The top U.S. general for the Middle East told Congress that Afghanistan’s military “will certainly collapse” without some continued American support once all U.S. troops are withdrawn, the AP reports.
Gen. Frank McKenzie also said he was very concerned about the Afghan government’s ability to protect the U.S. Embassy in Kabul.
New York Times: “There is little to show for it. The Taliban control much of the country. Afghanistan remains one of the world’s largest sources of refugees and migrants. More than 2,400 American soldiers and more than 38,000 Afghan civilians have died.”
“Still, life has improved, particularly in the country’s cities, where opportunities for education have grown. Many more girls are now in school. And democratic institutions have been built — although they are shaky at best.”
“The Pentagon recently began drawing up plans for an abrupt withdrawal of all U.S. troops from Afghanistan in case President Donald Trump surprises military leaders by ordering an immediate drawdown as he did in Syria,” NBC News reports.
“The contingency planning is ongoing, officials said, and includes the possibility that Trump orders all U.S. troops out of Afghanistan within weeks. Officials cautioned, however, that the planning is a precaution and there is currently no directive from the White House to pull U.S. troops out of Afghanistan.”
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President Trump said that the United States could end the nearly 19-year war in Afghanistan “very quickly” if he chose to do so but that it would involve killing “tens of millions” of people, the Washington Post reports.
Said Trump: “We’ve been very effective in Afghanistan, and if we wanted to do a certain method of war, we would win that very quickly, but many, many, really, tens of millions of people would be killed, and we think it’s unnecessary.”
“President Trump has told his advisers that he wants to pull all U.S. troops out of Afghanistan by the November 2020 presidential election,” NBC News reports.
“The president’s advisers are now scrambling to meet his election-year deadline, which has exacerbated tensions between officials at the Pentagon and the State Department over the timing of withdrawal and whether it should be completed.”
“The Trump administration is preparing to withdraw thousands of troops from Afghanistan in exchange for concessions from the Taliban, including a cease-fire and a renunciation of al-Qaeda, as part of an initial deal to end the nearly 18-year-old war,” the Washington Post reports.
President Trump touted a secret plan to win the war in Afghanistan “in a week” at a tremendous cost to life, but insisted he would rather work with regional partners to “extricate” U.S. troops and bring to a close the nearly two-decade-long military conflict, Politico reports.
Said Trump: “If we wanted to fight a war in Afghanistan and win it, I could win that war in a week. I just don’t want to kill 10 million people.”
He added: “I have plans on Afghanistan that if I wanted to win that war, Afghanistan would be wiped off the face of the Earth. It would be gone. It would be over in — literally in ten days. And I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to go that route.”
“All American troops would withdraw from Afghanistan over the next three to five years under a new Pentagon plan being offered in peace negotiations that could lead to a government in Kabul that shares power with the Taliban,” the New York Times reports.
“The rest of the international force in Afghanistan would leave at the same time, after having mixed success in stabilizing the country since 2001. The plan is being discussed with European allies and was devised, in part, to appeal to President Trump, who has long expressed skepticism of enduring American roles in wars overseas.”
“The vast majority of Republican senators voted to support a measure declaring that the Islamic State and al-Qaeda remain serious threats in Syria and Afghanistan — directly contradicting the president’s assessment and his justification for seeking to withdraw U.S. troops from both countries,” the Washington Post reports.
“Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Trump supporter who seldom openly crosses the president, drafted the amendment to a larger Middle East policy bill.”
“American and Taliban officials have agreed in principle to the framework of a deal in which the insurgents would guarantee to prevent Afghan territory from being used by terrorists, and that could lead to a full pullout of American troops in return for larger concessions from the Taliban,” the New York Times reports.
“A day after President Trump canceled military flights for a planned congressional trip to Afghanistan, Speaker Nancy Pelosi abandoned her plans to travel instead on commercial flights due to security concerns,” the Washington Post reports.
Said Pelsoi spokesman Drew Hammill: “After President Trump revoked the use of military aircraft to travel to Afghanistan, the delegation was prepared to fly commercially to proceed with this vital trip to meet with our commanders and troops on the front lines.”
However, he added that a new State Department threat assessment indicated “that the President announcing this sensitive travel had significantly increased the danger to the delegation and to the troops, security, and other officials supporting the trip. . . . This morning, we learned that the Administration had leaked the commercial travel plans as well.”
The Wall Street Journal editorial page slammed President Trump’s comments earlier this week which echoed Russian propaganda when he defended the Soviet Union’s 1979 invasion of Afghanistan: “We cannot recall a more absurd misstatement of history by an American President.”
A White House spokesperson told Bloomberg that President Trump hasn’t ordered the Pentagon to withdraw troops from Afghanistan, “contradicting reports last week that he’s directed the military to pull 7,000 soldiers out of a conflict he’s long criticized.”
“The Trump administration is withdrawing roughly 7,000 troops from Afghanistan in the coming months, two defense officials said Thursday, around half of what the American military has there now,” the New York Times reports.
“The 14,000 American troops currently in Afghanistan are divided between training and advising Afghan forces and a counterterror mission against groups like the Islamic State and Al Qaeda. The reduction, one official said, is in an effort to make Afghan forces more reliant on their own troops and not Western support.”
Stanley McChrystal, the former commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, recently told Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that he did not know what to do in Afghanistan but offered his “best suggestion” was for a small number of troops to remain and “muddle along” in the country,” according to Task and Purpose.
He added: “But that means you’re gonna lose some people, and then it’s fair for Americans to ask, ‘why am I doing this? Why am I putting my sons and daughters in harm’s way?’ And the answer is, there’s a certain cost to doing things in the world, being engaged. That’s not as satisfying. That’s not an applause line kind of answer, but that’s what I think, the only thing I could recommend.”
“The Trump administration is urging American-backed Afghan troops to retreat from sparsely populated areas of the country, officials said, all but ensuring the Taliban will remain in control of vast stretches of the country,” the New York Times reports.
“The approach is outlined in a previously undisclosed part of the war strategy that President Trump announced last year… It is meant to protect military forces from attacks at isolated and vulnerable outposts, and focuses on protecting cities such as Kabul, the capital, and other population centers.”
In trying to secure his vote to confirm Mike Pompeo as Secretary of State, President Trump told Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) that he was prepared to end the war in Afghanistan, the Washington Post reports.
Said Paul: “The president told me over and over again in general we’re getting the hell out of there. I think the president’s instincts and inclination are to resolve the Afghan conflict.”
“The two men discussed no exit dates and did not strike a written agreement… It is unclear just how much Trump’s private conversations signal a public shift in policy or, rather, if they are just maneuvering by a famously transactional leader who often says what he needs to say to make a deal and then reverses himself.”
President Trump’s “skepticism about America’s involvement in Afghanistan was no secret to his staff. But his top national security officials were still taken aback at a meeting in the Situation Room on July 19, when an angry Mr. Trump began ripping apart their latest proposal to send thousands of additional American troops to the country,” the New York Times reports.
Politico: “The plan – which will maintain an unspecified U.S. troop presence without withdrawal timetables and intensify pressure on Pakistan to crack down on terrorist safe havens – was the product of a months-long strategy review in which the president’s national security team talked him out of ending the costly 16-year war.”
Washington Post: “Trump’s private deliberations — detailed in interviews with more than a dozen senior administration officials and outside allies — revealed a president unattached to any particular foreign-policy doctrine, but willing to be persuaded as long as he could be seen as a strong and decisive leader.”
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.
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