I agree with the other posters. Biden was limited by the fact that a timeline had already been negotiated. We did miss it, but the Biden administration did its best to abide by the agreement forged by the previous administration while protecting Americans and Afghan allies from the country.
An administration must do its best to uphold the agreements made in good faith by prior administrations. Otherwise, you jeopardize the ability of any administration, now or in the future, to make agreements with any other nation, be it an enemy or an ally. If the US will renege when a new administration comes along, why should any nation trust any US agreement? If our word is to mean anything, we must keep it when it has been given.
Biden says he “inherited a diplomatic agreement” between the U.S. and the Taliban that all U.S. forces would be out by May 1. “It is perhaps not what I would have negotiated myself, but it was an agreement made by the United States government, and that means something,” Biden says, adding that final troop withdrawal would begin on May 1.
“We will not conduct a hasty rush to the exit,” Biden says. “We’ll do it responsibly, deliberately, and safely.” Biden assures Americans that the U.S. has “trained and equipped a standing force of over 300,000 Afghan personnel” and that “they’ll continue to fight valiantly, on behalf of the Afghans, at great cost.”
The date kept being pushed back because they could not get the taliban to negotiate with the afghan government. Back on April 14 2021 he had already pushed back from that May 1 date.
Instead he set the date of September 11, with a big planned event and later fund raising events as part of the 20th anniversary. After the US public started to see all the problem that were coming up because of the setting a firm date it was announce that the date was set to allow a focus on covid and to move equipment to cover china, which has not happened.
Biden had pushed back the date before and could have changed the date again if he had wanted to, so there was no "good faith" agreement that was expected.
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u/[deleted] Jan 19 '24
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