Secretary of State Antony Blinken stated he would not make any apologies for ending the conflict in Afghanistan, which left 13 Individuals lifeless and the Taliban in cost, throughout an interview with The New York Occasions forward of the Biden administration’s exit.
“I’m in no way positive that the election turned on anybody or perhaps a assortment of foreign-policy points. Most elections don’t. However leaving that apart: Individuals don’t need us in battle. They don’t need us in conflict. We went by means of 20 years the place we had lots of of 1000’s of Individuals deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. Individuals have been uninterested in that, understandably. Effectively, when President Biden was vice chairman, he presided over the tip of our engagement in Iraq. As president, he ended the longest conflict in our historical past, Afghanistan,” he stated, responding to a query concerning the election.
The New York Occasions spoke to Blinken forward of his exit from the White Home and stated that Individuals have been skeptical of Biden’s overseas coverage early on as a result of chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, which left greater than a dozen American service members lifeless and led to the Taliban retaking management. The interviewer requested how the Afghanistan “failure” broken America’s credibility.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken seems earlier than the Home Overseas Affairs Committee on the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, on the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2024. (AP Photograph/J. Scott Applewhite)
BIDEN WHITE HOUSE ACCEPTS RESPONSIBILITY FOR ‘CHAOS’ IN AFGHANISTAN, SAYS IT IS ‘VIGILANT’ ON TERROR THREAT
“First, I make no apologies for ending America’s longest conflict. This, I feel, is a sign achievement of the president’s. The truth that we won’t have one other technology of Individuals preventing and dying in Afghanistan, that’s an necessary achievement in and of itself,” Blinken responded.Â
The Occasions pushed again, noting that the Taliban has made it a lot more durable for ladies within the nation.Â
The interviewer stated, “In each attainable means, the way during which this was accomplished and the state during which Afghanistan has been left couldn’t have been what the US desired.”
“There was by no means going to be a straightforward method to extricate ourselves from 20 years of conflict. I feel the query was what we have been going to do shifting ahead from the withdrawal. We additionally needed to study classes from Afghanistan itself,” Blinken added.
The Biden administration was hit with pushback after the chaotic withdrawal. Nationwide Safety Adviser Jake Sullivan even reportedly supplied to resign over the choice, based on The Washington Put up’s David Ignatius.
White Home nationwide safety adviser Jake Sullivan speaks through the each day briefing on the White Home in Washington, Monday, Nov. 13, 2023. (AP Photograph/Susan Walsh)
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Sullivan additionally reportedly had issues concerning the exit, however finally stated it might have been difficult it doesn’t matter what they did.
“You can not finish a conflict like Afghanistan, the place you’ve constructed up dependencies and pathologies, with out the tip being advanced and difficult,” Sullivan instructed the Put up columnist. “The selection was: Depart, and it might not be simple, or keep endlessly.”
He added that “leaving Kabul freed the [United States] to take care of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in ways in which may need been unimaginable if we had stayed.”
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Ignatius reported that the Afghanistan withdrawal “broke the early comity” of the Biden administration’s nationwide safety staff, and created a riff between Sullivan and Blinken.Â
