Luke Coffey
US House Foreign Affairs Committee chair Michael McCaul, a Republican, released a scathing report last week blaming Joe Biden for the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021. McCaul’s Democratic counterpart on the committee, Gregory Meeks, dismissed the report as a “partisan narrative.”
It was the latest example of the political blame game over the 20-year US involvement in Afghanistan. And there’s plenty of blame to go around: while the chaotic withdrawal happened on Biden’s watch, the groundwork was laid during the Trump administration.
Trump, during his 2016 campaign, promised to end the so-called “forever wars,” with Afghanistan the prime example. By then the conflict had dragged on for 15 years, but it looked very different from the earlier, bloodier years. US troop levels had peaked at over 100,000 during the height of the fighting in 2010–2012, when hundreds of American soldiers were killed every year and the US was spending about $120 billion a year on the war — $300 million a day, $230,000 every minute.
But by the time Trump took office in 2017, this had evolved significantly. The war he wanted to end was not the one the US was then fighting. Casualties had decreased and troop levels were down to about 18,000, mainly trainers for Afghan security forces and counterterrorism operators. The cost had also dropped to about $18 billion a year. Nevertheless, Trump remained focused on his populist message of ending “forever wars,” which resonated with a significant portion of Americans.
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