After 20 years, I’ve learned the hard way that there was never a good time to withdraw U.S. There was only the cold reality of either following through on the agreement to withdraw our forces or escalating the conflict and sending thousands more American troops back into combat in Afghanistan, lurching into the third decade of conflict. There was no status quo of stability without American casualties after May 1. There was no agreement protecting our forces after May 1. There would have been no ceasefire after May 1. The choice I had to make, as your President, was either to follow through on that agreement or be prepared to go back to fighting the Taliban in the middle of the spring fighting season. forces had already drawn down during the Trump administration from roughly 15,500 American forces to 2,500 troops in country, and the Taliban was at its strongest militarily since 2001. forces would be out of Afghanistan by just a little over three months after I took office. When I came into office, I inherited a deal that President Trump negotiated with the Taliban. We’ve developed counterterrorism over-the-horizon capability that will allow us to keep our eyes firmly fixed on any direct threats to the United States in the region and to act quickly and decisively if needed. If necessary, we will do the same in Afghanistan. We conduct effective counterterrorism missions against terrorist groups in multiple countries where we don’t have a permanent military presence. These threats warrant our attention and our resources. Today, the terrorist threat has metastasized well beyond Afghanistan: al Shabaab in Somalia, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, al-Nusra in Syria, ISIS attempting to create a caliphate in Syria and Iraq and establishing affiliates in multiple countries in Africa and Asia. That’s why I opposed the surge when it was proposed in 2009 when I was Vice President.Īnd that’s why, as President, I am adamant that we focus on the threats we face today in 2021 - not yesterday’s threats. I’ve argued for many years that our mission should be narrowly focused on counterterrorism - not counterinsurgency or nation building. Our only vital national interest in Afghanistan remains today what it has always been: preventing a terrorist attack on American homeland. It was never supposed to be creating a unified, centralized democracy. Our mission in Afghanistan was never supposed to have been nation building.

We never gave up the hunt for Osama bin Laden, and we got him. We severely degraded al Qaeda in Afghanistan. We went to Afghanistan almost 20 years ago with clear goals: get those who attacked us on September 11th, 2001, and make sure al Qaeda could not use Afghanistan as a base from which to attack us again. I’ll speak more in a moment about the specific steps we’re taking, but I want to remind everyone how we got here and what America’s interests are in Afghanistan.

My national security team and I have been closely monitoring the situation on the ground in Afghanistan and moving quickly to execute the plans we had put in place to respond to every constituency, including - and contingency - including the rapid collapse we’re seeing now. I want to speak today to the unfolding situation in Afghanistan: the developments that have taken place in the last week and the steps we’re taking to address the rapidly evolving events. Get Involved Show submenu for “Get Involved””.The White House Show submenu for “The White House””.Office of the United States Trade Representative.

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I hate people who say keep it a buck