WASHINGTON — A bipartisan report launched Tuesday prompted the Biden administration to delay a May due date for the withdrawal of U.S. soldiers from Afghanistan, cautioning an early exit would permit terrorist groups to reemerge and damage a rare peace procedure.
A U.S.-Taliban contract checked in Doha in 2015 requires the United States to completely withdraw its staying 2,500-strong force by May. But the report from the Afghanistan Study Group, commissioned by Congress in 2019, suggested an “immediate diplomatic effort to extend the current May 2021 withdrawal date in order to give the peace process sufficient time to produce an acceptable result.”
Although the authors of the report supported efforts by the previous Trump administration that had actually developed a “pathway” for peace, they composed that a “significant revision of U.S. policy” was needed to protect U.S. interests and make sure peace was protected.
The report was released versus the background of an immediate policy evaluation by the Biden administration, which has currently stated it is weighing alternatives on Afghanistan and recommended it might postpone the set up May troop withdrawal.
Although Americans usually concur that it is time to end the war after 20 years, the report stated, “withdrawing U.S. troops irresponsibly would likely lead to a new civil war in Afghanistan, inviting the reconstitution of anti-U.S. terrorist groups that could threaten our homeland and providing them with a narrative of victory against the world’s most powerful country.”
The report stated its suggested method “depends on the U.S. negotiating team making clear to the Taliban that they have not fulfilled the conditions in the Doha agreement under which a U.S. withdrawal can take place.”
Under the U.S.-Taliban or Doha contract, Washington consented to withdraw American soldiers in return for the Taliban consenting to participate in peace talks with their opponents in the Afghan federal government. It likewise needs the Taliban to make sure Afghanistan will not be utilized by Al Qaeda or other terrorist groups to target the United States or its allies, which the revolt will not supply support to the extremists.
“The Study Group believes that further U.S. troop withdrawals should be conditioned on the Taliban’s demonstrated willingness and capacity to contain terrorist groups, on a reduction in the Taliban’s violence against the Afghan people, and on real progress toward a compromise political settlement,” it stated.
The Taliban state they have actually complied with the regards to the contract, which they have actually made great on guarantees to the United States not to target U.S. forces or phase attacks on Afghan cities. Peace talks have actually left to a sluggish start in current months, however Taliban agents have actually threatened to go back to a full-scale war footing and desert the peace procedure if the Americans and other NATO-led forces do not withdraw by May.
The report argued that, provided the six-month hold-up in the start of peace talks that had actually been set up to start in March, the Biden administration “can make the case that there has been insufficient time for these negotiations to create the hoped-for conditions under which international military forces could leave Afghanistan by May, as envisaged in the Doha agreement.”
A troop withdrawal in May “would not only leave America more vulnerable to terrorist threats; it would also have catastrophic effects in Afghanistan and the region that would not be in the interest of any of the key actors, including the Taliban,” the report stated.
The authors of the report likewise stated the United States required to consult its NATO allies and other partners that have soldiers on the ground, stating previous fast U.S. troop decreases had actually happened without proper assessments. An earlier U.S. withdrawal might harm America’s reliability with its European allies, the report stated.
The United States needs to see the objective of its military existence in Afghanistan as not just to counter terrorist dangers such as Al Qaeda and the Islamic State militants however to assist protect an enduring peace settlement in between the Taliban and the Afghan federal government, the report stated.
The February 2020 U.S.-Talban contract and subsequent U.S. troop decreases “clearly demonstrated that the United States is prepared to withdraw from Afghanistan, ” the report stated. “It should not, however, simply hand a victory to the Taliban.”
The report likewise required an evaluation of troop levels in Afghanistan, stating the present U.S. force of 2,500 presented dangers to the force and to the objective.
The 15-member Afghanistan Study Group was led by 3 co-chairs, previous chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and previous U.S. leader in Afghanistan Gen. Joe Dunford; previous Republican senator from New Hampshire Kelly Ayotte; and previous senior U.S. Agency for International Development authorities Nancy Lindborg. The study hall consisted of retired ambassadors and senior figures from both Democratic and Republican administrations, consisting of Susan Gordon, previous primary deputy director of nationwide intelligence, and Mark Green, who functioned as head of USAID under the Trump administration.
Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby informed press reporters he had not check out the report and restated that the administration was carrying out an evaluation of the U.S.-Taliban offer. He included that no choice had actually been handled future U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan.
State Department representative Ned Price stated the administration was evaluating “whether the Taliban are fulfilling their commitments to cut ties with terrorist groups, to reduce violence and to engage in meaningful negotiations with the Afghan government and other stakeholders.”
