Biden (Byedone) in Afghanistan

Not withdrawing would have no political or military benefit for Biden

The writer is a political analyst. Email: imran.jan@gmail.com. Twitter @Imran_Jan

President Biden has a great opportunity to leave Afghanistan. He continuously bashed Trump for not honouring American commitments abroad such as the Iran nuclear deal and the Paris climate agreement. Today, Biden can prove himself to be the opposite of Trump by respecting the American peace deal with the Taliban.

The US congressional bipartisan mandated body, Afghanistan Study Group (ASG), came up with a report with the custom-built conclusion that America must not leave Afghanistan now. Major news outlets are quoting so-called ‘analysts’ and ‘experts’ recommending reconsidering the withdrawal. Two things are quite interesting in that reporting: One, the ‘experts’ and ‘analysts’ should rightly be called fraudsters because of selling manufactured propaganda for a hefty paycheck.

Two, what is being recommended is a breach of an agreement that the US government signed with the Taliban. Had Trump done this, the same lot wouldn’t have wasted a second to say America’s credibility was at stake because American commitments must be honoured by future presidents. Tellingly, one cannot even find the phrase ‘American commitment’ or ‘American credibility’ in mainstream US media punditry regarding the peace deal.

The Taliban have completely spared American forces since the signing of the peace deal. If Biden decides to keep US forces deployed in Afghanistan beyond the May 1 deadline, the Taliban are quickly going to draw their weapons against the Americans.

Given the ASG report and the general desire in Washington DC to delay the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, I have a prediction: Afghanistan is going to come back in major daily US news.

When Afghanistan is in the nightly news everyday where pundits-cum-fraudsters equate a potential withdrawal from Afghanistan with the Obama withdrawal from Iraq causing the rise of ISIS, it would become almost impossible for Biden to withdraw from Afghanistan. President Ashraf Ghani has demonstrated his willingness to shed Afghan blood to keep his job. He knows full well, just like we all do, that Ghani would be history a day after the American exit.

Ghani has used delaying tactics with the Taliban every step of this peace process, which every time resulted in the deaths of innocent Afghan civilians and soldiers because of Taliban violence.

The Taliban have always used their ability to create mayhem as the most effective bargaining chip. By keeping US forces in Afghanistan, Biden, like Ghani, would also show a shameful willingness to shed his fellow citizens’ blood.

While Ghani has some apparent benefit at the cost of his country being occupied and his fellow Afghans’ blood being shed, Biden has no benefit whatsoever. Keeping Afghanistan occupied doesn’t help Biden in his re-election campaign nor in any way to distract the Americans should he fail in tackling the pandemic. Americans hardly think about the war in Afghanistan and the reason why the country was invaded.

Not withdrawing would have no political or military benefit for Biden. Today’s America doesn’t need a president with war credentials but rather one with peace credentials; one that can unify a chronically divided country, deeply addicted to conspiracy theories.

The only good time to end a war is always: now. Exiting occupied countries has never been pretty. America left Vietnam in shame. The Soviet Union left Afghanistan in shame. Biden shouldn’t worry about his legacy because Hollywood would win the war for him, like it did in Vietnam.

Future generations would only know the sanitised version of the Afghanistan withdrawal after watching Hollywood’s movies about this history. The bearded barbaric militia wants peace. The Divider-in-Chief wanted peace. The largest democracy and the Ivy League graduates in DC don’t. What a shame!

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