chellaney137_Sefa KaracanAnadolu Agency via Getty Images_taliban officials Sefa Karacan/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

Global Terror and the Taliban’s Return

Far from offering America a face-saving exit from a 20-year war, a complete US military withdrawal from Afghanistan will make it an accomplice of the Taliban. And a Taliban-controlled Afghanistan will cause lasting damage to the interests of the United States and its friends.

NEW DELHI – One of the most crucial early tests for US President Joe Biden concerns Afghanistan. An emboldened Taliban have escalated their campaign of assassinations and terrorist attacks since reaching a deal with Donald Trump’s administration that called for power sharing in Kabul and a full US military withdrawal by May 1. Biden’s policy course will not only determine Afghanistan’s fate, but will also affect regional security, the global war on terror, and America’s international standing at a time when its relative decline has become unmistakable.

The United States came full circle in February 2020, when Trump, seeking to cut and run from Afghanistan, signed a “peace” agreement with the same terrorist militia that the US had removed from power by invading the country in the aftermath of the attacks on September 11, 2001. Trump’s Faustian bargain, struck behind the back of the elected Afghan government, bestowed legitimacy on the Taliban. The surge in terrorist violence since then shows how little Afghanistan gained from the US-Taliban deal.

It makes sense for America to exit a long and futile war that has cost more than $800 billion and the lives of 2,218 US service members. (The US and NATO combat role in Afghanistan actually ended before Trump took office, with Afghan government forces assuming full security responsibility on January 1, 2015.) What doesn’t make sense is what Trump’s one-time national security adviser H.R. McMaster called America’s “Munich-like appeasement” of “some of the most horrible people on earth.”

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