LogFAQs > #975449081

Thorn posted...

Not to suggest Biden's hands were completely tied here but it was the agreement made by the US government. Just revoking agreements like that because of an administration change leads to a drop in trust internationally that the US will keep to its word - like when Trump stupidly pulled out of the Iran deal despite his own government certifying that Iran was in compliance leading to the entire deal blowing up and things being worse off.

There's a stronger case here for Biden to have reversed the decision because of the fact that Trump excluded the actual Afghan government from the negotiations here but I feel like things were in a place where if Biden didn't actually allow the withdrawal to happen, it basically never would. I'm not even convinced Trump would have followed through on his own deal.

Despite all his talk, he had actually been increasing the number of troops there compared to the end of Obama's term. When he talked of having reduced troops, it was from the highs he made and were still above end of term Obama for the majority of his term. It was only after Trump lost the election that they started making heavy cuts and I'm pretty sure reporting has it specifically because he was making a problem for Biden to deal with in doing it so haphazardly. Biden put a small delay in executing it, probably to try and address that, but I'm fairly certain the collapse of government there was bound to happen however a withdrawal happened. The Taliban ramped up their attacks against the Afghan government basically the minute the deal was signed by Trump (and under his admin obviously.) It didn't simply start under Biden or anything, it was back in Spring/Summer 2020.

Oh yeah, to be clear Trump absolutely deserves the majority of the blame though Biden is still partially culpable. I did think about pointing out that Trumps actions after losing but before Biden became president appeared to be setting a trap for Biden (and getting a lot of Afghans killed in the process) but Trump is so erratic Im not sure what he was thinking.

And yeah glad to see some agreement that not including the government of a country in negotiations that determine the fate of that country is a bad move! The reality is Trump just wanted to say he did it so he gave the Taliban everything. It was bad negotiating in order to just say they reached an agreement.