The Taliban’s seizure of control over Afghanistan will loom large over Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s visit with U.S. President Joe Biden next Thursday, and its implications are dire.
As Taliban forces seized control of one Afghan province after another, and everyone who was paying attention recognized that the capital Kabul would soon follow, Biden went on a two-week vacation.
Biden spoke with undisguised irritation. Biden blamed his predecessor Donald Trump for sigining a deal with the Taliban to remove the residual U.S. forces from the country. He blamed the Afghan military and government which collapsed after the U.S. retreat. And he blamed U.S. intelligence agencies, which he said had not anticipated the Taliban’s swift takeover of the country.
And he praised himself for having the gumption to remove U.S. forces from the country.
Biden’s accusation that the Trump administration is responsible for the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan is wrong on several counts. As former president Donald Trump and his secretary of state Mike Pompeo explained on Sunday and Monday, the agreement Trump reached with the Taliban was conditions based. Since the Taliban breached the conditions, there is little reason to believe that Trump would have implemented the troop pullout.
Moreover, Trump intended to evacuate civilians – both U.S. citizens and Afghan nationals who worked with the Americans along with their families — before pulling out U.S. military forces.