Former President Donald Trump on Sunday praised withdrawing US troops from Afghanistan, whereas knocking his successor’s timeline for doing so. Though the previous President supplied his assist of President Joe Biden’s plans to deliver dwelling American troops, he urged his successor to attract an finish to America’s longest conflict nicely earlier than the September 11 deadline that Biden set final week. Trump stated that whereas leaving Afghanistan is “a wonderful and positive thing to do,” he had set a May 1 withdrawal deadline and added that “we should keep as close to that schedule as possible.”
“I wish Joe Biden wouldn’t use September 11 as the date to withdraw our troops from Afghanistan, for two reasons. First, we can and should get out earlier. Nineteen years is enough, in fact, far too much and way too long,” Trump stated, including: “September 11 represents a very sad event and period for our Country and should remain a day of reflection and remembrance honoring those great souls we lost.”
Trump is the newest former commander in chief to weigh in on Biden’s plan, with each former Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama having spoken to Biden forward of his announcement final week. Obama praised Biden’s determination to finish the almost 20-year conflict, which has spanned all 4 administrations.
Trump’s assertion earned a pointed rebuke from one in every of his fiercest allies, South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, who tweeted Sunday night: “I could not disagree more with former President Trump regarding his support for President Biden’s withdrawal of all forces from Afghanistan against sound military advice.”
“With all due respect to former President Trump, there is nothing ‘wonderful’ or ‘positive’ about allowing safe havens and sanctuary for terrorists to reemerge in Afghanistan or see Afghanistan be drawn back into another civil war,” Graham, a famous international coverage hawk, added.
Biden stated the withdrawal of American troops will start on May 1, in keeping with the settlement the Trump administration made with the Taliban. Some US troops will stay to guard American diplomats, although officers have declined to supply a exact quantity.
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani informed CNN’s Fareed Zakaria in an unique interview on “GPS” on Sunday that he helps Biden’s determination to tug US troops overseas, saying the transfer “radically changes” the context of the state of affairs within the nation, the area and the Islamic world. He added that his “entire energy” is now targeted on working in that new context.
White House nationwide safety adviser Jake Sullivan insisted earlier Sunday that US goals had been achieved in Afghanistan, although he stopped wanting saying the US “won” the conflict there. Instead, he informed CNN’s Dana Bash on
“State of the Union” that the US should now deal with the battles of the “next 20 years” relatively than the final 20.
“The terrorist threat has changed dramatically over the last 20 years,” he stated, citing the unfold of al Qaeda to Syria, Yemen, Somalia and ISIS in Iraq.
“Against that dispersed and distributed terrorist threat, we need to allocate resources in a way that allows us to protect the homeland against a variety of threats from a variety of countries and continents, not just Afghanistan.”
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