On September 11, 2001, the "September 11" incident destroyed the World Trade Center in New York and changed the historical trend of the United States and the world. In the same year, it launched troops in Afghanistan, the Taliban regime quickly collapsed, and the United States also began a 20-year war on terror in the Middle East.
(This article is the second in a series of articles)
After that, however, U.S. policy in Afghanistan became tangled.
First of all, although the Taliban fell silent for a while after losing power, they made a comeback in 2007, and took advantage of the fact that the Afghan government is weak to carry out military struggles in the countryside and mountains, and, under the mobilization of Islamic fundamentalism, attracted the support of various jihadist organizations , the scale is growing.
Second, the friction between the United States and the Afghan government is gradually increasing. The former believes that it has invested a lot of resources in Afghanistan, but has not seen significant growth in the local economy. Moreover, the Afghan government is corrupt and has done nothing to contain the Taliban.
This phenomenon has aroused public doubts in the United States: Is the function of the US military in Afghanistan to continue fighting and sacrificing, regaining lost ground from the Taliban, and then being lost by the failed Afghan government?
Under this circumstance, "adding troops or withdrawing troops" has become an Afghan problem for successive US presidents after George W. Bush.
When the Joe Biden administration fully withdraws its troops in 2021, it has been criticized by all parties for misestimating the speed of the Taliban's resurgence.
But looking back, whether Barack Obama (also translated as Obama) or Donald Trump (also translated as Trump), both faced the dilemma of advancing and retreating in the face of Afghanistan's problems, and thus repeatedly Delayed withdrawal.
Therefore, rather than saying that Biden screwed up everything, it is better to say that Bush Jr. opened a Pandora’s box. Obama and Trump struggled to stop their losses, and in the end, Biden completely closed it.
Looking back on the first anniversary of the Taliban's second term in power, the context of the past becomes clearer.
Members of the Afghan Taliban mark the first anniversary of the Taliban's occupation of Kabul in front of the U.S. embassy in Kabul on August 15, 2022.
(AP)
Obama: Struggling to strike a balance between the party and the military
First of all, Obama's decision in Afghanistan is more of a balanced response to the positions of the military and his party.
Faced with the expectation of all parties to correct mistakes, the Obama administration has held several meetings of the National Security Council since January 23, 2009. After experiencing a fierce game between the pros and cons, it finally announced on November 23, 2009 that it would increase its troops by 33,000. Announced the timetable for the withdrawal of troops, requiring US troops to gradually withdraw from Afghanistan from July 2011.
Looking closely at the position of the decision-making team at that time, Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff representing the military, and David Petraeus, the commander of the Central Command, were both hard-line "troop boosters", and the two demanded that Obama must An immediate increase of 30,000 troops is required to deal with the Taliban's spring offensive, otherwise the Afghan election may not go smoothly.
Also supporting the troop increase are Secretary of Defense Robert Gates (Robert Gates, also translated as Gates) and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (also translated as Hillary Clinton), but the goals of the two are slightly different from those of the military.
Although Gates agreed to increase the number of troops, he believed that only 5,000 to 7,000 troops were needed, and there was no need to increase the number to 30,000; Hillary Clinton believed that the United States could not give up its anti-terrorism cause in Afghanistan. If the U.S. government is not even willing to increase its troops, Afghanistan will lose the chess game.
However, there are also forces in the Obama team that oppose the increase in troops, that is, Vice President Biden and White House Chief of Staff Emanuel (Rahm Emanuel).
Influenced by his Vietnam War experience at the beginning of his political career, Biden worried that Afghanistan would become the "Vietnam of Central Asia" and that the United States would be in deep trouble, so he suggested to Obama that the United States could not defeat the Taliban. Translated as al-Qaeda or al-Qaeda) is no longer a climate, the United States does not need to station troops in Afghanistan, the military's request for additional troops has no chance of winning, and the "nation-building" of Nianzi in the Bush period is not necessary, because the infrastructure of Afghanistan is not necessary. Poor and weak, and the country's ability to govern is also very low, the United States will only fail to push "nation building"; Emanuel, from the perspective of assisting Obama's re-election, observed the American polls at that time and found that Republican voters supported the increase in troops The number of voters is as high as 70%, and only 49% of Democratic voters, so they oppose the increase in troops.
On December 19, 2012, then-U.S. Vice President Joe Biden listened to then-President Barack Obama at the White House.
(Getty Images)
Returning to the president’s personal position, the difference between Obama and his predecessor, Bush, is that Bush is relatively reliant on the advice of decision-making “mentor groups” because he does not know much about Afghan affairs; Obama has a certain understanding of Afghan affairs, so he A certain degree of personal stance has been formed.
In Obama's view, it is necessary for the United States to continue "nation-building" in Afghanistan, but the goal of military investment should not be to defeat the Taliban, but to curb terrorism, so he did not support the military's proposal to increase troops at first.
However, on September 21, 2009, the "Washington Post" (Washington Post) published an exclusive interview with the then commander-in-chief of the US coalition forces in Afghanistan, Stanley A. McChrystal. McChrystal not only revealed that Obama The government was noncommittal about the increase in troops, and even publicly stated that "if you don't increase troops, you will be defeated."
This is a deliberate information leak by the military, with the purpose of using public opinion pressure to force Obama to agree to an increase in troops, and as far as the result is concerned, the military did get what it wanted.
Under the turbulent public opinion, Obama finally chose to compromise with the military and agreed to the troop increase plan, but at the same time, he also adopted Biden's suggestion: the upper limit of troop increase must be clearly defined, and the timetable for the withdrawal of troops must be determined simultaneously, so there is a 2009 troop increase plan. On November 23, 2008, the policy of first increasing troops and then withdrawing troops was announced.
But even so, the U.S.'s dilemma in Afghanistan continues. The troop increase plan may satisfy the military, but the withdrawal plan has once again angered the military and the Republican Party, and caused some U.S. media to worry. This move will make allies doubt the U.S. strategic capability. with will.
In addition, the newly deployed U.S. troops in Afghanistan cannot effectively curb the activities of the Taliban. On the contrary, after learning that the U.S. is about to withdraw its troops, the latter is more active in recruiting troops and "waiting for the future."
In short, the Obama administration was aware of the plight of the United States in Afghanistan, and hoped to shrink its strategy and adjust its means, but it was ultimately unsuccessful, and the newly invested US military was not enough to achieve any goals, including counter-terrorism.
Taliban fighters are stationed in Kabul, Afghanistan, on September 4, 2021.
(AP)
Trump: The situation is worse
After Trump took office, he faced a more serious dilemma than Obama.
Since 2011, the US military has gradually withdrawn from Afghanistan, and the Taliban has gradually recovered. The security situation in Afghanistan has not improved, and “nation-building” has not seen significant results.
Seeing that the situation was getting worse, Trump acquiesced in increasing the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan from 8,500 to 13,900 when Trump took office in January 2017, but then-Secretary of Defense James Mattis (also translated as Mattis) ) still hopes to obtain the official authorization of the President, so the Trump administration has held several meetings on Afghanistan since March 1, 2017, and officially announced an increase of 4,000 troops on August 18, 2017.
During the decision-making process, the team has basically reached a consensus on the "limited strategic goals" of the United States in Afghanistan, that is, the United States only needs to ensure that Afghanistan is no longer a source of terrorist organizations, and does not need to seek to completely defeat the Taliban.
But even so, the parties are still divided on the troop increase plan.
Among them, Mattis, Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs Herbert McMaster, White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson (also translated as Tillerson), Vice President Mike Pence both backs the troop increase.
McMaster advocated an increase of 3,000 to 5,000 troops, but in line with the overall "gradual withdrawal" position of the United States, he packaged the "R4+S" argument, that is, to strengthen (reinforce) military strength and train, realign (realign) ) resources, coordinate (reconcile) the cooperation between the Afghan government and various factions, regionalize (regionalize) the forces of India and Pakistan, and maintain (sustain) the overall situation in Afghanistan.
On July 22, 2022, former US President Trump's former adviser and former White House chief strategist Bannon met reporters as he left the federal court in the capital Washington.
(AP)
The representative figure who opposed the troop increase was Steve Bannon, the chief strategist and senior adviser to the president, who advocated the use of CIA special forces or the employment of private military contractors to achieve counterterrorism goals, rather than direct troop increases.
For Bannon, who is an anti-establishment faction, it is more from the perspective of the internal affairs of the United States. After all, "opposing the increase in troops" has always been Trump's political philosophy and his campaign promise. In addition, support for the increase in troops is mostly the establishment. Therefore, if he is defeated in the decision-making, Bannon can take advantage of the situation to publicize the failure and incompetence of the establishment.
In the end, it was Bannon's defeat in the game with Mattis and others that prompted Trump to fall to the troop increase faction.
First of all, Bannon continued to lobby CIA Director Mike Pompeo (also translated as Pompeo), hoping that he would emphasize to the president that the CIA is sufficient to replace the military to achieve anti-terrorism, but Pompeo out of personal political future and institutional interests In the end, he did not cooperate with Bannon, but instead told Trump that the withdrawal of troops might lead to new terrorist attacks.
At the same time, Mattis, McMaster and Republican Senator Lindsey Graham also repeatedly stressed to Trump that if no more troops are added, it is entirely possible for the terrorist groups to resurface in Afghanistan to repeat "September 11" At that time, Trump must take full responsibility for the incident; Mattis even told Trump that once the troop withdrawal, it means that the United States has completely conceded defeat in Afghanistan.
Former U.S. Secretary of State and CIA Director Mike Pompeo.
(AP)
The game finally ended with Bannon's resignation and the establishment's consolidation of dominance. After five and a half months of torn apart positions, Trump agreed to the military's position and announced an increase of 4,000 troops, but at the same time stressed that the troops would eventually be withdrawn.
The result of this increase in troops is the same as that of the Obama era. The newly invested US military also cannot save the security situation in Afghanistan, and the Taliban's expansion trend remains the same.
Therefore, at the end of Trump's term, in order to realize his campaign promise of "supporting the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan", he directly bypassed the Afghan government and chose to negotiate with the Taliban.
On February 29, 2020, the Trump administration signed an agreement with the Taliban, announcing that the withdrawal of troops would be completed by May 1, 2021, if "the Taliban fulfilled their commitments."
But in all fairness, even if Trump is re-elected, the political struggle between the establishment and anti-establishment factions may continue. In the context of the continued expansion of the Taliban, whether Trump can still stick to his promise to withdraw troops is uncertain.
But in any case, this 20-year delay in dragging the shed finally ended in the hands of Biden.
[Obama and Trump withdraw troops from Afghanistan Q&A]
Why did Obama announce the timetable for the withdrawal of troops when he announced the increase of troops in Afghanistan?
In order to meet the requirements of the military, and at the same time buffer the lethality of the Afghan predicament on the US internal affairs.
Why did Trump announce a troop increase in 2017 after the gradual withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan?
The military and the establishment said that the "September 11" incident may be repeated, and Trump must be held accountable at that time; Bannon, the anti-establishment faction, also lost the political game and failed to win the support of Pompeo.
Reviewing the mistakes of the US president and his team: Why Bush Jr. decided to invade Afghanistan (1) Will Afghanistan become a terrorist base again after the Taliban has been in power for a year?
Taliban's first anniversary in power, Afghanistan still has a long way to go