of a road map for recognition. For obvious reasons, it is now completely impossible for the U.S. to engage or cooperate with Russia and Iran, and only slightly less difficult with China and Pakistan. India is already performing a delicate balancing act between the U.S. and Russia on Ukraine and is unlikely to want to complicate it further. 
• In addition, even the near-term futures of Russia, Iran, and the U.S. are very uncertain. Of all the countries with influence in Afghanistan, China — despite its many challenges — is the only reasonably stable country experiencing an apparently untroubled leadership transition. China’s aversion to risk is such, however, that a reporter for Iran’s FARS news agency in Dushanbe compared it to someone who takes a bottle of water out of the refrigerator and then blows on it in case it’s still hot. 
• For the first time in nearly five decades, a national, regional, and global consensus against supporting further armed struggle in Afghanistan provides an opportunity for peace. Unfortunately, neither a preoccupied and wounded U.S., neighbors undergoing their own internal crises, nor a weakened and divided United Nations is likely to exercise the leadership needed to make this opportunity a reality.

Barnett R. Rubin is a distinguished fellow at the China Program of the Stimson Center in Washington, D.C. From 2000 to 2020 he was a senior fellow at New York University’s Center on International Cooperation, where he directed the Afghanistan Pakistan Regional Program, which received grant support from Carnegie Corporation of New York. He has also served as director of the Center for Preventive Action and director of Peace and Conflict Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York; senior adviser to the Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan in the U.S. Department of State from 2009–13; and special advisor to the UN Special Representative of the Secretary General for Afghanistan, during the negotiations that produced the Bonn Agreement in 2001. He subsequently advised the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan on the drafting of the constitution of Afghanistan, the Afghanistan Compact, and the Afghanistan National Development Strategy.  He previously taught at Yale and Columbia Universities. 

The views, conclusions, and interpretations expressed by the author are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Carnegie Corporation of New York, or those of the Corporation’s staff, officers, trustees, partner organizations, or grantees. 

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The U.S. Withdrawal from   Afghanistan

To view the document outlining the key decisions and challenges surrounding the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, visit: https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/US-Withdrawal-from-Afghanistan.pdf

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What went wrong in Afghanistan? Policy expert examines U.S. missteps

Harris scholar discusses how phases of withdrawal led to ‘cascades of surrender’.

Nearly two years ago, the Washington Post published the Afghanistan Papers , sensitive materials revealing how Afghan forces were unable to hold back the Taliban.

Those government documents revealed the deep problems in the war in Afghanistan—from bureaucratic corruption to poorly trained soldiers. They also validated research being conducted by University of Chicago scholar Austin Wright, which examined declassified military records .

“The data showed that even though Taliban violence was reduced, they were still present and had freedom of movement,” said Wright, an assistant professor at the Harris School of Public Policy. “They weren’t being beaten; they had chosen to withdraw.” 

The results of that research, Wright said, suggested that U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan would almost certainly be messy and violent. What he didn’t anticipate was just how quickly the Afghan government would collapse after U.S. troops departed—surrendering to the Taliban in a matter of days.

An expert on the political economy of insurgent violence, Wright said the Taliban’s rapid takeover of traces back to prior missteps by the U.S. government. In the following Q&A, he discusses where the U.S. went wrong, and why military involvement in Afghanistan might not be over.

The plan to withdraw from Afghanistan didn’t just occur over the past few months. What unfolded here? 

The overall transition should be considered in three phases. What we've just seen is the third phase, which is the final drawdown. The first phase was the scheduled commitment that the Obama administration made with President Hamid Karzai in 2010, where political and operational military authority would be transitioned from the U.S. to local Afghans. The second phase was the physical withdrawal of U.S. troops down from roughly 140,000 to 10,000. And this year, we saw the third phase.    

I n the first phase, there were significant reductions in Taliban violence—which made it appear that local Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) were actually quite effective. And that was very surprising. Then, during that second phase, our data showed that violence skyrockets, immediately reversing the gains from phase one.

This suggested that the phase one reduction in violence was strategic, and the Taliban were just holding back their fighting capacity until the troops physically withdrew. This was the first sign, evident back in 2017, that there was something very unusual happening. The idea that the war effort was going well, and that we had a strong partner in ANSF—maybe wasn’t an accurate assessment.  

Were you surprised by how chaotic the final withdrawal was? 

The part that was surprising is how quickly the Taliban won the last 25% of the country: the Northern resistance areas and the capital of Kabul. What analysts may have missed was the impact that mass-scale surrender can have at the end of the process. In this instance, it created its own momentum. And in these “cascades of surrender,” there were maybe 65-70% of ANSF soldiers in and around Kabul in the North who see the dominoes falling around them. And then they're suddenly realizing: “Maybe my best option is to just stand down completely. Maybe this government is not viable, and in a few weeks, the government will have absolutely no leverage whatsoever over the Taliban.”

To the extent that the U.S. government could have done better—how should we think about that? Four different administrations have been involved in prosecuting this war. 

This entire process really came to a head under the Trump administration. Trump wanted to meet with the Taliban at Camp David right around this time in 2019, around the time of the anniversary of 9/11. He was focused on the “art of the deal” and he didn't realize how short-sighted his approach was. One of the things that the Taliban requested—which the Trump administration folded on—was that they would not negotiate with the United States if the elected Afghan government was present.

So what does this do? Well, it means that the United States abandoned the democratically-elected government of Afghanistan for the “art of the deal.” Without the active involvement of the Afghan government—and without a sustained commitment to supporting the elected Afghan government—it set the stage for a very messy final withdrawal.

What about Biden? 

So Trump leaves office, and nothing is fully resolved. Biden moves back the line in the sand to the end of August. Biden is in a difficult spot when meeting with Afghan president Ashraf Ghani, because one of the things that Ghani understandably requests is that the United States not begin to evacuate people. Ghani anticipates that if the U.S. begins to evacuate people as the Taliban moves in, there will be this cascade – which is exactly what ends up happening. A cascade of people would overwhelm the airport, overwhelm the borders, because the United States will have signaled that it doesn't believe that the Afghan government can sustain its war effort. There was no easy answer. 

Couldn’t the U.S. have just gotten people out of there quietly?

The Biden administration could have ignored Ghani and said, “We’ll do it in secret. We’ll find a way to start moving people out while avoiding a public scandal, but we need to get this process started.” But that might have triggered the collapse of the Afghan government anyway. A lot of parties bear blame, but it’s important to recall that the failure of this settlement with the Taliban emerged under the terms determined by the Trump administration, which was hunting for a quick win and not thinking about the long game.

But could the Biden administration have better handled the final withdrawal?

The Biden administration has failed the Afghan allies who were deployed on the front lines alongside American soldiers and reconstruction teams. Many people who were engaging in incredibly risky support to the U.S. mission are still waiting to figure out if they're going to be able to exit the country—even though they filed for exit years ago.

This is because of how broken the U.S. system is for transporting people out. By law, the process is only supposed to take nine to 12 months, but the average duration from application to exit is three years. The Biden administration, for example could have used its executive power to mandate the evacuation and providing emergency support, temporarily streaming the process for relocating Afghans. Another piece of leverage the administration could have used more effectively was the holdings of the Afghan Central Bank, or reconsidered the shutdown of Bagram Air Base.

What should we expect going forward?

I’m not sure that saying the war is over is entirely accurate. This is just the new phase of what's going to happen in Afghanistan. As we've seen over the last week or so, the U.S. will probably be involved in Afghanistan in the long run—just in a very different form. The Taliban are not allies to ISIS and have actively fought ISIS. If ISIS did indeed conduct the recent suicide bombing that they claimed credit for, we’ll likely see the U.S. mission change. There will probably be a shift to more remote warfare, with drone strikes and other tactics. That's probably what we're going to see.

What did we learn from all of this?

What we’ve seen is the culmination of both intelligence failures and failures of political will. Just because there's a failure of political will doesn't put all the blame at the feet of the people who provided the intelligence. As a research team, we knew the weaknesses, we anticipated there would be violence, and we anticipated that the final withdrawal would be coupled with complete disruption. It’s strange to see the predictions we made two, three years ago actually play out on the ground—except for the speed of the final collapse. And I think that’s because we didn't fully account for how impactful these cascades of surrenders can be.

The effort to study the withdrawal rigorously will have value, both for the future of Afghanistan and for how we should think about other conflicts. Just because the war is lost doesn't mean the effort that went into evaluating the conflict was all for naught.

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Exclusive: State Department officials told House investigators they created Afghanistan withdrawal plans from scratch

H ours of closed-door testimony from three top State Department officials shed new light on the “unprecedented” situation in the final days of the US presence in Afghanistan as the officials were rushed to the country with virtually no time to prepare and no established emergency evacuation plan in place when they arrived.

The three officials, John Bass, Jim DeHart and Jayne Howell, were all plucked from unrelated assignments and rushed into Afghanistan in the hours after Kabul fell to the Taliban due to their extensive experience in Afghanistan.

The transcripts of their interviews with the House Foreign Affairs Committee, obtained exclusively by CNN, are the latest tranche of more than a dozen interviews conducted by the committee as a key part of Republican Chairman Michael McCaul’s ongoing investigation into the 2021 evacuation that involved the deaths of 13 US service members.

McCaul is planning to put out a report later this year that includes overall takeaways from the interviews, as well as State Department notes the House Foreign Affairs Committee has received from the agency’s own review of the withdrawal. Biden administration officials expect that the report will be timed with a political motive: to bring the Afghanistan withdrawal back to the fore during the heat of the presidential election.

The new details paint a picture of the chaos outside the Kabul airport and the ad-hoc nature of the evacuation, something that top US military generals suggested could have been mitigated if the State Department had called sooner for a “noncombatant evacuation operation” – known as a NEO – for remaining US citizens in Afghanistan.

“It is my assessment that that decision came too late,” Gen. Mark Milley, the now-retired Joint Chiefs chairman, said at the House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing last month. The State Department has continued to publicly defend its decision making around the NEO as well as the ending of the war.

A State Department spokesperson, asked about the interviews, said that “each of the current and former Department officials interviewed by the Committee worked alongside thousands of other personnel from the Department and the military to evacuate nearly 124,000 U.S. citizens, Afghan allies, and international partners, a massive and extremely challenging military, diplomatic, and humanitarian undertaking conducted under extraordinary circumstances.”

“It was the right decision to end the 20-year war in Afghanistan, the longest war in American history, and bring our troops home,” the State Department spokesperson told CNN Wednesday. “That decision has allowed the U.S. to better address the foreign policy challenges of the present and future, including the ongoing conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East.”

No working evacuation plan in place

All three of the officials rushed to Kabul in the days surrounding the Taliban’s seizure of the capital city, and dove into creating systems on the fly alongside the US military and with constantly-changing input on the ground and coming from DC.

Though officials who had worked at the embassy leading up to the evacuation told the committee investigators in separate interviews that planning for a NEO began in April or May, the officials who arrived in August said that no such clearly articulated plan served as their guide.

“I cannot emphasize enough to you that minute to minute, what was happening was changing,” Howell said in her July 2023 interview.

Every single US embassy around the world is required to have a NEO that can be used in the case of emergency evacuation situations, but the officials explained that the dangerous and over-crowded Kabul airport environment would have rendered any preformed plans ineffective and instead forced them to constantly adapt.

DeHart said they had to “create from scratch tactical operations that would get our priority people into the airport.” He added: “we were roughly as effective as we could be under the circumstances.”

Bass, who served as the top State Department coordinator on the evacuation efforts on the ground, echoed those sentiments.

“We were already in the midst of executing an evacuation that substantially exceeded I think the scope and scale of what had been contemplated,” explained Bass.

There was no time for them to prepare before landing in Afghanistan. Bass was serving at the Foreign Service Institute when he said he was asked to take up the role by then-Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, and he departed eight to ten hours later. DeHart, who worked as Bass’ deputy, left from his posting as coordinator for arctic affairs in Washington. Howell, who served as senior consular officer on the ground, traveled to Afghanistan directly from her posting in Turkey.

The officials had virtually no briefings ahead of their arrival. Bass said in his January 2024 testimony that “given how fluid the situation was on the ground, I’m not sure that additional preparation time would have yielded a significant benefit.”

But the weighty challenge was overwhelming for the consular officers, who vetted the people seeking to leave on US flights. They faced constantly changing directions in terms of who could be evacuated, and how many people could be evacuated, which led to an air of frustration.

“On a human level, that’s quite frustrating… it was required because of the circumstances,” said DeHart as he discussed the constantly changing guidance that consular officer would receive. In some cases, the new guidance meant that someone they had just turned away could have been let in.

Taliban obstacles

The efforts to get people into the airport compound faced countless setbacks, many of which were caused by the Taliban, which maintained security perimeters throughout the city and violently stopped people from reaching the airport.

“The situation was evolving constantly,” Howell said.

“It was the Taliban. It was what will the Taliban allow? What will they let people move through and how will they do it?” she said.

Howell noted that “it was very rare that all the gates (into the airport) were open” because there was so much chaos and violence as people desperately tried to get into the airport. The military would close them when they were deemed unsafe to operate at, Howell explained.

Howell described Abbey Gate, the site of the deadly ISIS-K bombing on August 26 that killed 13 American servicemembers, as “always the one with the most violence, the most issues with the Taliban, the most issues with crowd control.”

Because of the danger and chaos around the big gates into the airport, US officials tried to find other ways to get Americans and vulnerable Afghans in. Those efforts also were met with challenges from the Taliban.

Howell spoke of one incident where she had been briefed that the Taliban agreed to “admit Americans in a controlled fashion” into a passenger terminal, only for them to do nothing “they had agreed to do, and tens of thousands of people overran the passenger terminal.”

Howell said that after having worked on Afghanistan for 19 years it was “a little bit wild to tell people that you can trust the Taliban,” but explained that it was a necessity given the circumstances.

State Department criticism from Pentagon

On the whole, accusations about who was responsible for the chaotic final weeks have fallen largely along party lines, with Republicans pointing fingers at the Biden administration and Democrats casting blame on the Trump administration for the deal that set the US withdrawal into motion.

And when focusing on the withdrawal itself, the handling of the evacuation operation has been one of the areas where the administration, and specifically the State Department, has received the most criticism, as some Americans and thousands of Afghans who had served alongside US forces were left behind.

Milley and retired Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, who were in charge of the US military during the withdrawal, blamed the State Department for not ordering a NEO sooner.

McKenzie, the former commander of US Central Command, said that “the events of mid- and late August 2021 were the direct result of delaying the initiation of the NEO (evacuation) for several months, in fact, until we were in extremis, and the Taliban had overrun the country.”

State Department deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel said in response to the testimony that “the embassy maintained an active emergency action committee planning process that convened repeatedly in 2021 to assess the situation on the ground.”

“It’s also well documented that the US did not want to publicly announce planning for or the start of a NEO so as to not weaken the position of the then-Afghan government, potentially signaling a potential lack of faith,” he said at a press briefing last month.

The State Department officials did not weigh in on whether calling a NEO sooner would have had a substantial impact, as this would have preceded their arrival in Afghanistan. They told congressional investigators they were unsure if additional planning would have mitigated the dynamic challenges they faced.

Although the State Department has faced sharp criticism from the Defense Department – most recently in a congressional hearing with retired Gens. Mark Milley and Kenneth McKenzie – the transcripts suggest there were few of those divisions at play on the ground. Instead, officials spoke to an immense level of coordination within the Kabul airport to try get as many Americans and Afghan allies out of the country before time ran out.

Coordination with the military

And on the ground, as they grappled with the frenzied and fluid situation, State Department officials and service members at Hamid Karzai International Airport were regularly coordinating.

In his January interview, Bass said that “on a daily, sometimes hourly, basis in terms of the operational coordination of aspects of the NEO, I was engaging the senior military commanders regularly.”

DeHart said that he “didn’t find the chain of command to be unclear at any time.” Instead, he found that the emergency environment stripped away the typical bureaucratic constraints and allowed personnel on the ground to respond quickly to the constantly evolving challenges.

Howell described her experience coordinating with the military as “absolute lockstep,” noting that such levels of coordination were “unprecedented in (her) career.”

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America Was Unprepared to Withdraw from Afghanistan

Husain Haqqani appears on the John Batchelor Show to discuss how the United States was not prepared to evacuate Afghanistan.

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Sensible Ways to Fight Terrorism

More from our inbox:, the quake, as felt in manhattan, r.f.k. jr.’s claim of ‘censorship’, obstacles to liberalism, prioritizing and valuing care jobs.

To the Editor:

Re “ The West Still Hasn’t Figured Out How to Beat ISIS ,” by Christopher P. Costa and Colin P. Clarke (Opinion guest essay, April 1):

Two clear lessons have emerged in the decade since ISIS exploded on the world scene. First, as the authors note, pulling all U.S. troops and intelligence assets from fragile conflict zones is a boon to globalized terror movements. Despite political promises, the full U.S. withdrawal from Iraq in 2011 and Afghanistan in 2021 did not “end” those wars; it transformed them into more complex and potentially more deadly challenges.

Second, we must reckon with the underlying grievances that make violent anti-Western ideologies, including militant jihadism, attractive to so many in the first place. These include the ill effects of globalization, and a “rules-based” world order increasingly insensitive to the needs of developing countries and regions.

Simply maintaining a military or intelligence presence in terror hot spots does nothing to reduce the sticky recruiting power of militant movements. Unless the United States and its allies and partners begin offering tangible policies that counter jihadi ideology and propaganda, we will just continue attacking the symptoms, not the causes.

Stuart Gottlieb New York The writer teaches American foreign policy and international security at Columbia University.

The Islamic State’s territorial caliphate in Iraq and Syria may have been eliminated years ago, but as Christopher P. Costa and Colin P. Clarke write, the terrorist group itself is very much in business. ISIS-K, its branch in Afghanistan, has conducted two large-scale external attacks over the last two months — one in Iran that killed more than 80 people and another near Moscow that took the lives of more than 130.

If the United States and its allies haven’t found a way to defeat ISIS-K in its entirety, it’s because terrorism itself is an enemy that can’t be defeated in the traditional sense of the term. This is why the war on terror framework, initiated under the George W. Bush administration immediately after the 9/11 attacks, was such poor terminology. Terrorism is going to be with us for as long as humanity exists.

Viewed this way, terrorism is a conflict management problem, not one that can be solved. While this may sound defeatist to many, it’s also the coldhearted truth. Assuming otherwise risks enacting policies, like invading whole countries (Iraq and Afghanistan), that are likely to create even more anti-U.S. terrorism than we started with.

Of course, all countries should remain vigilant. Terrorism will continue to be a part of the threat environment. The U.S. intelligence community must ensure that its counterterrorism infrastructure is well resourced and continues to focus on areas, like Afghanistan, where the U.S. no longer has a troop presence. But for the U.S., a big part of the solution is keeping our ambitions realistic and prioritizing among terrorist threats lest the system gets overloaded or pulled in too many directions at once.

While all terrorism is tragic, not all terrorist groups are created equal. Local and even regional groups with local objectives aren’t as important to the U.S. as groups that have transnational aims and the capabilities to strike U.S. targets. This, combined with keeping a cool head instead of trafficking in threat inflation, is key to a successful response.

Daniel R. DePetris New Rochelle, N.Y. The writer is a fellow at Defense Priorities, a foreign policy think tank in Washington.

Re “ Earthquake Rattles Northeast, but Little Damage Is Reported ” (live updates, nytimes.com, April 5):

I’m lying in bed Friday morning, on 14th Street in Manhattan. Suddenly I feel and see the bed start to shake!

My first thought — OMG, I’m in “The Exorcist.” Then an alert on my phone tells me that it’s an earthquake in New York City.

Frankly, I’m not sure which one scared me more.

Steven Doloff New York

Re “ Kennedy Calls Biden Bigger Threat to Democracy Than Trump ” (news article, April 3):

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s concern about the Biden administration’s “censorship” of misinformation might be viewed as legitimate if the American public demonstrated more responsibility about fact-checking what they see and hear on social media and other information platforms masquerading as legitimate sources of news.

Sadly, many in this country, and indeed the world, have abdicated responsibility for being factually informed about current events. As long as bad actors have unfettered access to social media platforms, it will be necessary to “censor” the misinformation they claim as fact. The world has become the proverbial crowded theater where one cannot yell “fire.”

Helen Ogden Pacific Grove, Calif.

Re “ The Great Struggle for Liberalism ,” by David Brooks (column, March 29):

In face of growing populism at home and abroad, Mr. Brooks issues a cri de coeur on behalf of liberal democracy and democratic capitalism, which provide the means to a “richer, fuller and more dynamic life.”

His impassioned plea for “we the people” of these United States to experience a sense of common purpose, to build a society in which culture is celebrated and families thrive, is made despite existential challenges to American liberalism:

1) We do not share an overarching belief in who we are as a people, as a nation.

2) Trust in our three branches of government, in checks and balances, is broken amid warring partisanship.

3) There is, for many, as Mr. Brooks notes, an “absence of meaning, belonging and recognition” that drives a tilt to authoritarianism in search of the restoration of “cultural, moral and civic stability” by any means necessary.

The ballot box in a free and open society allows for choice, and there are those who, in exercising their right to vote, would choose to cancel the aspirational hopes of the preamble to our Constitution.

David Brooks sees the full measure of the choices facing America and the world in 2024. Do we?

Michael Katz Washington

Re “ New Ways to Bring Wealth to Nations ,” by Patricia Cohen (news analysis, Business, April 4):

Ms. Cohen is right to argue that the service sector will be the key to economic growth in the future. However, it’s essential to consider what service jobs are — and who will be doing them.

Of course, the service industry includes office workers in tech hubs like Bengaluru, as highlighted by Ms. Cohen. Currently, these jobs are held predominantly by men, so to spur inclusive growth, employers and governments must make sure women have equal access.

But the service sector also includes hundreds of millions of people — mostly women — who are teachers and who care for children, older people and those with disabilities and illnesses. To seize the opportunity ahead, governments must position care jobs as careers of the future for women and men, alongside tech jobs. This requires making sure these positions provide good pay and working conditions.

If the goal is sustainable growth, the best approach leverages the critical care sector to generate income in the short run and prepare healthy, well-educated young people, which maintains progress in the long run.

Anita Zaidi Seattle The writer is president of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Gender Equality Division.

Read our research on: Gun Policy | International Conflict | Election 2024

Regions & Countries

Younger americans stand out in their views of the israel-hamas war.

Americans’ views about the Israel-Hamas war differ widely by age, as do their perceptions about discrimination against Jewish, Muslim and Arab people in the United States . Younger Americans, in particular, stand out on these issues.

Here’s a closer look at age differences in Americans’ opinions about the war, based on a Pew Research Center survey conducted in February among 12,693 U.S. adults.

Pew Research Center conducted this survey to explore age differences in views of the Israel-Hamas war. We surveyed a total of 12,693 U.S. adults from Feb. 13 to 25, 2024. Most of the respondents (10,642) are members of Pew Research Center’s American Trends Panel, an online survey panel recruited through national random sampling of residential addresses, which gives nearly all U.S. adults a chance of selection.

The remaining 2,051 respondents are members of three other survey panels – Ipsos’ KnowledgePanel, SSRS’s Opinion Panel, and NORC at the University of Chicago’s AmeriSpeak Panel – who were interviewed because they identify as Jewish or Muslim.

We “oversampled” (i.e., interviewed a disproportionately large number of) Jews and Muslims to provide more reliable estimates of their views on the topics covered in this survey. But these groups are not overrepresented in the national estimates reported here, because we adjusted for the oversampling in the weighting of the data. The survey is weighted to be representative of the U.S. adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, partisan affiliation, education, religious affiliation and other categories. In total, 1,941 Jewish and 414 Muslim respondents participated in this survey.

While the sample design was identical for Jews and Muslims, the resulting sample sizes are different. There are two main reasons for this. The Jewish population in the United States is roughly double the size of the Muslim population . Consequently, national survey panels have roughly twice as many or more Jewish panelists as Muslim ones. In addition, decades of research on survey nonresponse has shown that some groups in the U.S. are more likely to participate in surveys than others. Generally speaking, Jewish adults are more likely to participate in surveys than Muslim adults.

Sample size limitations also prevent us from looking at age differences within the U.S. Muslim population, though we are able to look at age differences within the U.S. Jewish population.

The survey also included questions about where people were born and whether people identify as Arab or of Arab origin. Because of insufficient sample size, we are unable to analyze Arab Americans or Americans of Israeli or Palestinian descent separately.

In this survey, Jews and Muslims are defined as U.S. adults who answer a question about their current religion by saying they are Jewish or Muslim, respectively. Unlike our 2020 report on Jews in America , this report does not separately analyze the views of “Jews of no religion” (i.e., people who identify as Jewish culturally, ethnically or by family background but not by religion).

For more information on how we conducted this survey, refer to the  ATP’s Methodology  and the  Methodology  for this analysis. Here are the questions on views and knowledge of the Israel-Hamas war  used in this analysis, and on  perceptions of discrimination since the war began .

Younger Americans are more likely to sympathize with the Palestinian people than the Israeli people. A third of adults under 30 say their sympathies lie either entirely or mostly with the Palestinian people, while 14% say their sympathies lie entirely or mostly with the Israeli people. The rest say their sympathies lie equally with both, with neither or that they are not sure.

Older Americans, by comparison, are more likely to sympathize with Israelis than Palestinians. For example, among people ages 65 and older, 47% say their sympathies lie entirely or mostly with the Israeli people, while far fewer (9%) sympathize entirely or mostly with the Palestinians.

Among those under 30, however, there are wide partisan differences in views on this question and others. Republicans and Republican-leaning independents under 30 sympathize more with the Israelis than the Palestinians (28% vs. 12%). Democrats and Democratic leaners sympathize far more with the Palestinians than the Israelis (47% vs. 7%).

Younger Americans have a more favorable opinion of the Palestinian people than the Israeli people. Six-in-ten adults under age 30 have a positive view of the Palestinian people, compared with 46% who see the Israeli people positively.

Older Americans, by contrast, are more likely to have a favorable opinion of the Israeli than Palestinian people.

Views of the Israeli people have soured among younger Americans in recent years. The share of adults under 30 with a favorable view of the Israeli people has fallen 17 percentage points since 2019, while views of the Palestinian people have not changed over this span. Older Americans’ views of both Israelis and Palestinians have remained largely unchanged.

Americans differ by age over why and how Israel is fighting Hamas. Adults under 30 are less likely than older Americans to say that Israel’s reasons for fighting Hamas are valid: 38% say this, compared with around half or more in each older age group.

Younger adults are also less likely than older people to see Israel’s response to Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack as acceptable – and more likely to see it as unacceptable. Some 46% of adults under 30 say the way Israel is carrying out its response is unacceptable, including 32% who call it completely unacceptable. Among older age groups, no more than around a third see Israel’s response as unacceptable.

Favorability of the Israeli government is also relatively low among the youngest U.S. adults. Around a quarter (24%) of Americans under 30 have a favorable view of the Israeli government, compared with half or more of those 50 and older.  

There are notable age differences even among Jewish Americans: Younger Jews are more critical than older Jews of Israel’s approach to the war and have a less favorable view of Israel’s government.

Americans also differ by age over why and how Hamas is fighting Israel. Among younger Americans, 34% say Hamas’ reasons for fighting Israel are valid, while 30% say they are not valid and 35% are unsure. Older Americans are less likely to see Hamas’ reasons for fighting as valid – and far more likely to see them as not valid. Nearly two-thirds (64%) of Americans 65 and older, for example, say Hamas’ reasons are not valid.

When it comes to how Hamas carried out its attack on Israel on Oct. 7, a majority of younger Americans (58%) say it was unacceptable. But this view is more widespread among older Americans. For instance, 86% of people 65 and older say the way Hamas carried out its attack was unacceptable.

Few younger Americans think President Joe Biden is striking the right balance in the Israel-Hamas war. Only 12% of adults under 30 say this, while 36% say Biden is favoring the Israelis too much – up from 27% in December 2023 – and 10% say he is favoring the Palestinians too much.

Older Americans are somewhat more likely to say Biden is either striking the right balance or favoring the Palestinians too much.

Younger Americans are generally less supportive of a U.S. role in the conflict – and especially opposed to military aid to Israel. Only 16% of adults under 30 favor the U.S. providing military aid to Israel to help in its war against Hamas, compared with 56% of those 65 and older.

When it comes to humanitarian aid to Gaza, Americans under 30 are somewhat less likely than those 65 and older to favor it. (Much of this difference is because more younger Americans say they are unsure.)

Taken together, 46% of U.S. adults under 30 do not endorse either kind of aid asked about in our survey. This is more than twice the share among those 65 and older (21%).

In addition, adults under 30 are about twice as likely to say the U.S. should play no role in diplomatically resolving the Israel-Hamas war as they are to say the U.S. should play a major one (29% vs. 13%), though a third support a minor role. Older Americans, meanwhile, are more likely to support a major U.S. role.

Americans differ by age in their personal experiences related to the war. Adults under 30 are the most likely age group to say they have stopped talking to someone in person or unfollowed or blocked someone online because of something that person said about the Israel-Hamas war (16% say this).

Younger adults are also particularly likely to have been offended by something someone said around them about the war (24% say this). More younger Democrats than younger Republicans report experiencing this (27% vs. 20%).

Older adults, for their part, are more likely to report having been offended by something they saw on the news or social media about the war. They are also much more likely to be closely following news about the war.

Younger Americans are less likely than older people to see increased discrimination against Jews since the start of the war, but they are more likely to see increased discrimination against Muslims and Arabs.

About half (47%) of adults under 30 say discrimination against Jews in the U.S. has increased since the war began. By comparison, 73% of adults 65 and older say the same.

But while 47% of adults under 30 also say discrimination against Arabs in the U.S. has increased since the beginning of the war, this view is less common among those 65 and older (38%).

Attitudes about discrimination have also changed over time. Today, 31% of adults under 30 say Jews are facing a lot of discrimination in American society – up from 20% who said the same in 2021. Over this same period, though, the share of Americans 65 and older who say Jews face a lot of discrimination has more than doubled to 50%, up from 21%. This now-sizable age gap in views of discrimination against Jewish people was not present in 2021.

There are some age differences in Americans’ views of what kinds of speech should be allowed when it comes to the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians . Across age groups, majorities say people in the U.S. should be allowed to express support for and opposition to Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, as well as Palestinians having their own state. Majorities across age groups also say that calls for violence against Jews or Muslims should not be allowed.

While most adults under 50 do not think people in the U.S. should be allowed to express calls for violence against Jews or Muslims, they are still somewhat more likely than those 50 and older to think such violent expressions should be allowed.

And among those under 30, there are some significant differences by party. In particular, around one-in-five young Republicans think calls for violence against Jews and Muslims should be allowed, while only around one-in-ten young Democrats take that position.

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U.S. veterans have mixed views of Afghanistan withdrawal but are highly critical of how Biden handled it

Two decades later, the enduring legacy of 9/11, majority of u.s. public favors afghanistan troop withdrawal; biden criticized for his handling of situation, after 17 years of war in afghanistan, more say u.s. has failed than succeeded in achieving its goals, the iraq war continues to divide the u.s. public, 15 years after it began, most popular.

About Pew Research Center Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research. Pew Research Center does not take policy positions. It is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts .